HTC Announces the HTC 10

[DocSwag]

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10238/hands-on-with-the-htc-10

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This brings us to the HTC 10, the high-end flagship to succeed the One M9. With their newest phone HTC wants to highlight in particular that this isn't just an increment to the One M9, so to distinguish it by name HTC has decided to call this device the 10. There's nothing else in the name this time, just 10.

To figure out whether it stacks up to the competition and whether the HTC 10 can be the leap forward that HTC needs to stay relevant, we can start with the usual spec sheet.

	HTC One M9	HTC 10
SoC	Snapdragon 810 4x Cortex-A57 @ 2Ghz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz Adreno 430 (TSMC 20SoC)	Snapdragon 820 2x Kryo @ 2.15GHz 2x Kryo @ 1.6GHz Adreno 530 (Samsung 14LPP)
RAM	3GB LPDDR4	4GB LPDDR4
NAND	32GB NAND + microSD	32/64GB NAND + microSD
Display	5” 1080p Super LCD3	5.2” 1440p Super LCD5
Network	2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6/9 LTE)	2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6/9 LTE)
Dimensions	144.6 x 69.7 x 9.61mm, 157g	145.9 x 71.9 x 3-9mm, 161g
Camera	20MP Rear Facing f/2.2, 1.12µm, 1/2.4" (Toshiba T4KA7)	12MP Rear Facing w/ OIS and laser AF, f/1.8, 1.55µm, 1/2.3" (Sony IMX377)
	4MP Front Facing, f/2.0, 2µm (OmniVision OV4688)	5MP Front Facing w/ OIS, f/1.8, 1.34µm (Samsung S5K4E6)
Battery	2840 mAh (10.93 Whr)	3000 mAh (11.55 Whr)
OS	Android 5 w/ HTC Sense 7 (At Launch)	Android 6 w/ HTC Sense (At Launch)
Connectivity	1x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.1, (BCM4356), USB2.0, GPS/GLONASS, NFC	1x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2, (BCM4359) USB-C, USB3.1, GPS/GLONASS (US, JP) GPS/GLONASS/Beidou (EU, Asia) NFC
Fingerprint Sensor	N/A	Capacitive
SIM	NanoSIM	NanoSIM
LTE Bands	Global: FDD 1/3/5/7/8/20/28 TDD 38/40/41	US: FDD 1/2/3/4/5/7/12/13/17/20/28/29/30 JP: FDD 1/3/5/7/13/17/19/21/26 TDD 38/41 Asia/EU: FDD 1/3/5/7/8/12/20/28/32 TDD 38/40/41

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In addition to SoC parity, HTC is maintaining battery size parity with a 11.55 WHr battery, which is going to be comparable to the Galaxy S7 and Xiaomi Mi5, although again HTC is claiming that they’ve been able to keep power efficiency higher than the Galaxy S7 to get better overall battery life. To round out the list of things that HTC has included to keep up with the competition, we see the inclusion of Qualcomm QC 3.0, USB 3.1 over USB Type-C, and LTE UE Category 9 support. HTC also continues to include their fingerprint scanner with automatic finger scanning with the display off. For the HTC 10, this fingerprint scanner should only take 200 ms to unlock.

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Of course, HTC is seeking to set themselves apart from the competition, and to that end they’re bringing a new 5.2” 1440p Super LCD 5 display. I’m not entirely sure why HTC skipped Super LCD 4, but it’s possible that they either thought that this display is two generations worth of progress or that they just didn’t want an “unlucky number” to be used. Regardless, this display distinguishes itself from previous generations by having a wider gamut - HTC officially claims 92% NTSC, which should put it around 96% Adobe RGB - and a significantly improved Synaptics DSX touchscreen. HTC is claiming that with their touchscreen tuning at the hardware and software level that their touch latency is almost half that of the Galaxy Note5 and appreciably lower than the Galaxy S7.

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On the audio front, HTC has completely revamped how they think about audio when it comes to the HTC 10 in a lot of ways. It’s interesting to see how HTC doesn’t seem to fear killing sacred cows, as it was only a year ago that HTC seemed to believe that retaining dual front-facing speakers was non-negotiable for their high-end flagships. With the HTC 10, we see a significant departure in the speaker setup of the device. Rather than two front-facing speakers, there’s only one front-facing speaker that doubles as an earpiece. This speaker is specifically tuned for high-frequency performance, and is highly directional in nature. The other speaker is downward firing, but is tuned for low frequencies as a subwoofer of sorts. Both speakers have their own amp/protection IC to dynamically boost output based upon environmental conditions. This design should retain the front-facing speaker quality that we’ve come to expect, while reducing the bezel of the device with some minor loss in stereo separation.

