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HTC One A9 Review
The Good: The HTC One A9 is one of the first phones to ship with the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. It features a beautiful metal body, yet you can still expand the storage with microSD cards, which is pretty rare these days.
The Bad: The phone is overpriced and battery life is poor.
The Verdict: The One A9 feels like an excellent midrange device more so than a high-end phone, but the price says otherwise. It's a decent choice, but there are better phones in this price range.
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Design and Build Quality
Let's get this out of the way right now — yes, the One A9 looks suspiciously similar to the iPhone 6, but this is not a bad thing. If you're going to copy one thing from Apple, it should be the design. The back is nearly identical on both of these phones, and the biggest difference is the camera's position. It even comes in similar colors — silver, dark gray and gold. HTC adds one more color to the mix — dark-red. The phone feels well put together, although not as premium as the iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy S6.
Software and User Experience
Aside from Google's very own Nexus smartphones, the One A9 is one of the first phones that come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Of course, HTC slapped its Sense 7 interface on top of it. Thankfully, the interface is neat and easy to use, and HTC doesn't clog up your phone with a bunch of bloatware. There are many good-looking themes to choose from, and you can create your own theme as well.
Camera
The back of the device is home to a 13MP camera, which can take some good shots. Colors are generally vibrant and natural, and the camera has an HDR mode that works pretty well. One A9's camera can shoot video as well, at full HD (1080p) resolution at 30 frames per second.
Technical Specifications:
Display: 5.0 inches (1920x1080 pixels)
Processor: 1.55 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 and 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53
Memory: 2GB/3GB
Storage: 16GB/32GB (expandable via microSD)
Camera: 13MP
Battery: 2,150mAh
OS: Android OS, 6.0 (Marshmallow)
Dimensions: 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3 mm (5.74 x 2.79 x 0.29 in)Conclusion
Most people will agree that the design of the HTC One A9 resembles the iPhone 6, but this is not a bad thing. The phone is well built and relatively light. It has a decent screen and a solid camera. One of its biggest selling points, however, is that it comes with Google's brand new operating system - Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Unfortunately, the battery life is far from impressive, and the price should be somewhat lower for what the phone offers.
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