HTC One X9 hands-on and first impressions

HTC first announced its new One X9 smartphone for China back in December, with no word given regarding plans to bring the device to any other parts of the world. Now here at MWC 2016, alongside three other Desire mid-range handsets, HTChas announced a new global version of the One X9. This is an interesting new device from the company, so we wanted to get a first hand look at what it brings to the table. Here is our quick look at the HTCOne X9.

The HTCOne X9 and One A9 are very closely related, though you wouldn’t be able to tell by just looking at the way the two handsets are designed. The One A9 was heavily criticized (and rightfully so) for looking a little too much like the iPhone 6, but the X9 tries to stay away from that comparison a bit. The X9 features a curvy metal chassis that feels quite nice in the hand. It’s a little difficult to hold in one hand thanks to its large 5.5-inch display, and that’s not helped by the fact that the X9 sports big front-facing BoomSound speakers on the top and bottom of the display. The speakers do look a little different from what’s normally found on HTC’s One M line, but all in all, they still sound great, and we’re happy to see them make their triumphant return.

BoomSound isn’t the only feature that’s making a return – HTCincluded capacitive home, recent apps and back keys on the One X9. We’re not entirely sure why the company brought back this feature, though the switch does free up some extra room on the display, which is a plus.

The One X9 sports a 5.5-inch Full HD Super LCD display, which is very bright and offers up some impressive color saturation. It’s not the most high resolution display out there, though it should be large enough to perform all the multimedia tasks you throw at it. HTC also decided to include expandable storage up to 200GB on the X9, which adds to the 32GB of internal memory. This, combined with a microSD card, should definitely be enough space to store all types of media on the device.

It’s powered by the octa-core MediaTek Helio X10 processor backed by 3GB of RAM, which also means it comes with a PowerVR G6200 graphics processor. It’s been plenty snappy in our brief hands-on time with the device, but we’ll need to wait to spend some more time with it to tell you our full thoughts on its performance.

Moving around back the One X9 sports a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture. This is a similar camera sensor to the one found on the One A9, though HTCsays it’s been largely improved this time around. The camera app itself is the same one we’ve seen on most other recent HTChandsets, which is definitely a plus. It’s very easy to navigate and makes switching to different modes a breeze.

The One X9 runs HTC’s Sense UI atop Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This is essentially the same UI we saw on the A9, and HTCsays it’s trying to streamline its software experience throughout all of its One series phones.

There are no pricing or exact availability details as of yet, but we’ll be sure to update you as we learn more. What are your thoughts? Could this be your next phone? Let us know what you think in the comments!