 

In my time with the HTC 10, I actually discovered that the bottom-firing speaker is more isotropic or omnidirectional than what I’ve come to expect from phone speakers. While cupping my hand around the speaker does affect volume depending upon the audio and volume level, it’s less than most phones. More notably, the speaker doesn’t muffle like I would expect if I cover it with a shirt sleeve or jacket. Of course, covering the speaker entirely with a finger does muffle the speaker significantly, but this isn’t really a surprise. Overall, it looks like the HTC 10’s speaker system lives up to the promise that HTC is making here, but we’ll have to see how it really performs in the full review.

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The final piece of the puzzle on the hardware side is the camera. HTC seems to have understood just how critical camera is to differentiate them from the rest of the market, and for this generation they’re promising to finally deliver one of the best cameras you can buy in an Android phone. To start, it looks like HTC is single-sourcing the IMX377 for the HTC 10, which is the same sensor that we first saw in the Nexus 6P and 5X. In addition to this “Ultrapixel 2” sensor, HTC is using a lens module that has OIS and an f/1.8 aperture. The focal length is also 26mm equivalent, which does give some cause for concern but I’ll defer judgment here until the full review. In order to try and keep pace with the dual pixel AF of the Galaxy S7, HTC has also equipped the 10 with a laser AF system that allows for improved low-light focus reliability and speed. I’m not quite ready to say much here, but at the very least the photos I took of the relatively dark briefing room had surprisingly natural post-processing, and focusing was noticeably faster than the G5 in the time I had with the HTC 10.

Cool. The 10 actually looks like a phone you might want to consider getting. It looks to me to be kinda like a GS7 with a metal back, no AMOLED screen, different software, no IP68 rating, but also much better speakers. It'll be interesting to see just how good it is, though it does carry a hefty price tag. This might finally be an HTC phone worth getting, as the m9 was plagued with overheating issues from the 810. It looks pretty nice and clean, too. As well, it seems HTC has FINALLY learned that cameras are important, too, as the camera on this thing looks pretty good. 1.55µm pixels sound pretty good for low-light performance.

[IMPERIUS]

I really like that they somewhat kept the design language they started with the One M7 (which I still use and holds up great)

I'd buy it, but I'm not sure if I can look past how much unused space they have, like I bet they could use a 0.2in bigger screen

[Starelementpoke]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10238/hands-on-with-the-htc-10

Cool. The 10 actually looks like a phone you might want to consider getting. It looks to me to be kinda like a GS7 with a metal back, no AMOLED screen, different software, no IP68 rating, but also much better speakers. It'll be interesting to see just how good it is, though it does carry a hefty price tag. This might finally be an HTC phone worth getting, as the m9 was plagued with overheating issues from the 810. It looks pretty nice and clean, too.

Eh, personally I would´ve been fine with a 1080p screen. Would´ve made the battery last a little longer.

[TheOrdix]

Yay, and there is again a phone with a giant screen so noone can use it one handed. Great

[Starelementpoke]

1 minute ago, TheOrdix said:

Yay, and there is again a phone with a giant screen so noone can use it one handed. Great

?, there are people with big hands. I´ve tried a note, and I can use that one handed.

[Sharkyx1]

Rip in pepperoniz speakers

[TheOrdix]

Just now, Starelementpoke said:

?, there are people with big hands. I´ve tried a note, and I can use that one handed.

you can use it, but its not confortable most of the time.

[Starelementpoke]

Just now, TheOrdix said:

you can use it, but its not confortable most of the time.

Actually, felt pretty nice. It was in fact comfortable for a good deal of the time.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Low power DDR4. Holy shit.

 

Wonder when we will be seeing HBM used in phones

 

Apple better not fucking do it and claim it was their idea first

[Djole123]

And I'm still running HTC One M8 m8

 

See what I did there?

[Starelementpoke]

Just now, Djole123 said:

And I'm still running HTC One M8 m8

Can I have it when you upgrade?

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, Djole123 said:

And I'm still running HTC One M8 m8

Nexus 5 first gen here

[IMPERIUS]

4 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

And I'm still running HTC One M8 m8

 

See what I did there?

