The HTC One A9, the first non-Nexus smartphone to run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has made its way to the Indian market a month after its debut in the US. Launched exclusively on retailer Snapdeal, the One A9 is priced at Rs. 29,990 and will go up for pre-order at 9 AM tomorrow, followed by regular availability from December 15th. The country will reportedly be getting the model with 32GB of internal storage and 3GB of RAM, though neither Snapdeal nor HTC’s site make this clear. As for the rest of the specs, the One A9 features a 5-inch Full HD AMOLED display, the octa-core Snapdragon 617 chipset, a 13-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization and phase detection autofocus, an UltraPixel front-facing camera, and LTE connectivity. Unlike most mid-range HTC phones in recent times, the One A9 only has a single loudspeaker, but it does come with high-res audio and Dolby Surround Sound support for headphones. The battery is a measly 2,150 mAh unit; there’s Quick Charge 2.0 support out of the box, with a software update to bump it up to Quick Charge 3.0. The phone runs Android 6.0 out of the box, with HTC’s Sense UI on top. For the asking price, HTC might not see high demand for the One A9 in India, though the iPhone-like design is bound to attract consumers. The Nexus 5X is selling for a lower price in the country at the moment, and HTC will also have to contend with devices like the OnePlus 2 or even the Samsung Galaxy A8 in the country’s extremely competitive smartphone market.
