Vivid Blue HTC One and One Mini Officially Confirmed for UK Release

HTC's flagship smartphones, the One and One Mini, are officially confirmed to be available in Vivid Blue for select markets including the UK, according to a recent Engadget report. The company's official statement also reveals that the two devices are scheduled for release in the last quarter (Q4) of this year.

Except for the vibrant new blue hue, the handsets will reportedly retain the same design and hardware features that are the hallmark of black and silver variants. Some of the device's noteworthy features include Beats Audio branding, though with the lighter shade of gray, and it will also feature a predominant black bezel around the screen.

The device will continue to flaunt the unibody aluminium casing, which gives it a premium look and feel. HTC's move to introduce a new colour variant is apparently inspired by Apple's decision to introduce different colour variants of its upcoming flagship budget phone, the iPhone 5C.

The flagship HTC One model features the following hardware configuration: full HD 4.7in Super LCD3 display with Gorilla Glass 2 protection, Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor with four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.7 GHz and paired with Adreno 320 GPU. The smartphone also ships 2GB of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal storage. Its connectivity options include support for Wi-Fi, Near Field Communications (NFC), infrared blaster, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0.

On the software front, the handset runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Sense 5.0 UI out of the box. Some key native app features integrated to its user interface include Blink Feed, Zoe, and Zoe share. In addition, the handset supports Android 4.2.2 upgrade.

In comparison, the One Mini comes with scaled down hardware features for budget consumers including a 4.3in Super LCD2 display with HD support, a Snapdragon 400 chipset based Krait 200 dual-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz and paired with Adreno 305 GPU. It ships with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

The One Mini equips four megapixel UltraPixel camera with support for full HD video recording and its connectivity options include LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and microUSB 2.0.

Price and Availability

Though there is no official word about the US release for the Vivid Blue variant of HTC's flagship phones, they are officially confirmed for UK release. The Vivid Blue variant of HTC One will be sold via Carphone Warehouse starting at £33 per month, while its One Mini counterpart will be available on £26 per month contract deal.