HTC One A9s: still looks like an iPhone but dials down the specs

Hey, I thought the new iPhone wasn’t being announced until next week?!

Ha, you’re making a funny, my friend – you well know that this is actually an HTC phone that just happens to look almost exactly the same as an iPhone 6s. By sheer chance. Honestly. HTC had no intention of making this phone strongly resemble the most popular flagship phone on the planet.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour…

Actually, that would be puns – but I take your point. Anyway, we get it, HTC: with 2015’s One A9, you created a phone that would appeal to Android users that appreciate Apple design. And now you’ve updated said phone with an “S” version. Just like Apple does!

What are the differences?

The A9s actually dials down the specs a bit in some cases. The 5in screen has a 720p resolution, for instance, while the One A9’s was 1080p. There’s a MediaTek Helio P10 octa-core processor, 2GB or 3GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of expandable storage. Just as with the A9, the main camera is a 13MP number, but the front-facer gets a small resolution update to 5MP from 4MP. The battery capacity also gets a slight boost, going from 2150mAh to 2300mAh which, along with the lower screen resolution should, in theory, make stamina a bit stronger.

But overall there doesn’t seem much to get excited about – this is a solid mid-range Android smartphone that just happens to look a bit nicer than most.

Like an iPhone, you mean?

Back to that again? Well, it actually looks more iPhone-like than the A9, because now the rear camera and flash are off-centre, just like on Apple’s device. 
As for a price and release date, HTC has so far simply said that the One A9s will be released in the UK later this year, and that it’ll be cheaper than the One A9 was at launch (which was £430).