My tiny grouch over the missing speakers aside, the HTC 10 is just about perfect. Where other manufacturers(cough – Huawei) play at producing metal smartphones, with token frames that crumple under stress, HTC have done the job properly. The 10 is incredibly strong, with so much metal than it can’t be bent, even when sat on or run over. The screen is exposed, of course, and remains the most likely point of damage, but being housed in such a strong chassis you’d hope that the glass is more protected than on more fragile devices. The 10 is heavier than most, at 160g, but I’d class it as ‘reassuringly’ heavy.
The One M7 had the big BoomSound stereo speakers and a disappointing 4MP main camera, the One M8 had slightly quieter speakers and a gimmicky depth camera on the back too, while the One M9 had even quieter speakers(this trend isn’t going well) and a more traditional high megapixel sensor – but each was otherwise pretty ‘meh’. But the HTC 10 is a big return to form for the company. True the BoomSound speakers are no more – here there’s just a decent mono loudspeaker on the bottom, iPhone-style, plus some high frequencies piped out through the earpiece, but components all round have otherwise seen a very decent upgrade, all adding up to perhaps the best HTC smartphone ever.
The straight-edged chamfers in the aluminium are elegant and distinctive, plus they help one’s fingers fit round the phone comfortably. So, even with a 5.2” display, it’s easy to hold and use the phone one handed and, despite the smoothness of the metal, the HTC 10 isn’t too slippery to use without a case. Some of the time, at least – don’t hold me responsible if you do drop it!
The Gorilla Glass 4-protected screen is crisp and clear, HTC’s best display ever, labelled as having ‘Super LCD 5’ tech and with great colours and viewing angles. The resolution probably didn’t need increasing from 1080p on the previous phones, given the RGB pixel layout, but HTC bumped it up anyway – at 1440p, i.e. QHD resolution, there’s no way to see individual pixels at all and 4K videos look unbelievable.
But this time around HTC is getting a lot of things right with the HTC 10 smartphone. It might not be the most flashy or feature packed device out there, but it accomplishes most of what you need, and without a lot of fuss. Android enthusiasts will particularly like the software experience since it is very close to stock Android.
In the several weeks I’ve had my unlocked review unit - provided by HTC - I have gotten at least three major software updates, many times containing tweaks to make the camera perform better. It shows that HTC is dedicated to evolving this device and making it the best it can be.
The camera takes good pictures but not great pictures. I’ve seen it get better over the various updates pushed to the phone, but it still struggles a bit in mixed light. Anytime there is a bright light in the picture things might get washed out. The latest update has definitely helped this a bit though. The HTC 10 has second generation laser focus but it’s still not as fast to focus as the S7. I’ve also noticed that the center of the picture is in focus while the edges can be a bit fuzzy. The biggest downside - I really wish this phone had some way to "fast launch" the camera, like the S7’s double click of the home button. The HTC does let you swipe down on the(off) screen twice to launch the camera, but it’s not as easy or as intuitive as the S7.
The homescreen layout is kept simple, with just a couple of example pages of widgets and icons and HTC’s revamped Blinkfeed system off to the left. This now integrates News Republic stories, Google+ and Twitter though not, again curiously, Facebook – there are a few inconsistencies here! Blinkfeed is still a fun system to browse in a bored moment, though customising the News Republic content wasn’t trivial, you have to ‘Add topics’ in order to get through to the underlying app in order to err… remove topics. Go figure!
And then there’s ‘Freestyle layout’, implemented as custom semi-interactive themes. The idea is that you can let your imagination run wild, with your apps and widgets placed anywhere you like and with hyperlinked cartoon graphics available to add atmosphere, as shown in the screenshots here. Scurry down a ladder to get to the calculator? Tap on the windmill to go into YouTube? You get the idea. It’s a wonderfully bonkers piece of lateral thinking from HTC that probably came out of the same stable as the wacky Robert Downey Jr ads from a year or two ago.
Bottom line - know what you’re getting - and what you’re not getting - with the HTC 10 and you’ll be very happy with a fuss-free Android phone that takes capable photos and sounds great in your ears.