The HTC One A9 could be announced later next week

Sep 29, 2015 19:43 GMT  ·  By

Taiwanese handset maker HTC confirmed a launch event for September 29 and we thought the company would unveil the new One A9 that's been rumored for quite some time now.

However, it turned out that HTC introduced two new high-end smartphones, the One M9+ Aurora Edition and the Butterfly 3.

The latter is not a new device, but HTC has announced that the smartphone will now be available worldwide, though it was originally released in Japan back in May.

Today, HTC confirmed a new launch event for October 20, which will probably see the HTC One A9 being unveiled. More importantly, the company has sent invitations to the press which confirm that the smartphone will be powered by the Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system right out of the box.

Even though the handset will be introduced on October 20, it's highly unlikely that it will be available for purchase right away. Still, it's a great advantage to be one of the few companies to have a Marshmallow-powered smartphone available on the market by the end of the year.

We also know quite a lot of information about HTC One A9, also known as Hima Aero. Based on these leaked details, it looks like this is a mid-range Android smartphone.

The first competitor for Google's Nexus 5X

The device is said to sports a 5.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution and 441ppi (pixel per inch) density.

On the inside, the One A9 should be equipped with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, an Adreno 405 graphics processing unit, and 2GB of RAM.

There's also a 13-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash, OIS (optical image stabilization) and video recording, as well as a secondary 4-UltraPixel camera in the front for video calls and selfies.

We also know that the One A9 will be powered by a 2,150 mAh battery and that it will come with 16GB of internal memory inside, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot.

Judging by HTC One A9's rumored specs, the smartphone will most likely compete with Google's new Nexus 5X, which is already available for pre-order via Google Play Store for only $380 outright.