HTC One A9 vs. iPhone 6S

Ever since the HTC One A9 surfaced there was a lot of discussion going on about its design. Particularly, that the design of the HTC One A9 is quite similar to that of the iPhone 6S. We can’t deny that there is a striking similarity between the two but we won’t judge who copied who. The result is that we now have several models of smartphones that look great. And we don’t have a reason to complain about that. If HTC copied Apple’s iPhone or it was the other way around, we are sure that the two companies will sort that out for themselves. Since they are so similar, we thought it would be a good idea to see if the iPhone 6S could be replaced by the HTC One A9 regarding specs also, not only their design.

HTC One A9

HTC’s Ona A9 model was revealed only a few days back. It has a metal body with rounded edges. On the back panel of the HTC One A9 two antenna lines an be seen, running parallel with the top and the bottom edges of the device. The HTC One A9 comes in Carbon Gray, Opal Silver, Topaz Gold and Deep Garnet, so customers can choose which one they prefer. The HTC One A9 has a 5- inch AMOLED touchscreen. It has full HD resolution with 441 ppi pixel density. For protecting the One A9 from scratches HTC opted for a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protective coating. The HTC One A9 also has a fingerprint sensor below the screen, integrated in the physical home button of the device. 

The HTC One A9 is powered by a Qualcomm MSM8952 Snapdragon 617 chipset. Four cores are clocked at 1.5 GHz while the other four are clocked at 1.2 GHz. As far as graphics go, the HTC One A9 comes with a Adreno 405 GPU. The HTC One A9 can be purchased in two versions. The first one includes 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB internal storage. The other version includes 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. What is great about the HTC One A9 is that both versions have microSD card slots thanks to which storage can be extended by up to 2 TB.

The back camera of the HTC One A9 has a 13 MP sensor that is able to deliver 4128 x 3096 pixels pictures. It features optical image stabilization, autofocus and dual- LED flash. It also offer geo- tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama mode and HDR. The camera of the HTC One A9 will shoot 1080p videos at 30 fps. The secondary camera of the HTC One A9 has a 4 MP sensor with big pixels to let more light in, this way selfies will be more flattering than ever. 

The HTC One A9 runs on the latest Android OS, the Marshmallow. It is one of the first devices to come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. Of course, not being a Google device, it doesn’t run a pure Android Marshmallow. The operating system of the HTC One A9 is overlaid with HTC Sense. Although users won’t get the ultimately pure Android experience, the operating system of the HTC One A9 should be close enough to ensure a great user experience. The battery of the HTC One A9 is a non- removable Li-Ion 2150 mAh one. This is said to ensure up to 16 hours of talk time, 12 hours of HD video playback, or 60 hours of audio playback. Although we’ve seen higher capacity batteries, this is not necessarily a bad battery compared to some of the other recently released smartphones that have even smaller batteries. Of course, a bigger battery would’ve been welcome. It also has Quick Charge 2.0 which will be upgradable to Quick Charge 3.0 so not only will the battery last longer than other devices’ it will also charge faster.

Overall, the HTC One A9 seems to be a more than decent smartphone. It looks good, although it does remind us of the iPhone quite a bit, and it has a quite great spec sheet. It doesn’t have the most powerful processor, but the one it sports should manage to offer exactly what users need. It seems to be a good and reliable smartphone and it is available for £429.99 (or US$399 with 32GB and 3GB of RAM). This is more affordable than its biggest competitor, the iPhone 6S.

• CPU – Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53/Qualcomm MSM8952 Snapdragon 617
• GPU – Adreno 405
• DISPLAY – Corning Gorilla Glass 4, 5.0 inches, AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors,1080 x 1920 pixels (~441 ppi pixel density)
• MEMORY – 16 GB, 2 GB RAM; 32 GB, 3 GB RAM; microSD card slot, up to 2 TB
• BATTERY – Non-removable Li-Ion 2150 mAh battery
• CAMERA –13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash;Secondary camera 4 MP, 1080p
• VIDEO – 1080p@30fps
• BODY – 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3 mm (5.74 x 2.79 x 0.29 in)
• WEIGHT – 143 g (5.04 oz)
• WIRELESS – Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot

iPhone 6S

The iPhone 6S, just like the HTC One A9, has a metal unibody with two antenna stripes on the back panel. It has rounded edges and a physical home button with an integrated fingerprint sensor on the front of the device. It comes in Space Gray, Silver, Gold and Rose Gold, for everyone to find the one they like. Its display is slightly smaller than the HTC One A9’s. The iPhone 6S features a 4.7- inch display while the HTC has a 5- inch display. The display of the iPhone 6S is a LED-backlit IPS LCD, with 750 x 1334 pixels resolution and ~326 ppi pixel density. It is lower resolution than the HTC One A9’s and it also offers lower pixel density, but the truth is that people won’t really be able to notice the difference between the two with the naked eye. Still, the difference is there and it might count when users decide which one to purchase. One great feature of the iPhone 6S over the HTC One A9 is the 3D Touch. Due to this little feature the display will respond differently to different levels of pressure. 

