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HTC One A9 Aero Android 6.0 Marshmallow: Price and Specs

Taiwan electronics company HTC Corporation, unveiled Tuesday the unlocked version of their new phone HTC One A9. The design of the HTC One A9 Aero is similar to Apple’s iPhone 6S, it has slim metallic casing with the antenna stripes that wrapped the edges of the phone.

The One A9 Aero is HTC's high-end smartphone. It weighs 143 grams (5.04 oz) and measures at 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3 mm. The display of the smartphone is 5-inch full HD 441 ppi pixel density with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 scratch-proof glass. It is powered by Qualcomm’s MSM8952 Snapdragon 617 chipset processor and Adreno 405 GPU. It has plenty of storage at 32GB upgradeable using micro SD to 2 terabytes (Internal storage for the 2GB version is 16GB). It is equipped with a fingerprint sensor. HTC offers two different RAM variants 2 or 3 GB.

The primary camera at the back is 13-megapixel (4128 x 3096) that features advanced Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), which captures more image details for professioanal editing and creative control with RAW capture in Pro mode. It has autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash and HDR. The front camera shoots at 4MP. Both cameras have full HD 1080p video capabilities.

The smartphone's Built-in DAC converts 16-bit audio to 24-bit high-resolution sound that gives clear and crisps audio that you have never heard from a smartphone before. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Some users asked why HTC did not go with 4K video recording. It lies with the Snapdragon 617 chipset, since it does not support that video resolution.

Connection-wies it has 4G LTE antennas, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 and microUSB v2.0.

As for the battery it is equipped with 2,150 mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0 (and 3.0), though you will have to purchase a proper 15W HTC charger to use that feature.

The new HTC One A9 will be available  first week of November with a promotional price of $399.99 unlocked. The HTC One A9 will initially be compatible with the AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile networks.

Color variants are Opal Silver, Carbon Grey, Deep Garnet and Topaz Gold.

HP Spectre x360

The new HP Spectre x360 is a clamshell laptop that can be folded 360 degrees and transform it into a thick tablet. It has a similar design with Lenovo Yoga. It has all-aluminium chassis and high-end 13-inch screen (2,560x1,440-pixel resolution) diagonal IPS touchscreen display. It is run by a new Intel 6th generation Core i5 and Core i7 processors.

HP boast that it can go up to 12.5 hours of battery life.

The HP Spectre x360 will start at $899.99. .


Product specifications:

Operating system:  Windows 10 Home 64
Processor and graphics:
 6th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6200U Processor + Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 (For 4GB memory)
 6th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6200U Processor + Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 (For 8GB memory)
 6th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U Processor + Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 (For 8GB memeory)
Display:
 13.3-inch diagonal Full HD WLED-backlit IPS Display (1920x1080) Touchscreen
 13.3-inch diagonal QHD WLED-backlit IPS Display (2560x1440) Touchscreen
Memory:
 Onboard 4GB Memory
 Onboard 8GB Memory
Hard drive:
 128GB Flash Solid State Drive
 256GB Flash Solid State Drive
 512GB Flash Solid State Drive
Battery:  3-cell 56WHr Lithium-ion Battery (Up to 12 hours and 30 minutes)
Expansion slots:  1 multi-format SD media card reader

HP Spectre x2

The all new HP Spectre x2 is like a Surface Pro but cheaper. It also has a built-in kickstand like Microsoft's tablet. The kickstand is adjustable and stable. The keyboard also acts as a cover. The keyboard cover is made of aluminum and the kickstand is U-shaped unlike the flat kickstand panel on the Surface.

The HP Spectre x2 has a 12-inch display 1,920x1,080 resolution, weigh 1.85 pounds (the Surface Pro 4 is at 1.7 pounds). It has USB-C ports. The U-shaped kickstand allows for more battery to fit for longer battery life. The x2 can be use with a pressure-sensitive Wacom-made active pen, which is sold separately.

Under the hood, it is equipped with sixth-gen Core M (Core m3, m5 and m7) processors. You can choose between  4GB or 8GB of RAM, and a solid-state drive with 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage.

Price is at $799, and will be available at Best Buy stores starting November 8, 2015.

Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL

Before Microsoft announce their newest Windows Phones based on the latest Windows 10 OS, Evan Blass Tweeted the leaked images of the two upcoming flagship devices the Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL. Internally, the smartphones are called Talkman and Cityman.

Microsoft is looking at an October event to launch for the newest Windows 10 hardware and two new premium Windows 10 Lumia devices. The leaked picture shows Cityman in Cyan and Talkman in Black. At the back of the phone you can see a small Microsoft logo below the camera.

Microsoft Cityman is expected to sport a 5.7-inch WQHD (1440 x 2560) display and will likely be successor to Lumia 1020 with a 20MP pureview camera.  Microsoft Talkman will have a smaller display at 5.2-inch with same WQHD resolution. Both the handsets will feature USB Type-C port and support Qi Wireless Charging.

Acer Windows 10 Cloudbooks Aim to rival Chromebooks

If you are on a budget and needed a cloud-enabled laptop that prefer Windows 10 than Google's Chrome OS then you may want to check out Acer Windows 10 Cloudbooks.

Acer a Taiwanese based tech company has unveiled the Aspire One Cloudbook 11 and Aspire One Cloudbook 14 which are cloud capable laptops for user that don't need large storage and can work with mid-range hardware specs.

Bundled to this Cloudbooks you will also get a one-year subscription to Microsoft Office 365, access to Microsoft's OneDrive to store and sync your files online, and use of Acer's own cloud-enabled apps.

These Cloudbooks are aimed to rival Google Chromebooks.

The Aspire One Cloudbook comes in 11-inch and 14-inch variants both display are 1366 x 768. They are powered by Intel Celeron processor with 2GB of RAM. The 11-inch model is available with 16GB or 32GB of storage, while the 14-inch model are available in 32GB or 64GB. Both versions are 17.9mm thick. Acer includes a one-year subscription to Microsoft's Office 365 Personal and 100GB to 1TB of OneDrive storage depending on the model. The 11-inch weighs in at 2.5 pounds. Both come with Windows 10 Home edition.

Both are equipped with dual digital microphones with enhanced digital signal processing (DSP) that gives clear and crisp online phone calls and chats with Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant. They also feature the new wireless standard, 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Further, the laptops are also equipped with full-sized ports for HDMI, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and SD cards. The chiclet keyboard have large touchpad which are designed to ease the experience of typing and tapping your way around Windows 10. Both come with a 640x480-pixel webcam.

The  11-inch model which is expected to be released this month has a starting price of $169, and the 14-inch model which will be available in September will have a starting price of $199.

LG Wine Smartphone flip-phone

LG is going old-school with their newest smartphone, they are bringing back the flip-phone (clamshell) with the LG Wine Smart. LG WIne Smart is expected to be released in South Korea, Italy, UK, France, Japan and Poland.

The LG Wine runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. It sports a 3.2-inch 480x320 display. It is powered by a quad-core 1.1 GHz Snapdragon 210 chipset with 1GB of RAM. The smartphone has 4GB internal memory which is expandable through microSD slot.

The primary camera is 3MP, it also has a front VGA camera. The 1,700mAh battery is enough for a normal moderate usage. The phone has LTE support, though LTE bands haven't been confirmed yet.

LG Wine Smartphone will be offered at below US$200.