If you ever find yourself torn between your
love of android but wish you can get it in
the body of an iPhone, we may have just the
device you’re looking for.
I’ll explain why right now in my HTC One
A9 review 3 months later.
No this isn’t an iPhone, but if you wish
you could get an android device with the shape
of an android, well here you go...
HTC says that it solds aluminum unibody devices
before Apple did, and they’re right.
Ever since the One M7 at the start of 2013,
HTC has been promoting its signature aluminum
unibody design, characterized by a particular
mix of subtle curves and precise straight
lines.
But hey, the camera, camera flash, and even
corner radius on the A9 device matches the
iPhone 6 and 6s, and those antenna bands look
awfully familiar as well.
The HTC One A9 is an android smartphone manufactures
by HTC, it was officially announced on October
20th 2015, and was released the following
month, in many ways is a successor to the
HTC One M9 but in global market it is sold
a long side the One M9 as a midrange offering,
it features a unibody aluminum frame with
a super emulated HD display and Dolby surround
sound for headphones, or Boom sound for HTC
fans, it also got a fingerprint sensor that
you can use to unlock the phone.
The one M9 holds a distinction for being the
first non-Nexus device to be preinstalled
with Android Marshmallow and the first non
CDMA Phone that’s compatible to work within
Verizon network in the United States, reviews
were mixed upon release where people criticize
the phone, for its construction, poor fingerprint
scanner, for its high price and for apparent
be a clone of an iPhone 6.
I just found out earlier today that HTC is
running a sale on the One A9 and you can get
it for $100 OFF, So is it worth it?
Let’s find out as I bring you my 3 month
late review on the One A9.
First let’s talk about specs.
If you read the One A9’s spec sheet, you’d
probably think of it as a mid-range phone
with nothing special about it.
But that’s why spec sheets should be ignored
for the most part.
Using the One A9 shows what happens when a
phone makes the most of its components, resulting
in a device that compares favorably with other
companies flagship smartphones.
Only inside you find a Qualcore Smartdragon
617 processor, so non like 800 other chips
that you find in other flagships, for graphics
it has the adreno 405, 3 Gygas of RAM, 32
Gb storage, a 2 thousand one hundred 50 million
power battery, and as I mentioned it shifts
with android 6.0 marshmallow which means you’re
getting the latest android released right
out of the box.
HTC says the One A9 will receive android updates
no longer than 15 days after the release from
google and by the way if 32 gigabytes isn’t
enough for you, the HTC one A9 does support
micro SD cards up to 2 terabytes in size.
As for the display we have a 5 inch a moled
1080p panel which is 1920x 1080 and 440 Pixel
Per Inch and covered in Gorilla Glass 4, It
displays alright is a little warm is just
typical for amoled displays, and bright daylight
it gets little washed out it also wasn’t
that great with off angled viewing.
But is passable.
The same goes for the camera, its fine is
not the best but it’s not hard, by looking
at the 13.1 megapixel camera with an F2.0
aperture, its got autofocus, its got image
stabilization so both of those things are
good, where suffers is in contrast and dynamic
range, and good light things look decent,
and There is the HDR mode that you can enable
manually to increase the range but not by
much, it shoots in 16x9 by default so you
wanna change that if you want the more typical
aspect ratio for photos, you’re not gonna
be stunned by what the A9 is capable on a
favorable light, but you won’t be disappointed
either, the A9s camera is really just middle
of the road, it’s just fine, its got multiple
modes including a promo that lets you can
change the exposure, eye saw, white balance
and even capturing raw, for video you’re
stuff with 1080p 30fps per second with optical
image stabilization no 4K.
Around front you’ve got a 4 megapixel camera
which is the same one unit find one the back
of the HTC One M8 on the front of the HTC
one M9, its got bigger pixels that makes lower
photography better but still the camera isn’t
all that good , perfectly find for snap chatting
other selfies though.
Moving on to sound which has been one of the
best features of the HTC phones as of late,
unlike the HTC One M9 this phone does not
feature the Boom sound stereo front facing
speakers, instead it just got mono speaker
located on the bottom of the device, so it
doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as the
M8 or the M9, where audio does sound good
though is on the Dolby Surround sound for
headphones which HTC Still label here as boom
sound, you get high resolution audio and is
installed with a deck digital to analog converter
which up scales your audio from 16 bits to
24 bits, so when you are listening to music
with headphones it sounds fantastic, with
the 2150 million power battery I was able
to get roughly of 2 and a half hours of screen-on
time, that’s not a lot but its decent, especially
for a phone this size it does support qtcharts
2.0.
You can get top on quickly when you need to
get the battery used up
Now...
I did mentioned mixed reception when the phone
was released, and I point out some of those
comments right now.
Over all in gadgets they said that M9 was
not the winner that the company HTC needs
but praise it for coming with android 6.
On CNET they said it was just fine for a mid-range
device.
A PC magazine said that the construction is
impeccable.
Over on The Verge the called it as a Blasphemous
concoction of the version of apple design
and google software, so as you can see it’s
a mix bag.
My conclusion, I think the HTC One A9 is a
good Phone, however the main issue is the
price, it sales for $499, it got decent battery
life, above average performance, decent software,
decent camera..
Everything is decent.
This is a mid-range phone, with a mid-range
specs, with an expensive price tag, it just
doesn’t compete in a market where you can
drop $500 on a Nexus 6P flagship or an iPhone
6 For that matter, when the A9 launched at
$399 in the United States that was the time
to pick one up despite the insane backorder,
but after a week the price increased to $499
and that 25% jump in price means that the
One A9’s value diminishes greatly, you can
compare it to the Nexus 6P which many consider
to be the best Android Smartphone today and
no way the HTC will win that comparison contest,
evenly simple for the fact that the Nexus
device includes Long term assurance where
you can get Android updates faster in a longer
period of time, honestly you get more from
your money if you spend it on a LG G4 that
has an excellent camera, or a Samsung galaxy
S6 and its wireless charging, or even the
iPhone 6 that HTC is complementing with its
present design, there are too many android
alternatives to say that this is the a good
one to buy, unless you really want something
with the look and feel of apple’s flagship.
All that said if you’re watching this video
today and today being the day of recording
March 8th 2016 The HTC is selling for one
day only at 399 That’s $100 OFF the $499
price tag and it makes the phone more attractive,
so much so that I’m totally fine recommending
it at $399 price, but only if you get it at
that price.
For 500 bucks, I’d look elsewhere.
