Gadgetory

over the last couple of years it could be said that HTC has seen a bit of a rough patch after a couple of releases of their flagship line that fell just short of taking on the competition the 10th tribe might hopefully be the charm is it truly the HTC phone we've been waiting for while it's Josh with regard from Android authority what's going on everybody and this is the HTC ten now before we get into the full review of the HTC 10 why don't we go ahead and get through all of the specifications first the all-metal construction that HTC has been known for returned with some refinements and additions to the overall design at its thickest portion the HTC ten is about nine millimeters which makes it just a little bit thicker than the competition and it is also a little taller and wider than other flagship devices when looking at the front of the device it almost reminds us of a Moto X 2014 edition but really this isn't a bad thing it's just that there is a noticeable bezel around the 5.2 inch display as we focus on the front you will notice that there is the absence of both boomsound speaker setups and the HTC bar that used to be on the lower third of many HTC phones now boom sound is still around but it consists of a top speaker and a subwoofer that backs it up that is now found at the bottom near the USBC port the main change HTC made appears on the backing where the same great metal material remains the companies calling card but imagine this for a second the HTC One m8 except now you add an extra little bit around all sides this is basically what HTC did and it is the chamfered edge that provides a silhouette type of look these new chamfers all around add a bit more and also add a curve to the device and this means that the phone sits along the contour of the hand helping with the handling but as we already mentioned before it is just that little bit wider and taller than maybe it needed to be and speaking of handling we will mention that this phone is pretty damn slippery this isn't anything new with you've used HTC One devices before but to be fair it was a bit of a nuisance ultimately HTC proves in the 10 that it is still capable of making an attractive phone and for fans of previous HTC devices some of our distinguished those phones from others has been removed like the busan front-facing speakers or even the HTC black bar but these updates and additions are just different enough to please anyone that wanted a different looking device from the past as we've already mentioned before the display is 5.2 inches in size but now comes in a quad HD resolution this is a Super LCD 5 display that performs quite well with good brightness even in very bright situations and good amounts of saturation to keep the colors looking nice now this won't be as vivid as an AMOLED display but HTC has made sure that this display adheres to the NTSC standard and have done well to note that overall however text it's very sharp due to the high pixel density and games like Kingdom Hearts Unchained X or Final Fantasy 9 have all been a blast to play and much like other flagships coming out this year the HTC ten comes with the expected high power package the Snapdragon 820 backed by the adrenal 530 and four gigabytes of RAM now we just mentioned gaming and it has been a smooth experience and good performance has been the case across the board HTC did mention that they wanted to have the touch latency be as low as possible simply to add to the snappy experience but probably more important to notice how HTC streamlined to their software instead of having multiple versions of the same application since now just keeps the company's own version or sticks to Google's iteration and this consolidation does help overall with how the software feels even without the claims that HTC makes about how they made the software and performance experiences better it is pretty clear that the HTC 10 is a good phone to have as a daily driver and proves very reliable thus far which then brings us to hardware which there is quite a bit more to talk about we'll start off with the fingerprint reader found in the capacitive home button now this one is a lot like the HTC One a9 s fingerprint reader from a while back and it can sense the fingerprint when in standby and unlock straight to the home screens it is easy to set up but just like in the a9 it poses a little bit of a conundrum the motion gesture sensors are still a thing in the HTC 10 where the phone knows that it's been brought up by the hand and then will react to a number of different commands the newest of these is a double swipe downward in order to open up the camera which is nice but when you have to use your fingerprint to unlock the device even when swiping in any of those other directions it just feels like these two features are a little bit disjointed once opened up and unlocked to the phone pretty much has everything you would expect including NFC and call quality has been very good thus far using that full speaker up top as the phone grill has been useful for example but of course you can go to speakerphone and take advantage of the boom sound setup the only real thing missing here is an IR blaster which we know some of you guys really enjoy on the smartphone but HTC did mention that it's not a widely used feature anymore audio remains one of the cornerstones of the HTC experience and boom sound is still here even though it's been changed a bit now the top phone speaker is backed by a bottom mounted subwoofer unit that helps provide richer lower tones it's not going to be as loud as typical front-facing stereo speakers even from previous HTC devices but we will admit that the sound stage has been improved because of a better lower end just don't expect to be easily sharing the sound with everyone around you but plug in a good pair of headphones and that's where the magic really begins a good pair of cans or even the bundled high-res earbud headphones will make you hear the difference that the 10 really makes HTC put a 24-bit DAC or DAC and a headphone amp in here to really make the boom sound go well boom this is also due in part to the dolby enhancements which come in the form of user controllable audio profiles in which a number of questions might be asked of you in order for it to figure out what best listening profile to give you you can also change the equalizer bit by bit if you so wish to but ultimately it really amps up the sound while providing a much more wider soundstage depending on what you answer to those questions the bottom line is that the HTC 10 has a lot of power to drive headphones and it's very fun to get lost in the sound especially with good headphones like audio Technica's there's no need for a separate DAC or amp anymore but overall listening in headphones results in some of the loudest yet best audio that we've ever gotten from a smart phone which brings us to the battery life which depends on a three thousand milliamp hour unit in our testing with up to 13 full hours in our days the phone has been able to stretch out to four and a half hours of screen on time your mileage may vary of course but with slightly more frugal usage it should certainly be possible to get a couple of days of longevity out of the HTC 10 it also helps that the boost plus application assists in a couple of key ways for example it can scale down games to full HD resolution so that the game doesn't take up so much power but couple all of that with the quick charge 3.0 capabilities and power should never really be that far