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Reviews<br />
Geekbench 3<br />
GFXBench Manhattan<br />
GFXBench T-Rex<br />
4.1 with aptX and 4G LTE support<br />
– exactly what we’d expect for a<br />
phone this expensive. Wireless<br />
charging would be nice, though.<br />
Cameras<br />
On the front, the A9 has the same<br />
UltraPixel camera as the M9. This<br />
is pretty good, but by no means the<br />
best. The rear camera is a 13Mp Sony<br />
sensor with a dual-tone LED flash.<br />
Image quality is very good (see<br />
our test shot above) and a bonus is<br />
that the One A9 offers optical image<br />
stabilisation, an aperture of f/2.0<br />
and support for shooting in Raw.<br />
Once again, the problem here is that<br />
you can get phones with similarly<br />
decent cameras for a lot less. HTC<br />
touts hyperlapse video (timelapse)<br />
as a key feature that can be applied<br />
to any video in your library.<br />
Software<br />
Coming later in the year than other<br />
smartphones has an advantage – the<br />
One A9 comes with Android 6.0<br />
Marshmallow, making it the first<br />
non-Nexus device to do so.<br />
It’s a very different experience<br />
to a Nexus device, though, as the<br />
phone also comes with HTC’s Sense<br />
user interface. This isn’t a bad thing<br />
and existing HTC users might not<br />
want it any other way. We’ve all<br />
got our favourite Android skins.<br />
That said, HTC uses stock Android<br />
elements, such as the drop-down<br />
notification bar, including quick<br />
settings, and the card Rolodex-style<br />
recent apps, so Sense is closer to<br />
stock Android than previously.<br />
Running Marshmallow also<br />
offers other advantages, such as<br />
‘adoptable storage’, which means<br />
the SD card can be viewed as<br />
internal storage. There’s also Doze<br />
mode, which improves standby<br />
battery life, and Now on Tap for<br />
quickly accessing Google Now.<br />
Sense looks stylish on the<br />
One A9 and you’ll get the same<br />
experience as you will on an M9,<br />
with features such as Themes;<br />
Sense Home, a widget that displays<br />
different app icons; as well as<br />
suggestions, based on where you<br />
are. BlinkFeed and Zoe are still<br />
key parts of the system.<br />
Verdict<br />
We prefer the design of the One A9<br />
to that of the flagship One M9 and<br />
it does have a decent fingerprint<br />
scanner. These are not, however,<br />
SunSpider*<br />
* lower is better<br />
enough to justify buying it instead<br />
of its bigger brother or various even<br />
cheaper Android rivals. HTC has<br />
made a nice phone, but its price tag<br />
is too high. J Chris Martin<br />
February 2016 www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews 47
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