Remember the HTC One A9? A blatant iPhone rip-off that the company launched last year. Even the company’s CEO Cher Wang admitted before the One A9 launch that it’ll be a “great alternative to the iPhone”. Though it wasn’t a success story, primarily let down by its unoriginal design and hefty price tag. Many wondered why would HTC go down this road, considering HTC’s reputation as one of the pioneers when it comes to design and innovation. Now several reports suggest that the next version of the smartphone is in the works. And guess what, it’ll be called the HTC One A9S, suggesting the Taiwanese manufacturer is still smitten with the Apple bug, making one ponder as to why would HTC go down this path again.
Coming to the phone, renders of the HTC One A9S posted by Evan Blass aka @evleaks suggests its design be strikingly similar to its predecessor. It retains the same design barring a few tweaks which makes it even more like an iPhone. Unlike last year’s model, which had its primary camera module in the middle, the One A9S seems to have it more towards the top left edge, just like the camera on the iPhone 6S.
"HTC's iPhone clone is getting a successor, the One A9s" https://t.co/JaLnMT4Vqk pic.twitter.com/gEbYzFByNG
— Ev (@evleaks) August 29, 2016
The smartphone is likely to launch before IFA 2016 which starts September 1 in Germany. And just like its predecessor, the HTC One A9S will be a mid-range device featuring decent, but not a top-of-the-line spec sheet. The smartphone will likely try to attract buyers using its iPhone-like look and feel, instead of performance and features.
HTC One A9S Specs: 5-inch HD display, 5MP front camera
In terms of specs, the phone is expected to feature a 13MP primary camera along with a 5MP front-facing shooter. The HTC One A9S is also expected to feature a 5-inch full HD display. The phone is expected to rock a full metal body, just like the One A9.
Apart from the HTC One A9S, the Taiwanese manufacturer is also expected to release the HTC Desire 10 Pro and the HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle. The former recently showed up in a GFXBench listing, which suggests it’ll feature a 5.1-inch QHD display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor bundled with Adreno 530 GPU, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage.
While the HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle, which is the budget variant of the HTC 10 also appeared on Antutu. As per the listing, the smartphone gets a Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor with Adreno 305 GPU, 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of built-in storage. The smartphone will likely run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out-of-the-box with HTC’s Sense UI on top.
