The HTC One A9 is what Android needs
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There have been times when all I’ve wanted was an iPhone that shoots RAW photos, or an iPhone with an SD card slot. In a bizarre turn of events, that’s what HTC has created with the One A9.
The iPhone is purpose-built to be the ideal device for almost everyone. Adding a quad-core processor or a camera that shoots RAW would pull the iPhone away from its perfect center. And Apple is trying to do this at price points starting at $649 and still make money. That last part is important.
The A9, too, is an exercise in building within boundaries. None of its specs are top-of-the-line, and yet together they form a cohesive whole. But like the iPhone, HTC is putting as much as it can into a device that will retail for $499 after the promotional period. Sacrifices were made, but they were the right sacrifices.
Sacrifice #1: The Processor
The most notable sacrifice HTC made was to the processor. The A9 uses a Snapdragon 617 that benchmarks at around half the performance of the Snapdragon 810 or the iPhone 6S. But I have a Z5 sitting right next to me — a “flagship” if there ever was one — and it’s notably slower than the A9.
This decision is almost imperceptible to the user, but enables other things like an all-aluminum body and a camera with OIS at the price point HTC is trying to hit.
Sacrifice #2: Memory and Storage
In territories outside of the US the A9 will come with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage for £469.99. If message boards and Twitter are any indication, people in these territories feel like they’re being ripped off, and it’s hard not to agree when a cheaper and more powerful variant is being sold in the US.
But looked at another way, the iPhone 6S (also a device with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage for the base model) costs around £539.00, so the European A9 is still a more affordable alternative.
Sacrifice #3: The Camera
Theoretically the camera is a compromise, but like the processor, it’s not one that contributes meaningfully to the results. The A9 uses an IMX214 sensor — the same as the OnePlus One — so its relatively old. But somehow the images I’ve been getting out of it often beat my Z5 and compare pretty damn well with my iPhone 6S, and I’m not even talking about RAWs.
This, I suspect, comes down to two things: Optical Image Stabilization and attention to the image processing algorithm. I’ve written about the latter before, and HTC seems to have listened.
Personally, I think the camera on the A9 is one of the best this year. It’s true, the iPhone 6S and the Galaxy S6 / Note 5 have the best sensors. But the A9 produces images that are sharp and very well colored. Interestingly, the A9 does a far better job of metering and exposing images than any camera on the market this year. Shadows are dark and pleasantly inky, highlights are just right.
Being able to shoot RAW is important. While the vast majority of people will be more than happy with the JPEGs that the A9 produces, having the RAW images allows you to be creative in ways that you otherwise could not. And more importantly, you can shoot RAW without it being a thing. Just switch to Pro mode, enable RAW, and shoot the way you normally would. You can go back to the 25MB DNGs when you need to, but you can use the JPEGs (which are captured simultaneously) for everything else.
The front-facing camera has the same specs on paper as the Ultrapixel sensor on the front of the A9, but it’s not the same unit. You can see that it’s slightly smaller, and the images I’ve gotten out of it are noticeably less detailed.
Oh, there’s one more thing about the rear camera. The OIS works very well for stabilizing stills, but it’s very shaky in video. The Galaxy S6 has a languid, relaxed OIS that’s smooth and very good for video. The A9’s is not.
The Upside
I’ve mentioned most of the big-ticket items — the processor, memory / storage, and the camera — all of which are less than industry leading. That leaves room for everything else.
Display
Let’s start with the display. It’s a 5-inch AMOLED panel covered in Gorilla Glass 4. The Gorilla Glass is really something; the display is incredibly oleophobic, meaning that finger prints hardly stick to it. The same can not be said for my Z5, which looks like some kind of DNA sample kit.
The display itself is a little warm and could use a little more contrast, which is a strange thing to say about an AMOLED panel. Areas of non-black seem a little washed out, and I suspect that HTC is trying to temper the traditional high saturation of AMOLED displays. It’s plenty sharp, though.
Audio
HTC claims that it’s the only company that really cares about audio, and while that might be a bit of stretch, music through the headset is great. It’s loud and the A9 makes my Apple Earpods sound better than they do on the iPhone. Of course, HTC does supply earbuds with the A9, but like the pack-in buds of any other Android manufacturer, they’re an embarrassment.
Many will lament the loss of front-facing “Boomsound” speakers, but the speaker is fine. It’s as good as anything else, just not super loud like the M7/M8/M9. Frankly I’m glad for that. People who share their music in public over smartphone speakers need better manners.
Build
The “design,” or perhaps “industrial design,” of the M9 was not good. This summer I took my M9 to the beach, and now there’s sand permanently stuck in the front-facing speaker grill. I’ve done the same with iPhones, Xperias, Galaxies, and none of them have sand stuck in them. And that plastic bezel that the screen of the M9 sits in? Not premium. Bad.
This is where the A9 shines. All of the seams and junctures are extremely tight, and the device feels solid. Something I hated about the Xperia Z3 Compact was that you could squeeze it in the middle and the travel was… substantial. The iPhone 6S is the most rigid of all of this year’s aluminum or glass devices, and the A9 feels about 8–9 percent less rigid than that. That’s pretty good.
The buttons are also very good. Both the Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 have mushy, indecisive buttons, but the A9’s have a nice crisp click and moderate wobble.
We need to talk about the camera visor, otherwise known as the camera hump. The internal chamfer was a mistake. It’s the only chamfer on the black model that’s unfinished (silver) and clashes with the A9’s otherwise understated design. If there’s one thing I could change about the A9’s hardware, it would be this.
My only other quibble with the build of the A9 is that the SIM and SD card trays on the left-hand side do not sit flush with the case. They protrude slightly, perhaps only a tenth of a millimeter, and are made of plastic. They’re painted in a way that doesn’t quite match the finish of the aluminum sides, but I think this could be fixed in later production runs. We’ll see.
The A9 is probably the best device HTC has made to date. I have the M9, and I had the M7, and while it’s true that each had faster processors in their time, the A9 is a better, more balanced package.
More Android manufacturers should adopt this strategy. We’ve come to a point of diminishing returns in both processor speed and display resolution, both of which only matter to enthusiasts. Imagine if the only laptops worth buying were ones with i7 processors and 32GB of RAM and 4K displays, where design took a back seat to performance every time. That’s the Android world we live in, and HTC has proven that it doesn’t have to be that way.
The A9 is good. I would recommend it.