off HTC does boast two days worth of battery life from this phone and according to their claims about half an hour on qc3 should provide one of those days a USBC type port helps in this regard though it is a standard that we haven't totally gotten used to yet there have already been a couple of times when the phone hit the single digits and we forgot to bring the right cord but now we can talk about the cameras and HTC has had a rough go with it for the last couple of years with their camera is falling short of the competition this year however the ultrapixel returns and reaches its second generation much like a couple other phones we've seen thus far this year HTC prioritizes larger pixel sizes over the sheer amount of them so you get 12 this time around at 1.5 5 micron sizes an aperture of 1.8 further bolsters the low-light capabilities as does optical image stabilization the F has been so much streamlined with a lot of the different modes just all on the side in one easy to slide over menu and a number of the other controls are found on the right side so you can use the phone in one hand in auto mode so you can get a shot off pretty quickly the only real big hole in the usage of the app is the pro manual mode which overlays all of the settings over the viewfinder covering the frame unless you pick a setting and then put the slider away other modes include slow motion video capture panorama and a hyper lapse feature the changes to a lower amount of large pixels seem to do the job details are captured very well in highly lit shots and colors are accurately depicted and most of these pictures the results are plenty adequate and taken on their own they do look quite great zoom into any of these photos and you'll see the noise appear but that is the nature of having less detail due to the lower megapixel count of course in lower light situations this can be exacerbated where the exposure might be more decent than before but the details still suffer further HTC also still has a big problem with backlit subjects or just about any blown out area of a scene and this is something that even HDR can't fix in most situations basically just expect to have a lot of flares in situations like these HDR though does do a pretty good job as long as you're using it in a situation where it's actually called for and whether or not you are using HDR in lower light situations the HTC software will usually opt for a slower shutter speed so you have to make sure to have steady hands that are still required even if the OAS is already helping out but for what it's worth it the consistent quality in most normal situations makes this a worthy shooter to have in the pocket you just have to know what you're getting when you're shooting indoors or at night but perhaps the best Edition and the camera experience is in the front-facing shooter which is a 5 megapixel camera that can also record high res audio when you want to do selfie videos but this time HTC is bringing a first to the smartphone game putting optical image stabilization in the five megapixel front facing shooter and while this might help with self-portraits in some lower light situations I personally found that its main application is in improving videos like vlogs stabilization is a great idea for anyone who wants to make selfie videos on social media or even use the Full HD footage for longer form video content this o is edition is a good move by HTC as it is a distinguishing feature compared to the 2k video capture of the Samsung Galaxy s7 and the wide reaching wide-angle lens of the LG g5 overall the camera experience of the HTC 10 is the best that HTC has put out in quite some time it may not kill the other flagships that we have seen thus far in 2016 but it does certainly deserve to be considered among those ranks and finally in software we have Android marshmallow with HTC Sense and before we get into it yes there is an app drawer in this version of Android so many of you readers and viewers can rest easy sense is about the same as it's always been and due to some major changes Android has been going through recently this can actually be a very good thing home screens might have a little bit too much space between the apps and widgets but it's still pretty clean and the app drawer is a simple paginated vertical scroll that is simplistic yet functional blinkfeed is still around and is one of our favorite built in second homescreen experiences providing a good glimpse at the headlines and more if you want to dig deeper additions to the software and include boost plus an application that can among other things find and clean out junk in the phone and manage the RAM a favorite function of ours is a toggle to make certain high-performing games play at full HD rather than quad HD resolution which seems to help with the battery consumption the other addition is in themes which as robust as it is now includes a freestyle layout that doesn't adhere to grids the way typical Android home screens do it is an interesting concept that requires special icon or image packs that are then tied to different functions of the phone but there's only one of these freestyle themes currently available and it's still a young feature that needs to be further hashed out now aesthetic is always a personal matter but for most diehard Android enthusiasts function is king and sense provides a lot of it the app drawer is a fan favorite that already elevates this version of Android and without any overly cartoonish elements or flourishes since is a UI simply no pun intended makes sense the HTC 10 is available for pre-order now and will be shipping in May unlocked versions will go for six hundred and ninety-nine dollars now obviously the main competitors include Samsung Galaxy s7 and LG g5 phones that we have already reviewed and are available for comparison so stay tuned for head-to-head verses videos pitting these three phones against one another and so there you have it the HTC 10 it really feels like this phone has been a long time coming with the metal construction returning once again with a more refined look the HTC 10 actually looks and feels like a proper flagship phone and with all the bits and pieces underneath that you would expect from a flagship device the HTC 10 is worthy of being called a true contender this year the sound experience is so good this time around improves that boom sound is not only back but it is here to stay and the camera which has been a stumbling point for HTC in the past now rivals that of the competition it might not necessarily be the best camera out there but we feel pretty comfortable recommending it as a good daily shooter for fans of HTC this might feel like a dream come true but the true success of the 10 is in the fact that HTC just might have gotten your attention once again keep it tuned to Android or t4 even more about the HTC 10 and you can find links to all of our coverage in the description below or along the sidebar and you can go to android authority comm in order to read the full written review from there you can see the picture gallery and pictures from this phone right here so you can see what the camera quality is like and then after that you can discuss the HTC 10 in our forums and on social media where you can find us all over the interwebs from there you can stick around here drop us some likes on our videos because we love to see those thumbs up and then subscribe to the channel if you haven't already after that you can stay tuned because we are your source for all things Android