When
HTC released its One M7 in 2013, it not only proved that makers of
Android smartphones could create phones that were as beautiful as
Apple’s, it also pushed competitors like Samsung and LG to finally build
handsets that weren’t made of creaky plastic.
But with the phones it released since then, HTC seemed to stop innovating, and it quickly fell behind the competition.
Which
brings us to the new HTC 10. Available for preorder for $700 and on
sale in early May, the 10 is the handset that HTC hopes will win you
over again and make you forget about Apple’s iPhone 6s and Samsung’s Galaxy S7.
Sporting a sleek new look and packing a vastly improved 12-megapixel camera, the 10 stands a fair chance of doing just that.
When
HTC unveiled its One M9 last year, the company took a lot of heat for
failing to make any meaningful changes to the handset’s design. It was
as if HTC simply copied and pasted the plans from 2014’s M8, made a few
small tweaks, and called it a day. Worse still, the M8 itself was
essentially a carbon copy of HTC’s One M7.
Thankfully, the company seems to have woken up when designing its HTC 10.
Like
its predecessors, the 10 is built on an all-aluminum body. But while it
pays clear homage to the One M7, the 10 is no clone.
Sporting
embellished chamfered edges that beautifully reflect light and a
rounded camera lens, the 10′s futuristic exterior easily makes it one of
the most attractive phones around.
Up
front, HTC got rid of the dual front-mounted Boom Sound speakers found
on the M7, M8, and M9 and instead coated the 10’s face with an
edge-to-edge glass panel that gives the phone a cleaner look. (It also
happens to ape Apple’s iPhone 6s.)
Boom
Sound isn’t gone, though: HTC moved the speaker previously located
below the phone’s display to its bottom edge. The top speaker,
meanwhile, has been redesigned to look like a traditional phone speaker.
Because
of its contoured back, the HTC 10 tends to look bulky next to the likes
of the Galaxy S7, but it’s really not. Measuring 5.7 x 2.8 x 0.35
inches, the 10 is in fact taller, wider, and thicker than the S7 (5.6 x
2.7 x 0.31 inches), but only by the slimmest of margins.
Nonetheless,
the 10 is significantly bigger than the iPhone 6s (4.4 x 2.6 x 0.28
inches), but that’s because the 10 has a 5.2-inch display, compared with
the iPhone’s 4.7-inch panel.
HTC’s
designers failed to keep up with the competition in one significant
way. Samsung introduced waterproofing with its Galaxy S7, promising that
the handset can survive in up to three feet of water for 30 minutes.
HTC says the 10 can easily shake off getting a glass of water spilled on
it, but that’s not quite the same thing. I’d rather know my phone can
take a dip and keep on ticking without issue.
The
HTC 10’s 5.2-inch display packs a 2560 x 1440 resolution. By
comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 rocks a 5.1-inch panel with that same
resolution, while Apple’s iPhone 6s has a 4.7-inch, 1334 x 750
resolution screen.
As you’d expect from a high-end, flagship phone, images and videos look incredibly sharp on the HTC 10.
That
said, the 10 uses Super LCD 5 screen technology, while the Galaxy S7
uses Super AMOLED (active matrix of organic light-emitting diodes). As a
result, to my eye the S7 produces deeper, more dynamic hues than the
10. The HTC 10’s panel also looks significantly dimmer than the S7’s and
iPhone’s and tends to wash out when viewed at an angle.
Over
the past few years, HTC’s smartphones have been saddled with
below-average cameras. But this time around, HTC has upped its game with
a new 12-megapixel shooter, which the company says can compete with the
best of the best smartphone cameras out there.
And
you know what? It’s true. Photos I took with the 10 looked absolutely
gorgeous. One shot taken on the 10 of a group of flowers covered in
water droplets, for example, showed excellent color contrast; the same
shot taken with the Galaxy S7 exaggerated those hues. I personally
prefer my colors extra-lively, but if you prize accurate representation
of your subjects, you’ll like the 10’s camera.
