Is This What HTC Will Be Showing Howard Today?

[acurrie]

Today at lunchtime I'll be tagging along with Howard to an HTC event in downtown Toronto. The timing is curious, as HTC has scheduled a big launch of something next Tuesday, October 20th in New York City. That something is widely expected to be the HTC One A9, a new flagship once thought to be targeted solely for the Chinese market, to woo would-be iPhone users there.

Thanks to a premature listing by Orange France (since removed) we now have some official images of the device—like the one you see here—along with a price: 599.90€, which at today's rates is equal to about $686 USD or almost $884 CAD.

Unfortunately Orange didn't leak any specs, which are rumoured to be as follows:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 617
  
• 5 inch, 1080p AMOLED display
  
• 16GB internal storage with micro SD card slot
  
• 2GB RAM
  
• 4MP (UltraPixel) front-facing camera
  
• 13MP rear camera with OIS
  
• Fingerprint reader
  
• Metal build ~7mm thin
  
• 6 available colors

So why post about this now instead of after today's meeting with HTC? If they are indeed showing us their new flagship and its official launch isn't until next week, then I've a sneaking suspicion that we'll be signing a non-disclosure agreement with a press embargo until launch. If HTC doesn't end up showing us their new One A9 today, I'll be sure to let you know...

Source: Phandroid

[Breaking Good]

I'm a big fan of HTC. My personal phone is an HTC M8 that I really like.

With that said, I really hope this isn't their idea of a flagship device. An iPhone-like device at an iPhone-like price that isn't an iPhone.

I realize it has an SD card slot. But I cannot understand why they would release a "flagship" Android device with only 16GB of onboard memory in this day and age.

I just cannot see this selling in enough numbers to sustain HTC. As great a device as this may be. There is just too much competition now in the smartphone market.

[Samshares]

Only if companies learned that you cannot simply woo consumers with hardware only....software also needs to be there, and these manufacturer's need to take that part seriously and invest in creating amazing software to go along with their hardware.

Rather than spending countless amount of money bashing other companies especially Apple via advertisements and replicating their look of the device and then dealing with courts , they should spend that money on real R&D and come out with truly something new.

Its gotten to the point where I don't even look at Android device makers anymore, just doesn't excited me, its the same thing over and over and over, be it with HTC, Samsung, LG etc. Yes its the same with iPhone as well, over and over and over but iPhone shows significant hardware internally and software improvements each year and it may just be because Apple decides to keep some goodies in the bag for next year and I'm totally fine with that, rather than have it all today and nothing new tomorrow and trying to change the world...just doesn't flow...

[SillyBearito]

If that's the true price, then it's absurd for the specs.

[EdwardSmith36]

Price is really so high, it may affect the selling rate & pull down the ratio with a highest number.