Gadgetory

sprint and HTC this combination was what finally properly tore me away from Windows Mobile when I first held an Evo and saw what Android could do I had high hopes for the bolt after revisiting the HTC 10 especially following so closely behind the HTC manufactured pixel and now it's time to report on whether the bolt lived up to those expectations first for you Hardware junkies you can pause the video here for a quick rundown on what the bolt is packing now with that out of the way the bolt further reinforces why I love HTC design with so many phones generically rounding and curving corners and edges HTC offers up something subtle but unique an actual design language which evolves from the 10 to the bolt bolder facets and chamfers will be polarizing some people are going to hate them and those people are wrong but that comes with the territory of actually making a design decision instead of just following the herd I'm still not personally a fan of front-mounted fingerprint sensors but at least this phone makes better use of bezel real estate than the previously mentioned pixel other than dancing the phone in my hand to reach the home button it's a well-organized layout and HTC has learned to better differentiate buttons on the side great tactile fields the power key in the volume rocker the 5.5 inch quad HD screen is nice and crisp but this LCD is one of the dimmer displays we've tested recently we normally run our battery tests at 190 Lux which is about 3/4 of the total output living in Southern California this isn't the easiest to read screen when out and about moving over to software what an unholy mess of yellow and black yeah there's a lot of sprint piled on top plus those value-added apps pre-installed a full suite of Amazon applications triple-a news republics sprint services and draftkings look it's a chore but cleaning this up is pretty straightforward and let's slap on a less i searing wallpaper how about very nice after all that trimming it's an HTC skin running on top of Android nougat richer notification split screen apps and improved multitasking Plus HTC additions to the app drawer and reorganizing the setting menu over the years HTC is toned down aggressive UI elements so the tweaks here are fairly inoffensive if maybe even appreciated for delivering something fun for folks who feel stock Android is too plain but once we start talking about performance we start getting a bit concerned this phone is packin a Qualcomm 810 chipset the same chipset which helped doom the HTC One m9 Sprint's play for this phone is to show off LTE Plus which required modem and radio support only found in the 810 that's great for folks who live in LTE plus coverage but otherwise this is still last year's chipset packed into a phone sold at the end of 2016 this processor has been refined since its initial launch in 2015 but it still won't go down as a high watermark for Qualcomm those hardware runs warmer than we'd like getting downright hot to the touch if you use it while charging most of the time it's snappy and responsive but start running it warm in the phone will lag or hitch especially when multitasking this means the bolt also isn't much of a gaming champ future fight is already poorly optimized for Android but it becomes a slideshow at the highest graphic settings and the phone is really warm after a handful of missions less graphics intensive games play much better and shorter sessions of casual games are this devices sweet spot Wi-Fi performance is acceptable for a metal backed phone falling just behind recently reviewed devices like the mate 9 and the LGV 20 but maybe the most important reason for this phone's existence is LTE performance Sprint's LTE plus coverage well we went war driving around my neighborhood and we will credit Sprint's coverage map this heat map shows a pretty wide disparity in performance from city block to block and that's exactly what we encountered one stretch of road delivering some snappy data speeds only to turn a corner and drop below a 3G connection the area is a faster coverage though we saw some encouraging speed tests those pockets of data sometimes besting 18t and verizon we're sure more devices in the future will support LTE Plus but it is a nice perk for folks on Sprint now getting the most out of what little yellow has to offer Oh what to do with you HTC Audio used to be the one area we could count on you to destroy the competition speaker performance on is good for a mono bottom firing solution but that's just normal and plain now we don't get that split speaker playback we had on the HTC 10 but the headphone situation is just downright frustrating see there's no headphone jack HTC includes some great earbuds but this isn't how we want to see the transition to USB see audio take place these earbuds only work with the bolt they don't work on my laptop they don't work with other USB see phones USB C is supposed to bring better support for peripherals it's supposed to be a standard so using this connector for proprietary audio solution is at best confusing at worst it's a small step backwards for creating a true standard the camera game on the bolt is solid though this 16 megapixel shooter feels a lot like the camera on the HTC 10 this is a great camera app full manual controls and raw support and never does it remove you from your composition window photos come out well exposed and saturated and though HTC dropped laser assistance the phase detection autofocus is pretty snappy 4k video is on tap with the excellent high quality audio mode it's a great all-around capture the image stabilization is still wobbly er than we might prefer but it does a respectable job of minimizing handshake when you're trying to hold still even though we're dealing with a higher resolution sensor performance is very similar to what we experienced with the 10 it's not going to lead the pack this year but it's an overall better shooter than what HTC is delivered in the past now looking at battery life the bulk comes with a slightly higher capacity battery but that doesn't seem to make up the difference in using a less power efficient chipset battery life is just okay running our media test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the bolt drained 7% it's not difficult making it to the evening with battery to spare but we're off and running low at dinnertime recharging is also mid pack 30 minutes on the supplied charger topped off 34% well behind the performance of the HTC 10 so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the HTC bolt this phone leaves a lot of folks conflicted myself included the main mission here is to show off LTE Plus which is very well accomplished you want the fastest network performance on Sprint you got it unfortunately dreams of a pixel cousin with sharper HTC styling are left unfulfilled it's perfectly capable of getting daily tasks done though not as smoothly as phones which are already almost a year old and we have some concerns with how well this chipset will age over time considering the other options on Sprint $600 for the bolt isn't a bad price for a premium looking phone with a 5.5 inch screen but it's only $50 cheaper or about two bucks a month cheaper than the smaller and more powerful HTC 10 still it is a darn pretty phone as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos Bagnall some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next review you