Lots of community developers on XDA are working to get Android 6.0 ported over to as many devices as possible. Today we have learned that the team behind AOSParadox is finally confident enough to release their work. There are a couple of bugs, like WiFi causing a reboot, but the developers are continuing to squash these bugs as quickly as possible.
Motorola has been releasing the kernel source code for a number of their devices lately. The Moto Maxx is the latest addition to the family, so for developers, this means that they can start tinkering with their own custom ROM and/or kernel for the device. For users, this means that some custom ROMs and/or kernels could be headed their way.
Google Photos was launched just 5 months ago and today the company has reached a new milestone.Over 100 million people use Google Photos every single month and that number is growing by the day. To celebrate this event, the company gives us a list of 11 interesting factoids about the service and what types of photos are being uploaded.
BlackBerry says the PRIV will combine the most secure mobile platform with the most flexible application ecosystem. Today, the company published a new blog post that details exactly what is being done to make their upcoming Android smartphone as secure as they can make it.
The latest HTC One phone is here, this time focusing on getting an “A” in the design department. With a rather derivative look and modest specifications, can this $400 phone be the Hero HTC necessarily doesn’t deserve, but the One it needs? Let us know your thoughts on the A9!
The HTC One A9, at first glance, looks like an iPhone. Specifically speaking, the back of the HTC One A9 bears uncanny resemblance to the iPhone 6’s back. Now, HTC greatly emphasized that the design of the A9 is evolutionary, as it borrows the “signature design language of the HTC One family” and builds upon the original HTC One M7’s full metallic unibody design. But there’s still no denying that the one can confuse the One A9 with the iPhone 6 rather than with the One M7. Design-wise, the phone features a thin metal frame with pleasing curves on the sides, but a rather flat back which is unusual to HTC devices as they tend to sport gentle curves on the back.On the front, you’ll find a deep-set capsule-shaped fingerprint sensor, but not the much-acclaimed front facing stereo speakers as the single speaker grille has now made its way to the bottom of the device.
Moving on to specifications, the HTC One A9 sports a 5″ FHD AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4, which coupled with what HTC claims to be an edge-to-edge display (although it’s clearly not), should make for a decent sized phone. For the processor, the phone rocks a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor, with four Cortex A-53’s clocked at 1.5GHz and another four clocked at 1.2GHz. This is accompanied by Adreno 405 in the GPU department. The RAM of the device varies depending on the storage option, with the 16GB internal memory variant coming with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM and the 32GB storage variant getting a bump to 3GB of RAM. There is also micro-sd card expansion, which is a good addition to see these days, especially in phones that follow the metallic unibody design language. The phone comes with a 2,150 mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0 support out of the box, with Quick Charge 3.0 also supported, making the device a bit more relevant for the future. The standard edition of the device comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow (and HTC Sense) out of the box, making it the first device from a major manufacturer outside of Nexus to do so.
HTC’s decision to give stereo speakers a bottom stage may disappoint the fans that it made for its prominent front-facing speakers from the M lineup. However, HTC has improved upon personal audio experiences with an improved audio jack, which now features an increased output of 1V. With the other improvements in place, the sound output from the headphone jack should now have higher fidelity and better stereo separation, all of which should finally do justice to good earphones/headphones.
The HTC One A9 comes in four colors: Carbon Grey, Deep Garnet, Opal Silver and Topaz Gold. Three of these are available for pre-order in the USA starting today, for $399.99 for the base 2GB|16GB variant unlocked variant. Global availability is scheduled for first week of November, with more news on this front expected to come soon.
All in all, the HTC One A9 does seem like a very decent mid-ranger. It may not pack in the best of the specs, nor offer the offer the best bang out of buck. It does however, provide a different product for HTC fans and a another device to bank on for HTC.
Does the phone fit into your criterion of a good phone? Let us know your thoughts below or in our discussion!
