Rumors suggested that HTC was planning to release a smartphone in the second half of the year that would make up for the poor sales that their other devices had along the year. Then, we started getting some leaked pictures and specs that made it fit into the mid-range. HTC finally announced the One A9 last week, the company took a different approach with the announcement and the phone itself. Instead of mentioning its internal specs, the company just focused on the overall design of the phone and the camera capabilities. They also mentioned the high-quality of the sound produced by the phone and a bunch of services that would be included such as the Uh-Oh protection plan and the fact that this phone would get updated really fast to newer versions of the Android OS.
Basically, they focused on the overall experience that this phone would bring to consumers. The design of the phone resembles the design of the iPhone featuring an aluminum back that is rounded on the edges and the 2.5D glass covering the display. The company even acknowledged it by mentioning that they were the first ones to use a design based on aluminum and polycarbonate lines on the back, and the design of the A9 was an evolution of that design. The specs include a 5-inch display with Full HD resolution and it is powered by a Snapdragon 617 processor with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. There’s a 2,150 mAh battery and it runs Android 6.0 out of the box.
This phone was priced at $399 in the US, which was not a bad deal for a mid-range phone in a premium housing, but the company always mentioned that this price would be available for a limited time. It turns out that the promotional price won’t last very long, as a spokesperson communicated that the phone will carry a suggested retail price of $499 from the first minute of November the 7th. The “real” price of the One A9 shouldn’t be that surprising, as it is priced at €599 in some European countries. This gets even worse as they would only sell a version with 16 GB of internal memory and 2 GB of RAM on some of those regions.