The iPhone 6S is powered by an Apple A9 chipset with a dual- core 1.84 GHz Twister processor. Although it doesn’t sound at all impressive next to the octa- core processor of the HTC One A9, the iPhone’s processor is actually pretty fast and gets the job done. The graphics card of the iPhone 6S is a PowerVR GT7600 (six-core graphics) that is said to work great. The iPhone 6S includes only 2 GB of RAM, no matter which storage option users will go for. Customers can opt for 16 GB , 64 GB or 128 GB of internal storage. They have to choose wisely though, because it is not further extendable, like the storage of the HTC One A9.

The camera of the iPhone 6S seems to be a little weaker than the one of the HTC One A9. It only has a 12 MP sensor compared to the 13 MP sensor of the HTC One A9. Even so, the camera of the iPhone 6S will deliver great quality pictures. It doesn’t have optical image stabilization, but it does have phase detection autofocus and dual- LED flash, just like the HTC One A9. Apart from the usual geo- tagging, face detection, panorama mode, HDR and touch focus, the iPhone 6S also allows simultaneous 4K video and 8MP image recording, which was not the case with the HTC One A9. The camera of the iPhone 6S is also better in the video section, being able to record 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps,1080p@120fps and 720p@240fps videos. The secondary camera of the iPhone 6S has a 5 MP sensor, which is better than the one featured by the HTC One A9.

The iPhone 6S of course runs on Apple’s iOS 9 which was also recently released, just like the Android Marshmallow. It is a great operating system with a lot of features to offer. Since the two operating systems are so different from one another, it really depends on which one users prefer. We can’t really say that one or the other are better. If you prefer the Android OS, go for the HTC One A9, if you are an iOS fan, you will surely opt for the iPhone 6S. If this can’t help you choose, maybe the battery will. The iPhone 6S comes with a smaller battery than that of the HTC One A9. Lacking the Doze feature offered by Android Marshmallow, the iPhone 6S’s battery surely won’t last as long as the HTC One A9’s will. Actually, the iPhone 6S has stats of 14 hours talk time, 11 hours of HD video, or 50 hours of audio. These are considerably lower than those of the HTC One A9 presented above. But so is the 1715 mAh battery capacity compared to the 2150 mAh of the HTC One A9.

The iPhone 6S is without a doubt a great device. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t be considered to be weaker than an Android device. Or less affordable. The £539/$649 starting price of the iPhone 6S definitely doesn’t make it an affordable smartphone. The question is whether its features are worth this kind of a sum.

• CPU – Dual-core 1.84 GHz Twister/Apple A9
• GPU – PowerVR GT7600 (six-core graphics)
• DISPLAY – Ion-strengthened glass, oleophobic coating, 4.7 inches,LED-backlit IPS LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, 750 x 1334 pixels (~326 ppi pixel density), Force Touch display, Display Zoom
• MEMORY – 16/64/128 GB, 2 GB RAM
• BATTERY – Non-removable Li-Po 1715 mAh battery
• CAMERA –12 MP, 4032 x 3024 pixels, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash; 5 MP, 1080p@30fps, 720p@240fps, face detection, HDR, panorama
• VIDEO – 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps,1080p@120fps, 720p@240fps
• BODY – 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in)
• WEIGHT – 143 g (5.04 oz)
• WIRELESS – Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, hotspot

 

Conclusion

We don’t know who copied who, but it is certain that design- wise there is a striking similarity between the two devices. Fortunately, this makes both of them quite attractive. Now we have two models that look great instead of one. Apart from the design there aren’t that many similarities between the HTC One A9 and the iPhone 6S. They both have powerful processor, but different makes and kinds. Their graphics units are also both good, but also very different. There is also the different operating systems which don’t really allow us to make a fair comparison between them. The price of the two devices might be an objective reason why you should choose the HTC One A9 over the iPhone 6S. Otherwise, you can only choose between the two based on personal preferences regarding operating systems and whether you are an Apple fan or not.