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HTC has stuffed the HD Mini with just about every connection option you can think of, and it does a pretty good job with all of them.
As already mentioned, the signal strength with this phone is particularly good, and data speeds over the 3G/HSDPA connection are as fast as we've seen anywhere.
Just remember that even though a phone can support HSDPA speeds up to 7.2mbps, it doesn't necessarily follow that your network operator does.
The phone prompts you to create a Wi-Fi connection during initial setup, making the process as simple as possible. Even if you don't set up your Wi-Fi at the beginning, the Wireless Controls are second on the Settings menu, so it's easy to find and a breeze to configure.
Once the HD Mini grabs hold of a Wi-Fi connection, it will hold onto it with all its might, offering a surprisingly expansive range.
You also get Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, so there are plenty of communication and streaming options.
One nice feature is that the HD Mini supports the SIM Access Profile (SAP), which means that if you have an in-car system that also supports SAP, you'll get the best possible hands free performance.
The difference between SAP and the standard Hands-Free Profile is that your in-car system accesses the SIM directly, then uses its own electronics, and antenna, resulting in much improved reception and call quality on the move.
The icing on the connection front though, is the inclusion of the wireless router technology that we first saw in the HTC HD2.
Basically you can configure the HD Mini to be a Wi-Fi hotspot, so that you can connect to it via any Wi-Fi enabled device and share its data connection.
Of course it can also do standard internet tethering over Bluetooth or USB, but the Wi-Fi router option allows more than one device to connect simultaneously.
Like it or not, Apple started a revolution with its App Store, and any mobile OS needs to offer a plethora of downloadable content for its users, even if most of it is totally useless.
Unfortunately the Marketplace on Windows Mobile is woefully inadequate. Not only is there very little on offer, but what is there is simply too expensive.
By comparison, Apple's App Store and Android's Market are stuffed full of free apps, so you can get your downloading fix without paying a penny.
On the flip side, given the long history that Windows Mobile has behind it, the internet is awash with free applications for pretty much every need.
OK, so you can't download and install them through the Marketplace, but it's easy enough to download them to your PC and install them to the HD Mini over USB. In fact, that's exactly what we had to do in order to get the screen grabs you see on these pages.
