HTC One A9 Review

Design

It does not take a genius to recognise the design influence of the HTC One A9 as it's pretty similar to the iPhone 6/6s with the same curved edges, a minimalistic front with a fingerprint sensor at the base and a translucent band that moves from the sides of the phone to around the back.

Personally I’m not really too bothered about this, especially as the phone’s aluminium body and thin profile (not to mention the build quality) provides a complete premium feel that I have not seen before on an Android device.

However for me in practical use the design is still not perfect. By this I mean I needed a work-around in order to get the most from the phone during use.

Personal preference

For example the body of the phone (especially when colder) feels a little too slippery to hold when utilising the camera.

The underside of the phone also has the speaker added at the bottom left edge, but because I prefer using my phones to play games/watch videos (in landscape orientation) with the home button towards the right side, this resulted in my right hand muffling the speaker.

Granted I could rotate the phone around so that the speaker is on the top-left side of the phone but I then found my finger was catching the over-sensitive finger print sensor resulting in me being dumped back to the Home screen.

Subsequently I then had to head into the settings to disable the finger print sensor from being used in this capacity.

Of course these are my own personal opinions and you may have no such problems, however I just feel that the design could have been better implemented from my own selfish point of view.

Continuing the Design

Next to the speaker you have a microUSB port which is used for data transfer and charging, but unlike the new Android 6.0 OS - which supports the new type C specification – HTC have opted for the older USB 2.0 variant.

You then have the microphone pickup and 3.5mm headphone port; which works well when paired with the supplied in-the-ear headphones. The latter are adorned in black with red interchangeable ear buds.

The headphones for me were comfortable to wear and the call-end button could be used with the default Google Play Music to control music playback.

I need to point out here that the HTC BoomSound (with Dolby Audio) is not available on the loud speaker anymore, it only works via the headphones. On the plus side this allowed for an immersive and enjoyable listening experience with ample base and clarity to the lyrics being sung.

On the flip-side without the BoomSound profile headphone quality is pretty flat, so the option will be left on that’s for sure!

Sides of the Phone

To the left side of the phone you will find two closed covers that are opened using the supplied tool. The covers incorporate the Nano sim and the welcome return of the microSD card slot, which supports up to a whopping 200GB!

The above inclusion is thanks to Android 6.0 which has improved security support for microSD cards (which I will talk about later).

To the right of the phone you have your standard volume rocker and power buttons, which does have a nice touch in that the edges of the latter are ridged and this makes life easier when trying to take screenshots using the power and volume down button combo short-cut.

Back of the Phone

The back of the phone has the 13MP camera lens positioned at the center of the phone (you also get a 4MP front facing camera as well), next to a dual-tone flash. I’m not sure on this placement per-say as I think it could get hampered by your fingers during use.

The only other design touch is the HTC logo in the center.

Android 6.0

Booting up the HTC One A9 is not the quickest in the world but this is down to how the phone’s new Android 6.0 OS works.

Security on this OS has been ramped up significantly so when you first use the HTC you are prompted to setup the sensor with your finger/thumb print and a fall back passcode.

Your phone is then encrypted so that the data is more secure. As a result you will need to decrypt the phone each time the phone boots up which of course causes the delay. By decrypting all you need is your passcode.

Additional security measures that will kick in are related to how you use Apps. So for example if you launch a 3^rd party App it will prompt you to ‘Allow’ the program access to certain functions of your phone.

Likewise with microSD cards you can encrypt these now so they will only work on your own phone or you can leave the phone accessible if you want to transfer photos across. Encryption can also be added to existing microSD cards but will only encrypt new data. This way you can have the best of both worlds.

While all of these options can also slow down the use of the phone it does provide added peace of mind, especially with more and more hackers attacking the mobile devices. So for me it’s a welcome feature.

HTC Customisation

HTC’s Sense 7's implementation is added on top of Android 6.0 and this provides plenty of options to customise the appearance of your phone; from the wallpaper all the way to the fonts and icon set. You will need a HTC account to do this (as you can download additional themes) but you can easily add this to your standard Google login to speed up the setup process.

Note: You also have customisation options in the Apps view, so for example you can Hide/Unhide apps, arrange them into folders or view apps by alphabetical order.

Bloatware

Surprisingly I could not see a great deal of HTC software on the phone, with the exception of the HTC Help and HTC Club Apps (the latter provides a portal to access info on how best to use your HTC and a shop link to grab accessories) most of the software was standard Android. Plus with the Hide function you can easily remove any unwanted programs from view.

Home Screen Refinement

I nearly forgot to mention that the Home screen of the HTC also has a few adjustable options in terms of its drop down profile list; which will list different Apps/suggestions based on your choice (Home, Work or Out). So expect a few more Games for 'Out' use.

You can also swipe across from the left of the Home screen to get access to various News/Services from a number of linked apps, such as News Republic, Twitter and Facebook.

Google Now

However one of the new improvements I think works pretty well is Google Now’s enhanced functionality. Alongside being able to speak ‘OK Google’ from within any App or screen you can now press and hold the Home button in certain Apps to gain access to additional topics that are linked to the item you are viewing.

For example if I was on my Twitter account looking at a Tweet made from Game about the latest Xbox or PS4 game, I could then hold down the Home button and gain additional content such as Map info relating to the area that the Game store comes from, News related articles, images and YouTube content based on the game I was reading about.  It’s a feature that is implemented pretty well and one that I can see myself using in the future.

Notifications

Another refinement I like is that Notifications can now be managed to a greater degree.

Via the settings option, which in itself offers an intuitive means to control your phones features, you can adjust an Apps ‘Peek’ and ‘Priority Setting’.