HTC
credits that camera’s improvements to its Ultra Pixel 2 sensor.
Marketing lingo aside, that means the 10’s pixel sensors are larger than
in its previous phones’ cameras. Those sensors, combined with the 10’s
1.8 aperture lens, means the handset’s camera can pull in more light and
capture crisper, cleaner images.
The
10 is also able to take exceptional shots in low-light situations,
which HTC’s handsets have struggled with. I had a co-worker take a
picture of me in a dimly lit room, and the 10’s camera captured
relatively clear images.
However,
the HTC 10 still can’t beat the Galaxy S7 in such settings. But
considering that the S7 is the best low-light smartphone camera you can
get, the fact that the 10 is so close is a big improvement for HTC.
In other words, if the camera is a big concern when buying a phone, the HTC 10 won’t disappoint you.
If
there’s one area where HTC has always been ahead of the competition,
it’s been audio performance. The One M7’s, M8’s, and M9’s external Boom
Sound speakers pumped out such full-sounding audio, you didn’t need a
Bluetooth speaker.
The
10 still uses HTC’s Boom Sound speakers, and they sound just as rich as
before, but the max volume sounds a drop quieter than on the company’s
previous offerings. That might have to do with the fact that (as noted
above) the 10’s lower Boom Sound speaker is now located on the phone’s
bottom edge, rather than below its display as it was on the M7, M8, and
M9. Still, the 10 makes every other phone sound like the audio is being
piped through a tin can.But let’s face it: You’ll most likely listen to music on the 10 with
headphones, and that’s where this handset really shines. That’s because
HTC now gives you the ability to customize your own sound profile when
you plug in a new pair of headphones.
Setting
up that profile — which requires you to listen to high and low pitch
tones in your left and right ears — takes only about five minutes. And
once you’ve done so, your audio experience will improve hugely. I
listened to Spotify on the 10 and then on the S7, and the difference was
astounding: Guitars sounded crunchier, bass hits were deeper and
harder, and cymbals crashed with gusto.
Like
any high-end phone worth its salt, the HTC 10 is powered by a quad-core
processor and 4 GB of RAM. I’ve been using the 10 for about a week and
never noticed any slowdowns or hiccups. I was amazed by how fast the
phone’s fingerprint reader recognized my digit and unlocked the handset.
My
test model came with 32 GB of onboard storage, the same as Samsung’s
Galaxy S7. Apple still sells its base iPhone 6s with 16 GB of storage,
which feels more and more like a rip-off when you consider how many
other smartphone makers are offering consumers larger drives on their
devices.
And
when you run out of space on the 10, you can pop in a microSD card to
get more room for selfies and pictures of food. Samsung’s Galaxy S7 also
has an available microSD card slot, but you can’t store apps on it; you
can with the HTC 10.
In
terms of battery life, the HTC 10 should get you through the day easily
thanks to its large 3,000-mAh battery (the same size as Samsung’s
Galaxy S7).
But
while the S7 uses a micro USB cable for its charger, the 10 uses the
newer USB Type-C. That means you can do things like plug a pair of
noise-canceling headphones into the USB Type-C port, and the 10 will not
only power them (so you don’t have to worry about carrying around
batteries), it will also play music through them.
If
you’re running low on power, the 10’s USB Type-C cable and charger can
fill the handset to 50 percent in 30 minutes. That’s a pretty handy
trick when you’re short on juice and know you’ll be away from a charger
for a while.
It
used to be that when you bought a new Android phone, it came loaded
with so much unnecessary software it made you want to scream.
Thankfully, handset makers have started to listen to consumers and are
cutting back on the amount of bloatware they preinstall on their
handsets.Samsung did a good job of this with its Galaxy S7, but HTC went above
and beyond with the 10: The company completely removed any software that
overlaps with what Google already installs on Android phones.
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