The HTC One A9 was a wonderful mid-range premium handset when it launched late last year, and we thought it was the Taiwanese manufacturer's best smartphone yet. It looks as though HTC are now capitalising on this success, with a new model that looks like it will be much cheaper.
The stripped-down model of the HTC One A9 – the aptly titled One A9s – was officially unveiled at IFA 2016. It’s not an upgrade to the previous version – in fact, the A9s is something of a bit of a downgrade, and will likely fetch a much lower price.
There’s quite a bit that’s different this time around too, even if it retains the same stunning all-metal body and Gorilla Glass screen. It’s still got a 5in display, but the resolution has been bumped from Full HD down to 720p. It’s also not an AMOLED screen anymore, either, with HTC opting for Super LCD this time.
Internally, the processing chip has also seen a bit of a shake-up, now sporting an octa-core MediaTek A53 processor and either 2GB or 3GB of RAM depending on the storage option you go for; either 16GB or 32GB if you’re wondering. There’s also a bigger 2,300mAh battery on the inside, so hopefully battery life will be improved from the original A9.
There's still a 13-megapixel camera, but there’s no image stabilisation and there’s a much narrower aperture too. You’ve now got a 5-megapixel camera on the front, up from the 4-megapixel camera in the earlier model.
The pretty useful fingerprint scanner still makes an appearance for security-minded folk, and you’ve still got 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 for connectivity while running the latest version of Android Marshmallow.
The HTC One A9s is expected to launch sometime in October this year, around about the same time as the A9’s first birthday. Considering the HTC One A9 first launched at £470, we can expect the A9s to be priced much cheaper, thanks to the pretty obvious downgrades in both the display and processing power. An educated guess would put the basic model at just below the £250 mark or thereabouts.
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