HTC One Mini takes aim at Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini this August

Taiwanese firm unveils shrunk-down version of flagship One

HTC has unveiled the a slimmed-down version of its popular One smartphone, the HTC One Mini, hoping to wrestle control of the small smartphone market from Samsung.

HTC unveiled the One Mini in London claiming the shrunk-down phone retains all the core strengths of its larger sibling, featuring the same top-end aluminium design and 4MP, UltraPixel rear camera. UltraPixel was a key technology debuted on the original One and is designed to improve the camera's performance by letting it capture more light and process images faster.

The Mini is confirmed to run using Google's Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system, overlaid with HTC's Sense 5.0 skin. The skin radically changes Android's user interface, replacing the operating system's in-built homescreen with HTC's BlinkFeed service. BlinkFeed is a custom feature designed to collate news articles from popular media sites as well as social media updates from services like Twitter and Facebook into one dynamically updating feed.

Past this the One Mini features slightly lower specifications than the One, boasting a 4.3in 720p display and being powered by a dual-core 1.4GHz that is backed up by 1GB of RAM. The full-sized One by comparison boasts a larger 4.7in 1080x1920 pixel, 469 ppi display and features a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM.

The Mini will also only boast 16GB of non-upgradeable internal storage and won't have NFC support. An HTC spokesman said the company was forced to remove NFC support due to size constraints. The device is designed to target the same space as the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. The S4 Mini is already available in the UK, with prices starting at around £400, SIM-free. The device is similarly a shrunk down, slightly lower-specced version of its larger, flagship sibling.

The One Mini is set to arrive in the UK in August. There is currently no word on price, but a spokesman for HTC told V3 the company expects carriers to offer it on tariffs "two slots below those of the One", meaning it should be a mid-tier device.