HTC One A9 with metal body, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, fingerprint sensor goes official

HTC has announced the One A9 smartphone with balanced mid-level specs wrapped in a aluminum bodied smartphone. The front side is entirely shielded by 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4 and the back is slightly arched towards its end for easier grip.

The One A9 looks lot like the iPhone 6, the overall shape, antenna lines, camera design, smooth glass edges, LED flash design, the single bottom facing speaker and port placements.

The HTC One A9 features 5-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Inside there is an octa-core Snapdragon 617 64-bit processor with Adreno 405 GPU. It comes in two RAM/ROM variants- 2GB RAM w/ 16GB inbuilt storage and 3GB RAM w/ 32GB inbuilt storage. There is also a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

It is equipped with 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, BSI sensor, Optical Image Stabilization, phase-detection auto-focus that improves camera's forcus, and f/2.0 aperture. On the front there is an Ultrapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture. Both rear and front camera can record 1080p videos.

The One A9 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with HTC Sense UI on top. HTC says that the One A9 will receive Android updates just within 15 days after a Google Nexus gets it. On the connectivity front it supports 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS. It is fueled by 2150mAh battery. The One A9 supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. 

There is also a finger print sensor below the display, which even works when the display is off, and now has a bottom mounted speaker with built-in DAC that delivers 192kHz / 24bit studio-quality audio. (The front facing BoomSound speakers are gone)

However, HTC's popular BoomSound is present on the One A9. It is incorporated with the headset that comes with the phone, combined with Dolby Audio surround tech. 

The device  measures 145.75 x 70.8 x 7.26mm, weighs 143g and comes in Carbon Gray, Opal Silver, Topaz Gold and Deep Garnet colors.  

Priced at $399.99 (in the U.S) for the 3GB RAM w/ 32GB storage model the HTC One A9 will roll out globally starting first week of November. Pricing will be announced locally during the launch. HTC will sell the unlocked version of the smartphone in the U.S and will let you unlock the boot-loader without making the warranty void.

HTC is offering 6 months of free Google Music subscription. In addition customers who purchase the handset from HTC.com will get 1 year protection under the UH OH program that will let you replace the phone, if it is damaged in the first 365 days.