At least those viewing angles are solid, and colors are punchy and vibrant in that typically AMOLED way. By default, things take on a warmer, yellower tone compared to devices like the Galaxy Note 5 and the comparably priced Moto X Pure, and it's not quite as bright as either of those devices. Thankfully, the A9's 5.0-inch screen is no slouch either. I'm just fine with that - the end result is a phone that feels just as good in my pockets as it does in my hand. HTC clearly doesn't think bigger is always better. If you're reading this review the day it was published, you've got less than two weeks before the price jumps to its $500. except it'll only be $400 for a little bit longer. All told, that's a pretty solid package for a $400 phone. Regardless of the variant, though, you'll also be graced with a seemingly small 2,150mAh battery and a 13-megapixel rear camera with OIS and an f/2.0 lens. The version we're getting in the US - and the one I'm testing now - comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Still, HTC was quick to crow about the 617 being the very latest silicon from Qualcomm's foundries, and therefore heir to extra benefits in efficiency developed over the past year.
ONEPLUS TWO VS HTC ONE M9 REVIEW SERIES
Four of those cores are clocked at 1.5GHz, while the remaining four run at 1.2GHz.īy the way, you'd be forgiven if the model number gives you pause - I'm not used to seeing non-800 series chipsets in flagship devices either. And let's not forget what's on the inside: one of Qualcomm's new 64-bit, octa-core Snapdragon 617 chips. USB Type-C seems like all the rage these days - and for good reason - but the company says it's not going big on those new ports until later in 2016. Meanwhile, the A9's bottom edge is home to the single speaker (no front-facing stereo action here) and a standard micro-USB port for charging and data transfer. That's not to say that HTC is done with IR blasters for good this is just the configuration HTC ran with to minimize its waistline. There's something that looks like an IR blaster on the A9's top edge, but that's not the case: It's actually a polycarbonate window for the GPS antenna. As it happens, those edges play host to nano-SIM and microSD card slots (with the latter taking up to 2TB of additional storage), along with the volume rocker and a nicely textured sleep/wake button. The shell is hewn from a slab of aircraft-grade aluminum with a matte, bead-blasted backside and a slick, polished feel on its sides. The other key to the phone's comfortable design: a sweet, two-finish body. And yes, I said AMOLED - it's been years since HTC went with one of these panels instead of a Super LCD, but we'll get into that a little later. Part of the A9's grip-ability centers on HTC's choice of a smaller 5.0-inch AMOLED display rather than the super-sized screens competing phone makers are so fond of. Sure, it was striking and spoke to the company's mastery of metalwork, but that doesn't mean I'm about to pour one out for the M9's sharp metal lip.
Its dimensions aren't far off from the M9's, but I much prefer the rounded body to the hard, angular lines we got with HTC's last flagship. On the flip side, the A9 is a joy to hold. To call the A9 a one-to-one copy of the iPhone 6/6s isn't fair, but I have to wonder who signed off a design that so strongly evokes another device. At least the (excellent) fingerprint reader sitting south of the screen isn't a circle too, though it seems about as accurate as the improved Touch ID sensor in Apple's new iPhones. Curved, 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 subtly swooping away from the edges of the screen? You get where I'm going with this. That might be legally defensible - HTC did use plastic antenna bands to break up an all-metal chassis before Apple did - but there are other design flourishes as well that feel unnecessarily Cupertinian.
HTC's defense boils down to: "Actually, Apple's the copycat!" and that the A9 is actually a mashup between the company's One and Desire lines. Let's start off by confronting the fruit-scented elephant in the room: The A9 looks like an iPhone.
ONEPLUS TWO VS HTC ONE M9 REVIEW UPDATE
I'll update this review with additional impressions once US units become available. Note: I'm working with the global version of the One A9.