HTC One A9 review: A once flagship phone for just £200

HTC One A9 review: Gaming performance

Gaming performance is also a little lacklustre for a handset of this price, as it only managed an offscreen Manhattan test score of 411 frames in GFX Bench GL, which equates to roughly 6.6fps. Again, this is by no means bad, but compared to the S6’s 923 frames (or 15fps), complex 3D games like Hearthstone aren’t quite as smooth as they could be. It’s only minor, but I did notice a few stuttering animations when new cards were being played on the One A9, which is a bit disappointing considering how expensive it is. Simpler games such as Threes! and Alphabear worked perfectly fine though, so it’s unlikely you’ll notice any difference to other flagships here unless you’re playing lots of 3D games.

I wasn’t too impressed by its Peacekeeper web browsing score of 793 either, as this falls quite a way behind other handsets in this kind of price range. Even the 3rd Gen Moto G, for example, can manage 731, while the Galaxy S6 is way out in front with 1,257. As a result, web pages can be a little jerky at times, particularly if there are lots of images or embedded videos present. It stumbled a few times while scrolling down the Guardian, for instance, but on the whole it’s not too much of a nuisance.

Battery life is also a little underwhelming, but at least the One A9 manages to scrape into double figures this time, as its 2,150mAh battery lasted 10h 02m in our continuous video playback test with the screen set to 170cd/m2. This beats the One M9 by 45 minutes, but it’s still some way behind other flagships such as the LG G4, which lasts just under 12 hours, and the Galaxy S6 which stretches just past 13 and a half hours. It certainly doesn’t match the 12 hours of video playback HTC promised, but it should still be enough to get you through the day.

HTC One A9 review: Camera

Thankfully, HTC’s claims about the A9’s improved rear camera hold a lot more truth, as the effort it’s put in to improving both the sensor and the interface this time round pay huge dividends. Despite only having a 13-megapixel sensor (down from the M9‘s 20-megapixel snapper), its overall photo quality is much higher. Colours are rich and accurate and the exposure levels are vastly superior to those on the M9. Photos are still perhaps a fraction dark in places, but switching on HDR quickly sorts this out.

Indoor photos looked great, too. Object edges could be a tad grainy and over-processed at times, but colours looked nice and punchy there was plenty of contrast on show. Low lighting conditions were noticeably noisier, but colours still looked bright and vibrant. The only major disappointment was the flash, as this had a tendency to turn images rather green.

HTC’s redesigned interface makes the camera much easier to use, too, as HDR is now included as an onscreen shortcut on the main screen and switching between the rear and front-facing 4-megapixel Ultrapixel sensor (the same as on the One M9) camera is quick and simple. HTC has also included several other features such as hyper-lapse and slow-mo videos, RAW capture and auto RAW processing, optical image stabilisation and Zoe highlights, the latter of which captures three second clips – think Apple’s Live Photos – or a burst of three stills. There’s also a Pro camera mode which gives you full control over the white balance, exposure, ISO, aperture and focus level.

I’ll be testing these modes more thoroughly in the coming weeks, but the RAW processing feature is something of a disappointment. It’s great to have the opportunity to do this on the device itself, but you don’t actually have any control over how it’s processed, so those who really want to fine-tune their pictures will probably still want to tinker about with them on their PC. Still, it’s a nice extra, and the Zoe highlights feature also does a much better job of capturing short video moments than Live Photos on the iPhone 6S. For a start, you actually get some visual feedback on when the video is being captured, but it’s a shame you can’t select your own stills when you switch to Zoe’s burst mode.

HTC One A9 review: Fingerprint sensor

HTC has also included a fingerprint sensor on the One A9 for use with Android Pay. This is located at the bottom of the handset underneath the display. While it can be configured to act as a physical home button, the back and recent apps buttons are still relegated to onscreen controls, as HTC believes this offers the best user experience. While it would be nice to have to the option of using dedicated buttons, there’s no denying that the fingerprint sensor works beautifully.

You don’t even have to tap the sensor in order to wake the phone either, as it will unlock the phone from sleep mode as soon as you touch it with your thumb, making it much more convenient than the fingerprint sensors on the Galaxy S6 and Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact. I also didn’t have to deliberately place my thumb over it vertically either, as it worked just as well when I positioned it across the sensor horizontally as well, giving it a serious advantage over Samsung’s Galaxy S6 sensor in particular.

If you’d rather not use the fingerprint sensor to turn on and unlock the One A9, the grooved power button is another great touch in the One A9’s design. It sits at just the right height for your thumb and its machined finish makes it very easy to find by touch alone. On the other side of the phone, you’ll find a microSD card slot to expand the phone’s default 16GB of internal storage.