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

HTC One A9 review: Android Marshmallow & Sense 7

One thing you don’t have to worry about is waiting to upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow, as the One A9 is one of the first smartphones outside of Google’s own Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P devices to come with Marshmallow straight out of the box. It still uses HTC’s excellent Sense 7 interface for the main homepage and Settings menu, but you’ll still find glimpses of stock Marshmallow in the drop-down notification menu and the volume settings.

I’m a big fan of HTC’s Sense 7 UI, as it’s by far one of the most personal versions of Android I’ve seen yet. The Theme Generator, for instance, will let you revamp the entire handset right down to your app icons, sounds, fonts and caller ID logo if you so wish. A handful of themes come pre-installed, but you can download more or even make your own using images in your gallery to define the look of the phone. It works by analysing the colours present in your chosen wallpaper and then suggests different tones and colour combinations for your home screen, Blinkfeed hub and settings menu, which you can then tweak to your liking. It works exceedingly well, and even photos I took that had only a few main colours present still gave me plenty of options to choose from.

Sense Home is another useful feature, as this learns which apps you use most in certain locations, such as home, work or on the move, and automatically promotes them to your main homescreen when you need them. For instance, it will show Mail, Google Drive, Calendar and HTC’s note-taking Scribble apps when I’m in the office, but swap those for Google Maps and HTC’s Music and Car apps when I’m on my way home. Similarly, if you’re near certain landmarks, such as a station, Sense Home can also suggest relevant apps such as train timetables or route planners in its Suggestion folder.

You can still pin apps to the home screen so they don’t get lost, but it should help reduce the amount of app clutter on your various home screens. Taken together, it’s a great improvement on Sense 6, and is a real asset to the handset as a whole.

HTC One A9 review: Verdict

Taken together, the HTC One A9 is the phone the One M9 should have been from the start, and it’s easily my favourite HTC handset to date. Sense 7 is a fantastic interface and the A9’s beautiful design makes it by far one of the most pleasing and attractive smartphones I’ve reviewed in some time.

The only real sticking point is the price. At £470-420 SIM-free it’s up against the now hugely competitive Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G4 and Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, all of which are faster and have better battery lives. In this light, it’s not particularly good value, but that doesn’t stop me liking it any less. It’s definitely a better buy than the One M9, but it doesn’t do quite enough to make the big leagues.