When HTC announced its new flagship smartphone, the HTC One A9, everyone had a good laugh saying that it’s a copy of Apple’s iPhone 6s. But the company was bold enough to trash such claims.
In fact, even we were pretty much convinced that it’s an Android cousin of the Apple iPhone 6s – till we finally laid our hands on the One A9.
HTC is known for making some quality products in the past. Their innovations are, most of the times, more original than their competitors. Plus their devices always had a premium and plush look and feel to them.
The only sore point for HTC in India has always been the pricing. This time they have got it right. Unlike the HTC One M9+ or the E9+ which were priced upwards of Rs 30,000, HTC One A9 is priced at Rs 29,990.
But is it still the premium phone of your desire?
Key Specifications: HTC One A9
- Display: 5.0-Inch Full HD AMOLED
- Processor: 1.5GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 617 Processor
- RAM: 3 GB RAM With
- Storage: 32GB
- Operating System: Android 6.0 With HTC Sense UI
- Rear Camera: 13MP With LED Flash
- Front Camera: UltraSelfie Camera
- Battery: 2150 MAh
- Price: Rs 29,990
What’s Good?
HTC One A9 is the first non-Google smartphone in India to ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system out of the box. The first two to come were the Google Nexus 5x and Nexus 6P. That makes the HTC One A9 the most updated smartphone to retail in the country.
The use of all metal design is premium and it’s lightweight too at just 143 grams. The 5.0-Inch Full HD AMOLED display is bright, sharp and just the right size for single hand usage. It’s edge to edge display gives the phone it’s thin bezels that add to the character of this device. And it charges fast too, as it supports Quick charge 2.0 technology.
Performance on the HTC One A9 is smooth as silk. The 1.5GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 617 Processor is backed by 3GB RAM and even if you throw a kitchen sink at this phone it won’t budge.
Gaming performance is what you expect from a high-end smartphone and multitasking is something it can do without any hassles. The best part is that this phone does not heat up at all while charging or while playing games.
The 13-megapixel rear camera on the HTC One A9 is not the best snapper in town, but definitely better than the phones offered in this price range like Motorola Moto X Style. The rear camera comes with a sapphire cover lens, a BSI sensor, Optical image stabilisation (OIS) and 1080p video recording capabilities. All of which work seamlessly.
The 2150 mAh battery on paper is less for this smartphone, but to our surprise it lasted for more than 30 hours on our device. That has a lot to do with Android Marshmallow’s power saving mode too.
What’s Bad?
The HTC One A9 launched after the Apple iPhone 6s, so yes it does resemble it a lot. But if you take a closer look, you realise that it’s not. Still, a novelty factor is lost if your friends own an iPhone.
HTC has used a new HTC UltraPixel front camera for selfies and even named it as the UltraSelfie camera. But it’s still not one of the best cameras to click a selfie with. Even with fixed focus, ƒ/2.0 aperture and 1080p video recording capabilities, our usage was just satisfactory on the front camera of the HTC One A9.
The fingerprint scanner is fast but not as impressive as one would like on the HTC One A9.
Why Buy it?
HTC has everything going for the HTC One A9. It looks good, it’s built good, has performance by its side and comes at a killer pricing of Rs 29,990. Which will make many think that if so much can be given at such a price why are we paying premiums for flagship devices?
If you are looking for a complete flagship smartphone, the HTC One A9 will not disappoint you at all and it’s definitely not the Apple iPhone 6s look alike.
HTC One A9 is a game changer in the flagship device category and we would like to say, well played HTC.
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