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HTC One A9 smartphone priced at $400 was launched this week. This is the HTC Corp's new flagship smartphone and is an attempt by it to take on Apple’s latest iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Here we take a look, in 9 slides that follow, at what the HTC One A9 is all about and what its prospects are:
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1. The HTC One A9 has a 13-megapixel camera, and is the first non-Nexus phone to use Google’s newest operating system. In fact, the HTC One A9 is a combination of sleek design packed with the latest Android Marshmallow software. The phone is the first outside of Google’s own Nexus line to feature that company’s Marshmallow OS at launch. The A9 will go on sale globally next month (early November), but is available for pre-order – US preorders for silver and gray phones are now being taken through HTC’s website for $400.
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2. The HTC One A9 smartphone offers an all-metal and glass design with smooth curves. In addition to the traditional smartphone colors of gray, sliver and gold, it also comes in garnet red.
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3. The HTC One A9 is the first regular-sized smartphone by the company to have a fingerprint sensor – a feature already standard on phones made my larger rivals Apple and Samsung.
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4. The homegrown Taiwanese brand, once a star of the smartphone sector, is suffering losses as it grapples with intense competition from Samsung, Apple and rising Chinese brands and is looking at teh HTC A9 as a saviour of sorts.
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5. The HTC One A9 will lift revenue in the fourth quarter as vendors start stocking the product, but consumers will not necessarily follow, said analyst Calvin Huang of Sinopac Financial Holdings Co. “It may attract those who can’t afford the iPhone but there are a lot of better phones as well on the market at cheaper prices,” he told AFP.
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6. “The smartphone market is getting increasingly crowded. I don’t see any hope for a turnaround.” Observers have taken to social media to note how similar HTC One A9’s appearance is to Apple’s iPhone 6s, some calling it a “clone.”
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7. “(We’re) unveiling a phone that stands apart in a market increasingly dominated by a company which controls every aspect of your phone,” HTC’s CEO Cher Wang said in a statement.
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8. With the HTC One A9, the Taiwanese company is directly challenging Apple’s dominance, marketing the HTC One A9 as a bridge between the iPhone and other Android devices that are not user-friendly.
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9. “The product and price is pretty good, but the market is crowded with tons of product,” said Richard Ko, an analyst for KGI Securities. “Are the HTC One A9's differences going to get people to choose it? That’s uncertain.”
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10. If the HTC One A9's colours are not attractive enough for you, then wait a while as the company has promised to deliver the smartphone in other hues too and make them available within weeks.
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