After numerous leaks, HTC has finally unveiled the mysterious HTC One A9. Will it be enough to turn HTC’s fortunes around?
It is no secret that HTC has been having troubles recently. It seems the Taiwanese company has lost focus. It is back now with a new phone that confusingly has mid-range specs and a premium price-tag.
With the HTC One A9 there has been a shift in focus and the company is now looking more into lifestyle and core features. The A9 will be the first third-party smartphone to come with Marshmallow 6.0 but no one will be noticing that as it looks exactly like an iPhone 6 (and 6s). Not exactly a bad thing as you are getting an iPhone with an Android OS, though £469.99 is still quite steep for a mid-range phone.
DESIGN
We’ll begin with the obvious, the HTC One A9 is the spitting image of the iPhone 6 and 6s. It has a smooth aluminium unibody, which just like the iPhone 6s feels like a higher echelon of quality, the metal finish really does feel great in your hand and the rounded corners provide comfort and stability when grasping it.
Let’s talk about what’s different about the A9 and the 6s. First of all the A9 is much thicker, measuring up to 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3 mm, compared with the 6s 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm. Couple this with a screen size of 5 inches and it makes the A9 a much more comfortable device to handle and view, a definite improvement on the diminutive iPhone 6s. Despite the bigger size it weighs exactly the same as the iPhone 6s, weighing in at 143g. Carrying on with the differences the A9 has a textured power button below the volume keys, which is a nice addition as HTC is thinking about access and ease of use.
The face of the A9 brings us back to similarities – the A9 really does look like the 6s and that can’t be helped due to the shape of the unibody. HTC has now newly introduced a home button and fingerprint scanner. You can simply tap the button (or screen) to wake up the phone and immediately unlock it with the fingerprint sensor. It works extremely fast from waking up, to verifying your fingerprint, to bored random Googling. Going to the bottom side we can see a speaker right next to a micro USB slot. Sadly BoomSound has now been omitted. Upon hearing that the A9 was more music focused we were expecting BoomSound, but sadly it has gone to make room for the fingerprint scanner.
CAMERA
The camera of the A9 is where HTC is also very proud, with a 13 megapixel rear camera and a 4 megapixel front-facing one. What HTC wanted to really show off is its own hyperlapse feature. This proves to be more than just an app you can download and works in-sync with the stellar camera. While walking through a rare sunny day filming a hyperlapse sequence, we found the feature to work really well, with smooth motion and clear video. For taking pictures, the Pro Mode stands out as it offers full manual controls. The auto-adjuster does a fine job with the right settings for you. But if you know what you’re doing you can get a better picture. During our own personal test we took a picture on auto and a second picture where we manually set everything. The result was our manually set picture was better by a slight margin and some objects were slightly discoloured in the auto-set picture. You can then save the pictures in raw form to edit to your artistic desire.
SCREEN
You can’t really tell the difference between the Samsung Galaxy S6 Super AMOLED and the A9 AMOLED. The Super AMOLED screen is meant to display better colour contrast, but really you won’t notice the difference. That said, the A9 has a brilliant display that really gives that look of quality every time you look at it. With a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which equates to 441 pixels per inch, the A9 offers a top-notch display that is well above the average smartphone.
An AMOLED display uses less power and shows black more deeply, as pixels shut themselves off when there is any black on the screen. So put up a screen saver of deep space and save yourself a bit of battery.
PERFORMANCE
The A9 is the only current smartphone with a Snapdragon 617 and it performs so well you won’t notice the difference between it and a Snapdragon 810. We tested it by playing Asphalt 8 extensively and we were racing through roads like a hot knife through butter, with no slowdown experienced and no overheating.
There are two versions of the A9 differing in RAM and internal storage – 16GB (2GB RAM) and 32GB (3GB RAM). We were sent the lesser 16GB version and proceeded to put it through its paces on Geekbench. In the single-core test the A9 scored 746, a score that beats the Samsung Galaxy S4. Which isn’t really surprising considering the Snapdragon 617 is a more modern chipset.
The A9 supports 24-bit audio and includes a digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), having a DAC is truly unique as not many phones include one as it’s mainly seen in actual speakers and headphones. With the DAC in tow FLAC files can be used, which is a higher quality file type, giving you a new experience with music.
Battery capacity isn’t great at 2150 mAh. In our Geekbench test it only lasted just under five hours, at 4 hours 53 minutes, scoring 2716. Which is about right considering the small battery capacity. However, HTC has countered this by including Fast Charge 3.0, which will give you more than 50% of charge in 30 minutes.
SOFTWARE
Straight out of the box the A9 includes Marshmallow 6.0, which is the latest Android operating system. The standout feature on the new OS is Google Now On Tap, which gives you a faster browsing experience, by interpreting relevant information from the page you’re currently viewing. For example, when watching the trailer for Spectre on YouTube, we were given an IMDB rating, news and information about the cast. It’s still in the infancy phase but will only get better as Google develops it.
Other features you can enjoy include DOZE, a battery management app, and Android Pay for quick mobile payments. Marshmallow also fully integrates the fingerprint sensor, making it much easier for developers to use the feature.
CONCLUSION
The HTC One A9 is truly a quality phone offering you the latest Google has to offer. With Marshmallow making an appearance on the A9 first, it’s a huge plus as other devices face an unknown amount of time. The build of the phone is brilliant, giving you a sense of quality, but doesn’t have a unique look as it really does look like an iPhone 6s. The price is also iPhone-ish, which might put you off and we wouldn’t blame you.
VERDICT
With the A9, HTC has gone in a different direction with a quality device aimed at the mid-market. The A9 will join Google’s Nexus series in pioneering Marshmallow 6.0 and it will do so in style. But with such a steep price when there are cheaper alternatives out there, it remains to be seen whether HTC can bring the magic back to consumers.
SPEC SHEET
OS Marshmallow 6.0
Processor Quad-core 1.5 GHz & quad-core 1.2 GHz, Snapdragon 617
Screen 5.0 inches
Resolution 1080 x 1920 pixels
Memory 2GB
Storage 16GB
MicroSD compatible? Yes, up to 200GB
Rear camera 13MP
Front camera 4MP
Video 1080p (30fps)
Connectivity 4G
Dimensions 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3 mm
Weight 143g
Battery Non-removable 2150 mAh