 

o.g. one m7 here, m8  

[SuperShires]

Still rocking the M8, almost coming up to 2 years of using it, it will be the only phone thats ever lasted the whole 2 year contract for me, usually I get sick of them and upgrade 1 1/2 years in, selling the phone to pay off the rest of the contract. Though I do want to go back to iPhone I've had no real issues with my M8.

[dragosudeki]

22 minutes ago, Starelementpoke said:

Eh, personally I would´ve been fine with a 1080p screen. Would´ve made the battery last a little longer.

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In addition to this general streamlining and redesigning of Sense, HTC also highlighted the addition of Boost+, which adds some features like app-locking behind a pattern, PIN, password, or fingerprint, and AirPlay support with HTC Connect. There are also some extra power management features in Boost+ like detecting apps that hold excessive wakelock or use excessive amounts of CPU, in addition to some system management features to clear caches and other “junk”, although HTC wasn’t really clear on what exactly they do here that is all that unique. This application will also allow whitelisting games/applications to automatically change system resolution to 1080p to improve frame rate and possibly reduce power consumption, which is a pretty neat way of compensating for the move to a 1440p display and the associated increase in GPU load for GPU-intensive applications.

Quote from the same article in OP. Seems like they already took that into account and implemented a way for apps/games to switch to 1080p. The 10 seems more interesting than the M9 at least. Want to see a full review though.

[Starelementpoke]

Just now, dragosudeki said:

Quote from the same article in OP. Seems like they already took that into account and implemented a way for apps/games to switch to 1080p. The 10 seems more interesting than the M9 at least. Want to see a full review though.

Huh, well then. Wish I had actual cash then.

[razor767]

Front design looks too much like an iPhone. 

[Starelementpoke]

1 minute ago, razor767 said:

Front design looks too much like an iPhone. 

What? With the screen in the center and the corners slightly rounded?

[Mew]

The Snapdragon 820, like the 810 does run quite hot and is prone to overheating. No one seems to really point that out in the S7 because it's quite fast in bursty workloads (which most tasks are). However, if you were to use navigation while charging your phone, it's going to throttle like crazy. 

 

This phone looks a lot like the S7 imo. I don't like the backwards back and recent apps button though.

 

It's also good to see phones start to use the earpiece as a speaker (much like the original LG android phone).

 

2.5D glass- I'm still not sure about this one. It feels good, looks good. But it makes compatibility with tempered glass screen protectors a problem. I guess with their accidental warranty, it's an non issue. 

 

The back is also hideous. Why can't manufacturers go back to iPhone 5 style antenna designs, similar to the s7? 

[razor767]

2 hours ago, Starelementpoke said:

What? With the screen in the center and the corners slightly rounded?

The finer details, like the removal of the front stereo speakers, earpiece grill design, physical button/ fingerprint scanner (OK that looks more like Samsung's). 

 

I'm not writing it off, but I feel like it's lost a lot of it's uniqueness.  

[LukeTim]

I have grown to despise my M8.

Not sure if it is HTC or Android's fault, but I'm never buying HTC again anyway.

iPhone 7 next time.

[DocSwag]

32 minutes ago, kurahk7 said:

The Snapdragon 820, like the 810 does run quite hot and is prone to overheating. No one seems to really point that out in the S7 because it's quite fast in bursty workloads (which most tasks are). However, if you were to use navigation while charging your phone, it's going to throttle like crazy. 

 

This phone looks a lot like the S7 imo. I don't like the backwards back and recent apps button though.

 

It's also good to see phones start to use the earpiece as a speaker (much like the original LG android phone).

 

2.5D glass- I'm still not sure about this one. It feels good, looks good. But it makes compatibility with tempered glass screen protectors a problem. I guess with their accidental warranty, it's an non issue. 

 

It isn't quite as bad as the 810, and since it is a lot more powerful than the 810 it kinda makes up for it.

[AyeJayKay]

Again HTC flatters us with a good looking phone and a list of specs but let's see if it'll be an actual good smartphone.

 

 

[Castdeath97]

Seems good so far, If it gets a good camera that can compete with the Galaxy S6 it would be great. The front panel as a whole though looks disappointing. 

[ashypanda]

i'm pretty stoked that nothing's gimp'd on this phone, but really wonder how much more expensive the 64gb version is going to be as it's £570 for the 32gb one, 
but it couldn't have been timed better as i'm having to send off my M8 for a warranty repair.