If you don’t mind using a flagship grade plastic phone, and save a few bucks while at it, HTC has launched One E9+ with top notch hardware for an undisclosed price today. The handset was first announced for China and is running MediaTek’s high end MT6795M octa core SoC, similar to One M9+. Here are our first impressions.
HTC One E9 Plus Quick Specs
- Display Size: 5.5 Inch Quad HJD 2K IPS LCD, Corning Gorilla Glass 4
- Processor: 2.0 GHz MediaTek Helio X10 (MT6795M) Octa-Core 64-bit (Cortex A53) processor with PowerVR G6200 GPU
- RAM: 3 GB
- Software Version: Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC Sense 7.0 on top
- Camera: 20 MP rear camera, 4K video recording
- Secondary Camera: 4 MP Ultra pixel
- Internal Storage: 32 GB
- External Storage: MicroSD support up to 128 GB
- Battery: 2840 mAh
- Connectivity: 4G LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, aGPS, GLONASS, NFC, IR Blaster, Fingerprint sensor
Design, Display and Build
Though, made of plastic, the handset is every bit as premium. It is quite slim at 7.5 mm and includes a matte finish back cover which cannot be removed. The slim profile also means that the large 20 MP rear camera sensor is protruding unceremoniously. There is a chrome lining around the edges which looks appealing.
On the front side, the beautiful Quad HD phablet sized SLCD3 display is flanked by Boomsound speakers which include Dolby digital audio support to please audiophiles. Gorilla Glass 4 is layered on top which makes it resistant to daily wear and tear.
Processor and RAM
The handset uses 2GHz MediaTek MT6795M processor with 8 Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz. The chipset is clocked at slightly lower frequency as compared to MT6795T in One M9 plus, that shouldn’t translate to much of a performance difference. The PowerVR G6200 GPU and 3 GB RAM remain same. The 16 GB variant will have 2 GB RAM.
Camera and Internal Storage
The camera setup is again similar to that in One M9 or One M9 Plus. You will get a 4 MP ultra pixel camera for good quality selfies and a 20 MP primary rear camera with single LED flash. We like the selfie camera quality and initial testing of the rear camera in low light conditions was also positive. We will give our final verdict after we have tested it in different lighting conditions.
HTC will introduce 16 GB and 32 GB native storage variants, with 128 GB microSD card support. Storage for media consumptions shouldn’t be a problem.
Battery and User Interface
HTC has used a 2800 mAh battery in spite of the slim profile. This is again comparable to flagship One M9 and One M9 plus, but it remains to be seen how well it will handle the dense Quad HD pixel resolution.
HTC is using Sense 7 UI skin on top of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop. Feature set includes refined blink feed, with suggestions, new theme elements which let you make custom themes molded around any image in your gallery. It is a feature rich skin, which we liked in our initial testing.
HTC One E9 Photo Gallery
Conclusion
HTC One E9 Plus is a premium flagship grade device which will be available for a less than flagship price in later half of May. It is still expected to cost around 40 K in India. One E9+ will act as a slightly cheaper alternative to metal finish One M9 Plus with all bells and whistles included.