‘Peek’ is essentially the new name for the lollipop ‘Heads up notification’ feature that allows incoming notifications to appear at the top of the screen - from where you could action the latter.

To be honest 'Peek' was designed primarily for important notifications from the system, such as messages and missed calls, but Google allowed developers to implement this into their own Apps.

The problem I suppose was that all the developers thought their Apps were important also, so you ended up being bombarded with notifications! Not anymore, as with Android 6.0 you can toggle these on/off for each individual app.

You can also set Apps to ‘Priority’ so even if you enabled the phone's ‘Do not disturb’ setting you can still get notifications from them. Note: The ‘Do not disturb’ option has to be set via the Notification bar with the 'Priority only' setting enabled for the effect to kick in.

Display Daydream

Delving into the settings further I also liked the Daydream option that is found under the 'Display & Gestures' sub option. In here you can get the phone to display relevant content from supporting Apps even when the phone is being charged.

Camera Interface

I have never been a fan of HTC’s camera implementation, yet the HTC One A9 does have some nifty options here which can be tailored to your specific needs.

For example by default the auto mode is at hand which will allow you to take snapshots quickly or switch to your video camera, turn the flash on/off, enable HDR or adjust the main settings such as photo and video size (up to 13MP/Full HD).

However the best option is to enable the 'Pro' mode.

The latter allows you to take photos in RAW (uncompressed) as well as quickly choose from various White Balance, ISO and focus options (Macro) at the base. All the options stay on-screen at all times so using the intuitive sliders you can make quick adjustments.

I quite liked this and I also liked the 'Hyperlapse' (time-lapse photography) mode which basically allows you to take a video and then either speed it up or slow it down depending on your requirement.

You will have probably seen the effect on wildlife programs (flowers opening up) or when artists want to speed up the process of showcasing their creation. 

Finally you have a slow-mo mode; selfie (with a handy timer) and a panoramic option, so all the consumer basis are covered!

Camera Quality

Sadly the final output from the camera was not as good as I would have liked, you can see some of the results in my Flickr page here or in the embedded gallery below.

In bright outdoor conditions the auto-mode seems to struggle with the exposure and low-level light conditions could have been better to – though in fairness this was indoors with minimal lightning.

However better results can be had with the 'Pro' mode as you have more control over how the camera functions and this would be the mode of choice for me.

Screen Quality & Performance

The FULL HD display is pretty crisp and inviting when watching content, ranging from movies to games. What’s also useful is that under the display setting's option you can adjust various monitor like pre-sets i.e. you can change the colour from it's default AMOLED mode to sRGB, Colder or Warmer colour.

I’ve mentioned the finger print scanner before, but this does work OK when you configure your finger or thumb print correctly. However the sensor does appear to be a little too sensitive at times and like I said in the earlier part of the review I had to disable its Home button control because I kept knocking the sensor by accident and heading back to the Home screen all the time.

You can though add a Pin or facial recognition to unlock your phone instead; so the finger print scanner just allows you an extra option in the quest for security.

General Performance

General performance, in terms of swiping between screens, did need a boost from a phone update when I first started to use the device, as I felt it was a little sluggish. Thankfully after the update I did not have any major issues to report.

Granted the device is not the fastest of performers despite the octa-core label (which is more of a gimmick than anything else as you have two independent quad-core CPU’s running on the device). In real-world terms games such as ‘Dead Trigger 2’ could only be run in medium quality setting (High was not even a choice).

Yet the above game did run smoothly enough and I equally loved playing the up-to-date 'Angry Birds 2' and this seemed to cope OK in both standard and Arena (multiplayer) modes.

Streaming was also not a concern and I was able to stream from YouTube without an issue.

I have added all the Benchmark results below which showcases how it fairs against other devices.

Battery Life

Android 6.0 is designed to improve Battery life via its 'Doze mode' that is built directly into the OS. The latter is tasked with limiting background apps activity when the device is idle.

On top of this you can also use the Power setting option to see which apps are draining the most battery life or in the HTC’s case enable two Battery saving modes called ‘Power Saver’ and Extreme Power saving mode. With the latter many Android functions are unavailable i.e, remote lock, reduced brightness, no vibration feedback and the data is turned off when the screen is in standby, that sort of thing.

In the real-world battery life from the fixed 2150 mAh battery is not the best I've seen, yet neither was it the worst. However after a moderate/heavy days use of browsing, streaming and the odd 20 minutes here or there of 'Angry Birds 2' I found it would need a daily charge.

PC Mark 08

Then again bearing in mind I had background apps running at the time, the backlight on full and the wireless running. I did a battery test on PC Mark 08 and it stated I would have 4hrs 26 minutes of work life out of the device. However if you throttle back on all the above and enable the battery saver modes you can eke out a full day+ no probs for general use, such as phone calls, music etc.

In my video test, which I leave the back-light on full and then I play a 2 hour film, it went down from a 69% charge to 46% which shows it can be good from a film playback point of view.

Note: I remember the update I installed when I first tested the phone did provide battery improvements, so HTC could introduce additional refinements down the line to optimise the battery life further.

Summary

What you have here is one of the most premium looking handsets on the Android Market but for me personally there were a few design niggles that scuppered its appeal. Additionally the camera’s auto mode is not my cup of tea either, but thankfully you do have the Pro option to help balance things out if you are willing to experiment. Each to their own as they say, because at the end of the day the HTC One A9 does pack in adequate performance, plenty of customisation options and a solid implementation of the latest Android OS for your hard earned money; so it could be worth further investigation!