The One A9 vs. the iPhone 6S
So how similar does the A9 look to the iPhone 6S? Very. The A9 is darker than the Space Gray iPhone, more graphite than gray, but they share a brushed aluminum finish and rounded edges at the backs and corner. They also share antenna bands on the back. The A9 is 5.75 in. long, 2.75 in. wide, and 0.3 in. thick; that's 0.3 in. longer and 0.1 in. wider than an iPhone 6S. At 5.0 oz., the weight is identical. The A9's main camera, flash and secondary mic are in the middle of the back, unlike the iPhone, which has them in the upper left corner.
On the front, the glass of both phones goes all the way to the edges. The A9's earpiece slit is longer than the iPhone's, the fingerprint sensor is oblong instead of round, and the screen is 5 in. diagonal, rather than the iPhone's 4.7 in. HTC put the volume rockers on the right side of the phone with the power switch, and textured the power switch so you can find it easily. The drawers for the micro-SIM and a microSD card are along the left edge. The A9 charges through a micro-USB socket; no USB-C here.
Where HTC is unchanged is in its attention to multimedia. It was among the first to adopt AMOLED screens, and one of the reasons its phones were so bulky was because the company built in acoustic spaces for its speakers. The A9's AMOLED screen -- as sharp as one expects from HTC -- is full high-def (1080p) with an "optimized" color space, though you can dial the saturation back to sRGB if you are so moved. And although the company swapped acoustics for svelte-ness -- sound now fires through a single speaker along the bottom edge -- audio quality is not ignored.
The A9 can handle pretty much any sound format file you can throw at it, up to and including .OGG, .MID and FLAC files. When you use headphones, there's a "BoomSound" setting with Dolby Audio that you'll want to leave enabled; it produces a nice roundness and bass emphasis that doesn't overpower the music. It helps music that's stored on the phone, as well as streamed music from Spotify and the higher-quality Deezer. (However, the built-in speaker is nothing to write home about.)
Photographers will like the A9, too. The 13-megapixel main camera can record at 1080p, and can store in either JPEG or RAW format. There are easily accessible "pro" controls that let you play with white balance, exposure level, ISO, shutter speed and macro magnification. The expected panorama, slo-mo and hyperlapse modes are there and simple to use; so is a selfie mode with controls that include "autoselfie" and "voice selfie." Say "cheese" or "capture," and the deed is done.
The fingerprint scanner can hold up to five prints; it seems accurate and is quick to respond. I vastly prefer it over PINs (although there is a backup PIN required in case something goes south with the scanner) and especially the awful facial recognition in earlier Android versions.
The battery is a comparatively small at 2150mAh, but it supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge standard (version 2.0 for now; 3.0 will come with a future software update). Claimed 3G talk time is up to 16 hours; claimed HD video playback time is up to 12 hours; claimed standby time is 18 days. I didn't have time to test those, but experience has shown a mountain of salt is appropriate for manufacturer battery claims. I got about two days of life during my tests, which were not focused on power savings. If you want to know if you can get through a full day on a single charge, the answer is: No worries.
Of course, the phone is also a phone, and a good one. It supports Wi-Fi Calling, which lets you route calls over known Wi-Fi networks rather than the cellular network. Of course, the quality of the call will vary depending on the quality of your Wi-Fi network, and it's a good bet that whoever provides your Wi-Fi doesn't pay as much attention to its network as a cell carrier does. My anecdotal tests indicated that Wi-Fi calls don't sound as good as calls on the cell network, but my tests were anything but rigorous or controlled.
That said, there are large swaths of the world where cellular minutes and data are precious and Wi-Fi isn't; for those people, Wi-Fi Calling would be an important feature.
Bottom line
If you're suffering from iPhone envy but are tied to the Android world (and want to save $150 besides), the HTC One A9 is your ride. But even if you couldn't care less about Apple, you'll still want to lay hands on this phone, which has put HTC back in the first rank of Android devices.
