| Pros | Cons |
| + High spec front/rear cameras | - High price tag |
| + High res audio | - |
| + Classy design | - |
"HTC has come up with a great-looking phone boasting high-spec cameras, hi-res audio, improved battery life and a cleaner user experience."
HTC has come to the table with a new design for its latest phone, along with a load of new hardware and specs. It has focused on camera, audio and battery performance too – good news after the less-than inspiring HTC One M9 of last year.
The HTC 10 sports a 5.2in Super LCD screen with 2560x1440 resolution. That gives a ppi of 564ppi – a little down from Samsung's latest offering, but good enough to bring bold bright colours on a par with the likes of the Galaxy S7 edge.
For those of you who are prone to dropping your handsets, the good news is the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 4. HTC claims that the screen is 30 per cent brighter than its last offering.
The metal unibody has a clean, classy look (there’s no HTC logo on the front, just on the back), and the chamfered edges give it a great feel in the hand. The fact that the chassis has a slight curve – it measures just 3mm at the edge and 9mm in the middle – also helps to make it easy to hold. The two antenna bands complete the overall classy design. The handset comes in glacier silver, topaz gold and carbon grey colourways.
On the bottom of the handset sit a speaker, mic and USB-C port, while the right side is home to the volume rocker, SIM tray and power key. The microSD slot is on the left, while the headphone jack has been moved to the top centre.
There are capacitive keys for Multitasking and Back, along with a home key – which also acts as a fingerprint scanner.
Under the hood sits a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, with a quad-core 64-bit array at up to 2.2GHz, along with a hefty 4GB of RAM, which should make this one speedy handset.
HTC says its latest handset has the best cameras available today. And it all sounds very impressive – the world’s first dual OIS (optical image stabilisation) cameras front and back – so you can take great selfies even if you’re a tad unsteady. That front camera also has a wide f/1.8 aperture and ultra fast laser autofocus. And both cameras sport Ultrapixels – bigger pixels designed to let in more light – 12million on the back, five million on the front. Great for taking snaps in low light conditions. HTC says the snapper fires up in just 0.6 seconds.
There are some other nifty feature too – you get Hi-res audio when shooting video at up to 4k, and you can use Zoe Capture to combines moving and still images – like Apple Live Photos.
While HTC has focused on images, it certainly hasn’t forgotten about sound – the HTC 10 benefits from a new Hi-Fi edition of BoomSound – this means there’s a tweeter and woofer sat inside the dual speaker system. Each speaker also has its own dedicated amplifier, so you can enjoy louder, and more detailed tunes. And thanks to the Hi-res audio, when you plug in your headphones you’ll be treated to a professional, 24-bit 96KHz sound quality.
The fingerprint scanner on the front of the handset offers super-fast recognition – HTC claims it is 0.2 seconds – so you can unlock your device quickly.
HTC has also tweaked the user interface for Android, ensuring that you don’t get weighed down with duplicate apps, and Google-specific apps have been integrated into the functionality – which should make for a cleaner, smoother user experience.
There’s a powerful battery under the chassis, which HTC says will last more than a day, and which can be recharged to 50 per cent in only half an hour. In the box you’ll find a QuickCharge 3 charger and HTC has included CoolCharge, which prevents the device getting too hot while it is getting recharge. Its new PowerBiotics system is able to monitor power usage and will close apps that drain too much juice.
The HTC 10 will come in 32GB and 64GB flavours, which can be expanded to up to 2TB, using the microSD slot.
Connectivity options include 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, DLNA, USB Type-C, and GPRS/ EDGE.
This is one of the best-looking phones to come out of the HTC stable, and if the much-hyped camera and audio offerings live up to expectation, this phone should help to put HTC firmly back on the map.
|
Software |
Android 6.0 With HTC Sense |
|
Processor |
2.2GHz Snapdragon 820, Quad Core, 64bit |
|
Memory |
4GB |
|
Storage |
32/64GB, Expandable Storage |
|
Display |
5.2 inch LCD, Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) |
|
Finger Print Reader |
Front Bottom Placement |
|
Battery & Charging |
3000 mAh, USB Type-C With Qualcomm QC 3.0 |
|
Main Camera |
12MP, f/1.8 Laser Auto-focus, OIS, Dual Tone Flash, 120 FPS Slow Motion, RAW Support |
|
Front Camera |
5MP, f/1.8, 86 degree wide-angle lens, OIS |
|
Speakers |
HTC Boomsound Hi-Fi edition With 24-bit Hi-Res audio |
