Gadgetory

this new phone by HTC might be joining the one line in spirit at least but once you get past the name you'll find that there is a lot different with this phone it's Josh Berg are from Android authority what's going on everybody and this is your first look at the HTC One a9 while bringing back the metal is definitely a trope of HTC devices the HTC One a9 now has rounded corners and sides that do help with the handling and with a five inch screen it is a little bit easier to handle than most devices out there that are larger in their screen sizes this five inch display is also of an AMOLED construction and covered in Gorilla Glass 4 but the entire phone does have a pretty symmetrical look and everything is centered on the back if you head on over to the front you'll notice a new button underneath the HTC black bar and that is the fingerprint reader which we'll get into a little bit more in a bit but what you also notice is that despite there being a large slit at the top this is not for boomsound speakers instead you'll get a bottom mounted speaker that is enhanced by Dolby but it is right next to the regular USB microUSB port and the headphone jack over on the right side there are the various buttons with a textured power button underneath the volume rocker and on the other side there are two slots one for a SIM card and then one other one for a micro SD card yes you've probably noticed by now that I have been trying to skirt a particular topic when it comes to this phone and I wouldn't really blame you if you've been yelling at the screen that the HTC One a9 looks a lot like an iPhone 6 or 6s and in a lot of ways you're probably right the handling of this is very similar it's just that this phone is a little bit thicker but it provides that same symmetrical design along with the rounded sides and corners that are probably what you've seen before in the iPhone now HTC even in the meeting that we had where we first got our hands on this phone did tell us that although the inspirations might seem like they come from Apple's Kamp metal has always been HTC's first design choice and they were one of the first manufacturers to even put metal on their devices and they were really big on telling us that and reminding us fact but even then they did say that Android should be an alternative to iPhone and the HTC One a9 is an alternative that still brings you some of the design choices that some people tend to like with Apple iPhones but despite knowing all of that it will be up to you of course if you like the look of this phone there are some other colors though including a lighter silver version and then one called deep Garnett now this might not be a total throwback to the hotrod red that HTC used to use but we still liked it all the same I already mentioned before that this particular screen coming in at 5 inches in size is covered in Gorilla Glass 4 and is of an AMOLED construction you are able to change the saturation levels in the settings by changing it to srgb mode as well but nonetheless you still get the higher saturation in the colors throughout this display for the HTC One a9 and overall it has looked quite good now this is not a quad HD display you get full 1080p full HD but it is still very enjoyable to use and thus far we haven't had any problems with it but get underneath the surface and that's where the changes continue HTC's experimentation continues with a snapdragon 617 no they're not going to be using the 810 on this one but instead they're using an octa-core processor with 64-bit processing that is going to support quick charge 3.0 and that is a big point that HTC wanted to make about the fast charging on this device moving on to the hardware we will say that there's no boom sound speaker setup on the HTC One a9 which is a huge bummer especially if you're thinking about audio without headphones but even with headphones or even without them you still get Dolby enhancements which allow the sound to sound pretty nice now we're going to do some more extensive testing on this obviously but the main story here is that you're not getting dual front-facing speakers and of course we already mentioned the expandable storage which is always nice to have especially with the 32 gigabyte model you still get a lot more storage if you add a microSD card but this particular version which is a European SKU does have 16 gigabytes in it with 2 gigabytes of RAM rather than 3 that you're going to get in most models in the West and then of course we already alluded to the new button up front which is the fingerprint reader now this button can still be used as a home button and you can change that in the settings but ultimately touching this area will turn on the screen after which it will scan for your finger after setting up a fingerprint it's as easy as leaving the thumb or any other finger on there as it wakes up the device scans for the fingerprint and then unlocks it's not necessarily the absolute fastest fingerprint reader that we've tested thus far but it is still highly usable and is one of the better ways of unlocking the device and finally in battery a 21 50 milliamp hour battery is available under here which sounds a little bit paltry but it might be helped by the lower resolution of the display and also the Snapdragon 617 that you have underneath powering everything but HTC made a very big point of saying that it's fast charging that is going to be the biggest draw of this device not only is quick charge 2.0 already available out of the box but an update will allow it to go up to quick charge 3.0 and be one of the first devices to be able to support that and HTC made a big point of saying that in the middle of the day if you're able to plug in the device using a quick charge charger then you should really not want for power throughout a typical workday we're unable to show you any camera samples just yet but we will have all of them for you in a camera shoot outs for the full review that said however you have an updated package on the rear with a 13 megapixel oh is powered camera package that should bring some pretty good pictures if you remember the HTC One m9 the camera was a demain Achilles heel and HTC really hopes that this time around they were able to nail it but you still have the ultra pixel camera up front which should provide some nice pictures for self-portraits even in low-light situations now going through the application for a little bit right now we will show you that there are a couple of new modes not only it does the pro mode return with the ability to shoot in RAW format but you also get a hyper lapse mode now we did take some pictures over the last day or so already and they do look quite nice thus far but we'll be able to show you those in full detail when we have our full review and finally in software we have another big development in the fact that the HTC One a9 will have marshmallow out of the box but that's not the only development as the Sense UI that HTC has been using for a long time now has actually been somewhat dialed back actually this particular version of Android will seem more like stock with just a bit of a over it rather than have all of the different features that sense used to have in the past but that being said it still feels very sense like because you still get blinkfeed on the side it's just that right now this is going to be one of the first manufacturer-specific phones that actually has marshmallow out of the box and that will include everything from doze to Google now on tap to even the app permissions which I have already been showing themselves in our first day or so of using this device and so there you have it for your first look at the HTC One a9 this is a phone that's going to come in at 399 dollars which is another nice development about a phone that is essentially supposed to be the next flagship in the HTC One line and really a lot of this phone feels like it's HTC trying some new things which is always kind of nice even if you think that the design might be a little bit too derivative even if you think that the boom sound speakers going by the wayside in this device at least is a big bummer these are all things that are trying to make room for new features that HTC is hoping will make a phone that is great for you so keep it tuned to Android authority for the full review and then watch more from my colleagues in Android and once you're done with all of that subscribe to our channel if you haven't already so you can keep up with all of that and more because we are your source for all things Android