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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Can the HTC One X9 take on the Xiaomi Mi5?
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Can the HTC One X9 take on the Xiaomi Mi5?

HTC's new mid-range smartphone looks and feels classy, but the questions is whether it can take on the noisy neighbour

HTC One X9Premium
HTC One X9

The onslaught of Chinese phone makers has made the going tough for a lot of brands, including HTC. Their new smartphone, the HTC One X9 ( 25,990), is an attempt to emulate the looks of a high-end device at the price of a mid-range smartphone. Here are its key highlights on the spec sheet, and how the phone compares with the Xiaomi Mi5 ( 24,999).

Metal adoption

The new One X9 is the first metal-based smartphone from HTC in the 20,000-30,000 price bracket. Most of the mid-range Desire range of phones have a plastic body. HTC has given it a few subtle design touches such as the black line on the back and a highlighted camera module. Also the phone packs in two front facing speakers, which may mean that the sound will not get muffled for the most part. The Xiaomi Mi5 has a glass back and metal frame, which in itself is a rather good looking design. But being a subjective aspect, the final choice may reside on what you like better.

Future proofing

The Xiaomi Mi5 integrates a fingerprint sensor as well as the USB type-C port, and is also using the Qulacomm Quick Charging 3.0 technology for faster charging—all three things are surprisingly missing in the HTC One X9.

Different canvas sizes

The One X9 packs in a 5.5-inch LCD display with screen resolution of 1920x1080p. It also comes with a layer of scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. HTC has added some cool display customisation options in the phone, such as the ability to manually adjust the colour tint of the display.

The Mi5 has a 5.1-inch AMOLED display but offers a similar 1920x1080p resolution. It also comes with some scratch-resistant glass. It is also equipped with what Xiaomi calls Sunlit display. This adjusts every pixel on the screen according to the fluctuations in natural light, and thus allows the phone to alter brightness and visibility in bright light.

Fine software lines

The One X9 runs Android Marshmallow (6.0) with the latest version of Sense UI. The layout looks cleaner and offers all the trademark HTC features such as the news and social media aggregator Blinkfeed and video editor tool Zoe. The app drawer allows users to rearrange apps, hide apps they don’t want to see, and change the grid layout as well.

The Mi5 also runs Android Marshmallow (6.0) with its proprietary MIUI interface. It offers more customisation and colourful themes compared to the Sense UI.

Power play

The One X9 is powered by MediaTek’s Helio X10 octa-core processor with 3GB RAM in tow. This is a fairly powerful processor but is usually seen in budget smartphones such as the LeEco Le1s ( 10,999).

The Mi5 takes a clear lead on the spec sheet comparison, as it runs on a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor with 3 GB RAM. Both offer 32GB of internal storage but with the One X9 you get the option to add another 200GB via a micro SD card.

The two are on an equal footing in terms of battery capacity as they come with a non-removable 3,000mAh battery. The battery performance will depend on a combination of factors, though, and we will get a better idea of the same when we test the One X9 in detail.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhijit Ahaskar
Abhijit writes on tech policy, gaming, security, AI, robotics, electronics and startups. He has been in the media industry for over 12 years.
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Published: 01 Jun 2016, 11:30 AM IST
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