HTC One A9: an iPhone for Android users who prefer 'open'

HTC has decided that the best way to win in a market dominated by Apple and Samsung is to try and beat Apple at its own game, with the One A9.

The One A9 runs Google’s latest version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has familiar HTC features such as its Zoe camera mode and a new fingerprint sensor for Android Pay support. But it is in the design department that HTC has pulled out all the stops to try and tempt iPhone buyers with a device that is the spitting image of an iPhone 6S.

It has an all-metal body, slim 7.26mm profile, rounded edges and a glass screen.

HTC describes the One A9’s design as “an evolution of the iconic HTC One family”. The Taiwanese company was the first to build a smartphone with an all-metal body, while its inlayed plastic lines for antenna performance were introduced with the One M8 in 2014.

Its all-glass front with curved edges, fingerprint sensor under the home button and bottom-mounted headphones port will all look rather familiar to iPhone 6s users.

Cher Wang, chief executive of HTC said: “HTC is a smartphone pioneer, having delivered the first Android smartphone, the first Windows smartphone, the first 4G smartphone, and the first all-metal smartphone.
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“Today we’re taking that heritage of innovation to the next level, unveiling a phone that stands apart in a market increasingly dominated by a company which controls every aspect of your phone.”

The One A9 contains Qualcomm’s new mid-range Snapdragon 617 processor, 16 or 32GB of storage with a microSD card slot, a 13-megapixel camera and a 5in 1080p AMOLED screen. But the A9 does not include HTC’s characteristic front-facing Boom Sound speakers.

HTC has included a “sensor hub”, similar to that used in Google’s new Nexus smartphones, and the A9 will be one of the first smartphones beyond Google’s to have the new Now on Tap and other Marshmallow features.

After many firsts in the smartphone world and a peak of 11% worldwide market share in 2011, HTC is facing a downward spiral with falling sales and marketshare. This decline recently saw its removal from the Taiwan stock exchange’s blue chip index putting it outside the top 50 biggest companies in its home nation.

The company has been hit hard both by Apple and Samsung, which dominate developed markets such as the UK, as well as fierce competition from Chinese firms such as Xiaomi and Huawei, which partnered with Google to make the Nexus 6P.