While HTC’s new 2014 flagship, the HTC One M8, isn’t out just yet, it looks like the Taiwanese company is already planning additional versions of the phone for those who are looking for a slightly different size or feature set. The HTC One M8 features a rather large 5-inch screen coupled with and even larger chassis than last year’s HTC One, and quite honestly it’s just too big for some people’s comfort. As Android phones continue to grow larger and larger every year, there’s a growing disparity between those looking for a huge Android phone, and those just looking for a great “normal” sized one. The sweet spot for devices seems to be somewhere in the area of a 5-inch display, but HTC’s latest flagship is bigger than many other 5-inch devices on the market because of the Boomsound speakers and that massive HTC logo beneath the screen. Because of this HTC is looking to capitalize on the success they had last year with the HTC One Mini, which was a downgraded smaller version of their flagship HTC One phone, by releasing an HTC One M8 Mini as well.
The One M8 Mini will feature the same 90% aluminum unibody chassis as its bigger brother, but won’t be nearly as large. Featuring a screen that’s nearly the same size as last year’s HTC One, the One M8 Mini will feature a 4.5-inch display of unspecified resolution. We wouldn’t be surprised to see 720p here, but 1080p is always a possibility if HTC is looking to just make a smaller phone instead of a cheaper one. Of course we’re leaning toward the 720p display simply because the camera will be receiving a downgrade of sorts from the One M8 in that it won’t feature the Duo camera. That’s right, if you’re looking at the shot above, which is just a mockup of the One M8 Mini, you’ll notice there’s no second camera above the Ultrapixel main camera used on the One series. The phone is looking to be sold sometime in May, so look for an official announcement pretty soon. After all the One M8 was one of the most leaked phones in history, so we only expect to see the same treatment here.