Gadgetory

what if there was an Android smartphone whose only major crime was looking like an iPhone okay a lot like an iPhone I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and this is our video review of the HTC One a9 there's no getting around it the HTC One a9 is a dead ringer for Apple's iPhone 6 from the camera module design to the medium radius corners to the flat back and front with rounded edges to the inlaid antenna bands that HTC introduced but Apple made famous is really no denying HTC has sacrificed a legacy of unique design in order to produce an iPhone clone that's the bad news the good news is if you disagree or you just don't care about that this is a staggeringly good Android handset with an impressive price to match the one a9 comes in three shades of aluminum with either a white or black faceplate protected by Gorilla Glass 4 as we mentioned in our hands-on video HTC has gone far afield of its previous designs here eliminating all hard edges and putting its focus back on the details like a power standby button that's so heavily textured that you can't possibly confuse it with the volume rocker the phone is about as tall as the one m9 it replaces but it's much thinner and lighter and that plus the new rounded finish makes it feel much smaller in the hand HTC did eliminate the grippy finish from the m9 though so the a9 is just as slippery as most other aluminum phones a capacitive fingerprint scanner doubles as a home key to wake up the device in keeping with most current biometric sensors it's quite fast and accurate and it's augmented not by capacitive keys but instead by software buttons on its 5-inch display this display breaks from long HTC tradition in that it uses AMOLED technology instead of super LCD with the resulting higher contrast and saturation that we've come to know and love and it also sticks with Full HD resolution at 5 inches that makes for a plotter high pixel density of 440 PPI so while we're making iPhone comparisons we may as well point out that in both of those metrics the one a9 beats apples so-called Retina display on the success running on that screen is Android marshmallow underneath HTC Sense 7.0 you can find our full impressions of marshmallow in our Nexus 6p review over at Pocket now as far as Sense goes HTC says it's committed to slimming down its software layer this year but even if it hadn't we'd probably have few complaints unlike some third-party interfaces Sense has a unified look and feel that complements Android quite well and it doesn't impair androids smooth flow the one a9 s software experience is as buttery smooth as you could ask for HTC's housecleaning has reduced the number of duplicate features and apps but the high points of sense are still here and there's still really nice blinkfeed does a nice job aggregating social and news feeds into one single stream list you can still wake the phone using a variety of taps and swipes if you don't want to use the fingerprint scanner the lockscreen will still let you know about local dining opportunities at mealtimes if you wanted to and you can change the look and feel of the entire phone by applying a theme if anything HTC was a little too aggressive in chopping away at sense useful shortcuts like the notification shade toggle are gone now the upside to this is that all those little trims and tucks should help HTC deliver on its promise of speedy Android updates specifically updates delivered no more than 15 days after Google releases them HTC says it spent more time and effort than ever before to build a solid camera here this is a 13 megapixel sensor with an F 2.0 aperture and it brings oh is back to the 1 family for the first time in two generations the viewfinder now has a full pro shooting mode with raw support as for the photos if you're given enough light in color the one a9 is capable of pictures ranging from pretty to quite beautiful but that's the case with essentially every smart phone camera these days in ideal conditions you basically can't miss so if you're shooting is confined to Instagram Facebook and snapchat posts hey you'll be fine with the one a9 you've got shooting with this phone in one hand and the Nexus 6p and another we're hard-pressed to find any example where HTC outperforms where the other phone can pull quite a bit of light from the darkness the one a9 struggles to produce anything worthwhile in some nighttime scenes with a little more light the one a9 can sometimes kick out a photo with substantially better color reproduction but those occasions are far from the norm in general the a9 s photos are too noisy with too little dynamic range its focus is too slow to keep up with moving subject and all these problems just get worse the dimmer the light gets in video mode which maxes out at 1080p optical stabilization does a good job of smoothing the footage without requiring cropping and while there's a little bit of focus hunting at times it's not too bad again what kills this for us is excessive digital noise and flat color reproduction which often makes a scene look dead these are complaints which also extend to the ultra pixel shooter on the front side by the way though here at least HTC gets to bring its low-light prowess to bear for brighter folks HTC gets to make up some ground here the battery is tiny for an Android flagship but between marshmallows power saving features and HTC zone optimizations we're usually able to make it through a day of moderate use with almost 4 hours of screen on time to report of course any kind of heavy usage will require you to top-up throughout the day but the quick charge 2.0 compatibility makes charge times very fast and they'll get even faster when HTC enables quick charge 3.0 with a software update sometime after release the fact that HTC doesn't include a 3.0 compatible charger in the box is evidence of corner cutting and maybe that's also responsible for the use of the snapdragon 617 processor instead of something a little more high-end but the 6 17 is what enables that superfast charging and though dedicated gamers might be able to tell the difference in performance between the a9 and a higher-end device we certainly can't really what we miss more are the boom sound speakers that lone bottom firing driver is nothing special and neither is noise cancellation the a9 had have time eliminating train station announcements in the background while we were carrying out a phone call but those cut corners allow for a competitive price point at least in North America the one a9 will sell for 399 in the US in just one configuration a 32 gig model with three gigs of RAM and microSD expansion that's a lot of phone for 400 bucks and when you factor in the excellent build quality and software experience it makes for quite a compelling package there are other worthwhile contenders in the same segment of course the Moto X pure Edition and oneplus 2 come to mind but those are for people who want huge phones the one a9 is a more delicate alternative for someone who wants the high-end feel of an iPhone and the flexibility of Android and a sensible price well it's unfortunate that HTC chose to sacrifice its proud design legacy the result is an Android smartphone that's intriguing for many of the same reasons HTC phones have always been intriguing beautiful fit and finish and exquisite attention to detail that's a pleasure to use as so long as you can get past that camera stop the presses the day before this review went live HTC informed us that the $399 promotional pricing for the North American one a nine would end rather sooner than we expected the actual price which will take effect November 7th is $499 in the US that still makes the an ion cheaper than some of its forerunners on launch day and it's still significantly cheaper than the most recent iPhone but it also means the a9 is now competing for your dollars with the likes of the excellent Nexus 6p that doesn't give the Nexus an automatic win if you have smaller hands or just different aesthetic preferences or you like HTC Sense or you like any of the other value adds that HTC is bringing to the table well the one a9 is still the better option for you but it does make the question of whether you should buy the a9 over any of the other phones in its category a little cloudier needless to say if you really do want the one a9 and you're seeing this before November 7th you should head over to HTC comm sooner rather than later for much more on the 189 folks check out our written review at pocketnow.com and hey follow us on social media we're at pocket now and most channels and I Michael Fisher I met captain two phones captain the number two phones the interim thanks very much for watching we'll be back with more videos very soon we'll see you next time