Gadgetory

in mobile technology it's the same story every single time the media goes crazy over every hot new device and after that review period wears off so does the buzz behind that new toy you might still want to buy but that now faces new competition in the real world things shouldn't be that way for most of us aging is just as important as the moment you unbox your product for the first time it's how that device performs after extensive use that really matters down the line so let's do something about it let's take a second look at one of the best iPhone clones ever given how close its flagship successor already is I'm high metal even with pocket now and this is the HTC One a9 after the buzz for some of us who grew up seeing smartphones take shape and form returning to an HTC device just feels like home HTC is famous for eye-catching design on phones built to last and that holds true on the one a9 at least three or four people have approached me over the last week to ask me what this phone is and none of them have really mentioned the word iPhone even if the resemblance is obvious this review unit has been actively used by at least two PocketNow editors before spending the last two months with me it was used without a case since those aren't really easy to come by and even then this phone has really H gracefully the 60-63 aluminum alloy may be dated for 2016 standards but it still looks like new and feels great in the hand the sheet of Gorilla Glass 3 has also survived extensive use quite well at first glance though it didn't do so without a scratch of you expose it to warm light other aspects of the device haven't really aged at all but do lock an interesting departure from the HTC that we knew as a premium mid-range er the one a9 follows the trend of competitors with a gorgeous 5 inch AMOLED display locked at 1080p just as the first day it performs beautifully but the implementation is rather odd the deep contrast and saturation of AMOLED is president almost everything you do but once you jump into things like the icon pack we don't understand why these look dull even when compared to other HTC phones on a super LCD the same goes for changes like the speakers and especially when more affordable HTC devices sports some sort of boo sound sure the speaker doesn't it make the iPhone in both placement and loudness but it definitely is not boom sound I'm not sure if by Dolby sound HTC men that it only enhances the experience through the headphones but overall it's not the HTC experience that we've come to love it's time for a good old fashioned still you have to keep in mind that the one a9 is not a successor to the one m9 and instead the companies push into the premium mid-range as such using it is actually better than what you'd think performance over the Snapdragon 617 on three gigs of RAM been solid for day to day tasks and the 20 150 milliamp hour battery usually does a decent job at keeping things up during the day the combo doesn't really do so well in intensive games given the dropped frames here and there but at this tier it kind of comes with the territory the company did keep its promise of pushing Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 to this phone on a recent software update but remember that the charger bundled in the Box doesn't really do the job or at least there's no real way to confirm and speaking of software updates that's another thing that HTC has done right this continues to be one of the few phones running Android 6.1 marshmallow and software updates and patches have kept coming over the last few weeks as a result HTC Sense 7 continues to be one of my favorite Android skins to date app load times are quick switching between them as a breeze and I still find this UX to be one of the most elegant out there other cool details like the front-facing fingerprint scanner continued to be one of my favorite things about this phone I love turning the phone on with a button and the added convenience of using it as a home button is also cool even though the navigation keys are still there the typical HTC gestures like launching the camera app with the volume buttons also join the list of little details that delight the user experience even if using the cameras still a mixed story launching the application can be very slow and photos on this phone aren't really as great as we'd want them to be the 13 megapixel shooter with optical image stabilization is decent for daylight shooting but follows the trend of completely losing credibility in both low light and the selfie shooter as well at a time when HTC has spent the last few years touting the launch of phones with the best cameras software updates haven't really saved this phone from being just another good camera that kneels to the competition and I guess that's the major story about the HTC One a9 after the buzz it looks like an iPhone it behaves like a very good Android phone and it's aged far better than many of its competitors in both hardware and software if you've ever wanted an iPhone running Android it really does get better than this the only thing that I just can't get over with this phone is it's crazy price tag even today the 189 is still priced at $4.99 challenging flagships like the Moto X pure edition in the Nexus 6p and obviously every other premium mid-range er including even the iPhone S II it's got a lot of things going for it but none of them hold enough to warrant such a hefty price tag with the HTC 10 just around the corner it might be best for you to just hold off to see what improvements get launched though I wouldn't blame you for not waiting at all and just buying every other competitor out there folks there are a ton of other episodes of after the buzz so make sure you follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button down below for more videos like this one in addition you can also catch our videos on vessel at vessel.com/nerdist corvette on instagram at high metal data please give this video a thumbs up if you like what you saw I am hi Metairie better thank you very much for watching we will see you on the next one