HTC 10 review: Is it a perfect 10?

Going for a perfect 10?

The HTC 10 certainly took its time to come to Singapore, going on sale here nearly three months after its official announcement in April. That said, when we received the phone, it's clear to us that the HTC 10 is HTC’s best attempt at a smartphone yet, keeping the positive bits from its earlier flagships (e.g. the lovely metal construction from the One M9) while further refining areas that it didn't do quite well previously.

Now, before we take a detailed look at the Snapdragon 820-equipped HTC 10, let's first get acquainted with its key specs:

Design & Handling

The HTC 10 uses a signature metal uni-body design that has been a highlight of their One series. What's changed this time is that the phone features a beautifully curved rear flanked with exaggerated chamfered edges. As such, it is distinctively different from the current flock of 2016 flagship rivals. The chamfered design makes the HTC 10 nice to hold, and it has a comfortable size for single-handed operation. While it is 9mm at its thickest point, the phone does not feel bulky at all. Our only gripe with the design is how a curved rear and a slightly elevated rim for the rear camera make it impossible for the phone to lay flat on a table, but this design quirk also makes it easy to pick it off a desk.

The HTC 10 certainly has a more matured look than its predecessor, with its clean rear accentuated by the antenna lines that cuts across the top and bottom rungs of the device. The front panel is nowhere as attractive as its back, but its display with thin bezels still makes it pleasant to look at. We lamented the loss of the front-facing speakers as it also gave the HTC flagships a unique look. In its place are a touch-operated Home button at the bottom, and an oversized window for its front camera at the top. It’s a pretty phone, but it isn’t aesthetic perfection.

Display & Audio

The HTC 10 uses a 5.2-inch Super LCD 5 display rated at Quad HD resolution (2,560 x 1,440 pixels). The end result is a phone with a sharp display at ~565 ppi (pixels per inch) pixel density - a significant upgrade from the HTC One M9’s Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) display panel. The maximum brightness of the HTC 10 leaves a little more to be desired though - it’s certainly not as bright as the Xperia X.

HTC flagship phones are also known for their BoomSound audio technology, and the HTC 10 is no different. Yes, the iconic front stereo speakers are gone, but users get something new called the HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition. In a nutshell, HTC has changed the 10's speaker placement, moving one of the front-facing speakers to the bottom of the phone, next to its USB Type-C port (the ear speaker remains). Enhanced by a separate tweeter and woofer design, and dedicated amplifiers for each speaker, we found audio to be loud and clear.

Beyond this little branding and speaker relocation exercise, audiophiles will be happy to know that the HTC 10 is one of the few phones to officially support Hi-Res audio (the other notable brand being Sony); and it boasts 16 to 24-bit audio upscaling, as well as a quality 24-bit DAC and a powerful headphone amp. And depending on where you get your HTC 10 from, you may even find a pair of Hi-Res audio-certified earbuds as one of the inbox accessories.

UI & Features

Freestyle Layout

HTC 10 takes the stock Android 6.0 OS even further by allowing their users to bend the rules for app layout. By holding your finger on the Home screen, you can now download unique Freestyle-type themes that place your apps, app drawer, and icons under a bunch of themed “stickers”, without the need to follow the usual on-screen grid. These stickers basically give your apps a little visual personalization, but they still bring you to your intended app. You can add more stickers/shortcuts, and rearrange your home screen and stickers to your taste. Expectedly, the phone still supports HTC Themes, and there are thousands of themes to choose from.

Boost+

Boost+ is a general phone management feature. It offers the ability to lock certain apps with the help of a pattern or fingerprint lock, delete junk caches, and disable apps at a tap to free up some RAM. However, like most process-killing management apps, you aren’t going to get much out of killing a core service or app that’s always running in the background. That said, the cumulative tweaks on Boost+ make it a decent addition, saving most people the need to download separate cleaning apps.

Benchmark Performance

The HTC 10 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC with up to 2.2GHz clock speed. With Qualcomm’s flagship tier processor on the device, this puts the HTC 10 on par with the likes of the LG G5 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. HTC also packs 4GB RAM into the HTC 10, so it should be more than capable at handling multiple processes, on top of fast load times. According to HTC, the 10 has been engineered from the ground up to run faster, lighter, and use less memory.

Since we are comparing across flagship tier smartphones, we’ll include the Sony Xperia X (the X Performance isn’t officially in Singapore).

SunSpider

SunSpider JavaScript measures the browsing performance of a device when processing JavaScript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. While the HTC 10 didn't outrun its peers in this benchmark, we actually found its real-world browser performance to measure up nicely against its rivals.

Quadrant

Quadrant benchmarks a device’s CPU, I/O, and GPU performance. The HTC 10 has a strong performance in this benchmark, just falling short of the Exynos-powered S7 Edge.

3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited

3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited test uses a mix of graphics and physics tests to measure hardware performance. The first test measures the GPU’s ability to process lots of vertices, while the second does the same thing with lots of pixels and post-processing effects. Finally, the physics test switches the load to the CPU to test its ability to process physics simulations, while keeping GPU load low. With the HTC 10 sitting together with the top scorers of this benchmark, it’s clear to us that the phone performs respectably for its asking price.

Camera Performance

HTC 10 uses a 12-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization and an improved laser autofocus. HTC made it a point to share how each pixel on their camera sensor has a pixel size of 1.55μm, which gives them “136% more light in every shot”. For comparison, the Galaxy S7’s camera has a pixel size of 1.4µm. The phone is also capable of shooting in RAW format, if you do choose that option in its Pro mode (a nicely packaged Manual mode of sorts).

The autofocus feels swift enough for our purposes, and we really appreciate the optical image stabilization on the cameras. If you’re a frequent smartphone shooter, you’ll find the HTC 10’s camera simple and easy to operate. Heck, even the front-facing camera has OIS.

The image sharpness and detail produced by a HTC 10 is commendable. It captures creases nicely, but it’s unable to capture the threads on the spool (then again, most smartphones can’t do so). Our only gripe is its color reproduction. While the HTC 10 seems a little more neutral, we’ve been spoilt rotten by vibrant shooters, like the S7 Edge and Xperia X. That said, you can check out the sewing compartment in our test shot to see how accurate the HTC 10 can be. It’s not the best there is, but we’ll take it.

Battery Life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

The phone packs a non-removable 3,000mAh battery that supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, which means it takes just 30 minutes to top up its charge to 50%. Still, the HTC 10 has an average battery performance compared to the other flagship phones listed here. Since the HTC 10 is a powerful phone geared towards folks who are active on social media and/or online content, it would be wise to carry a power bank on longer days. It's also disappointing that the HTC 10 doesn't last as long as its predecessor.

Conclusion

The HTC 10 is visually unique, with a lovely display and very good audio. It also uses top-end parts, and has a decent camera and an equally decent battery life. Finally, it caters to folks who are of a younger, energetic crowd. While it has its own UI features, it does not interfere with the stock Android experience.

That said, each individual aspect of the HTC 10 is beaten (or at least matched) by the other flagships listed here. There’s always another smartphone that has a better camera, better aesthetic, better battery life, or better price with similar parts. This makes the HTC 10 less exciting than its rivals, even if it’s a good flagship smartphone through and through. It definitely scored well, but it’s not a perfect 10.

The 32GB HTC 10 is priced at S$898. It can be bought at Lazada, and you get a free HTC Mini+ Bluetooth accessory (the deal that includes the Iceview case is already sold out). Alternatively, the phone can be bought from other official HTC retailers.

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