We didn’t get an early glimpse of the elusive HTC One Max, but we were shown two new accessories joining HTC’s lineup ahead of IFA 2013 earlier today in central London. The HTC Fetch and HTC Mini+ are both coming to augment the Bluetooth experience that can be had with the latest HTC smartphones in the coming months and we went hands-on.
HTC Fetch
The HTC Fetch is a 3cm2 black plastic cuboid that’s just under a centimetre thick with space for a lanyard and key ring on one corner and a single button on the back. Aside from the embossed HTC logo the body is devoid of any other features, leaving you pretty stumped as to what it’s for. It is in fact a simple Bluetooth-based device, which you can attach to your keys designed to help you find a lost phone.
Pressing the button on the Fetch will cause your paired HTC phone to ring, making it easier to find, but as it pairs using Bluetooth, this is a two-way relationship. Attach the HTC Fetch you your keys, bag, purse, wallet or anything you frequently misplace and you can then force the Fetch to ring when it’s playing hide-and-seek via your HTC phone. The Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy standard also means the Fetch only requires a watch battery to run on too.
HTC Mini+
If you haven’t heard of or seen the HTC Mini before, HTC hasn’t gone mad and started pumping out feature phones; the Mini originally debuted in markets like China and Singapore alongside the HTC J Butterfly, billed as an ‘enhanced Bluetooth accessory’ designed to complement larger devices, and now the HTC Mini+ is landing elsewhere in the world.
Much like Sony’s SBH52, the primary function of the Mini+ is to act as a small, lightweight Bluetooth handset for taking and receiving calls whilst your significantly larger smartphone (think HTC One Max, Asus FonePad or Sony Xperia Z Ultra) is on a table or in your bag, but that’s only the start. With a 1.5-inch backlit monochrome screen, call/end, navigation buttons and a numerical keypad, the Mini+ can be used to take or receive calls and compose texts but can also be used to control PowerPoint presentations, your TV, an HTC Media Link HD and even features a laser pointer.
The HTC Mini+ pairs to a device using inbuilt NFC and offers up a 320mAh battery with 95 hours of standby time and 9 hours of talk time. Expect both devices to hit stores after IFA this year, bearing in mind we don’t yet know whether or not they’re coming to the UK.
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