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HTC built itself a reputation for making smartphones with designs often considered among the better-looking devices. The One M7 introduced a design that used a lot of aluminum in its construction, and even more metal was used on last year’s One M8, providing a more uniform look. Those two phones had good specifications, but their Ultrapixel cameras were often considered low-resolution, so that might have prevented some consumers from buying them. The company released the One M9 this year, featuring a very similar design to its predecessor, and even when they opted for a more traditional camera, it didn’t perform as well as some others from the competition, so this phone still didn’t sell as the company would have wanted. More recently, the company introduced the One A9, and HTC seems to have changed its strategy quite a bit.
Besides being known for the solid build quality of their smartphones and the functionality offered from their Sense skin running on top of the Android operating system, the company probably wants to become known for the overall experience brought by their phones. The mid-range aluminum built One A9 was launched with Android Marshmallow out of the box, becoming one of the first handsets to run on that version as it was quite new. Also, the unlocked version became the first phone to have an unlockable bootloader without voiding the warranty and it includes the Uh-Oh protection plan to replace the hardware in case of accidents. HTC has also promised to update the phone as fast as possible, with promises of updates 15 business days after Google releases new software.
Google has already made Android 6.0.1 official, bringing 200 new emojis to the system, of which we already know how some of them will look. Even the factory image has been released, so HTC’s Mo Versi has communicated through his Twitter account that the update to 6.0.1 will happen sometime this month for the unlocked One M9 and the One A9. He didn’t provide a specific timeframe, but at least we know it’s happening quite soon. Let’s remember that unlocked devices get updated faster than the carrier-locked ones, but the company seems to be working hard to update their devices quite fast.