HTC 10 review: A good handset, but hard to recommend in 2018

The HTC 10 was a great phone back in the day – unfortunately, that day was a couple of years ago now, and it’s a tough sell in 2018, especially with the news that Google has snaffled up the company’s smartphone engineering and design team.

At the time, HTC announced that its team would continue working on its next flagship – but that was almost certainly the HTC U11 Plus, which is now out and available. After that, HTC has been silent, and it’s highly likely nothing more will be forthcoming. 

If you’re dead set on a HTC phone, then the U11 Plus is the one to go for – or the Pixel 2, which the Taiwanese firm built on Google’s behalf. In fact, it’s probably worth HTC fans keeping an eye on Google’s phones in future – that’s where you’ll find the Tainwanese company’s knowhow and design expertise from here on in.

My original review continues below.

The HTC 10 is an excellent phone, but it really has to be. HTC has always made very good flagship handsets, but the brand struggles to stand out against its glitzier rivals from Apple, Samsung LG and Sony.

At an event a couple of months ago, another writer spotted my slightly scarred but still stylish-looking HTC One M8 and commented, “you don’t see many tech journalists with HTC phones”. It was a pretty good point, and a concerning truth for the struggling Taiwanese manufacturer: if even the journalists who are pretty positive about the handsets don’t own them, how do they convince the public to consider a HTC instead of the latest all-singing, all-dancing Apple or Samsung flagship?

One option would be to undercut their opponents, but that’s not an approach HTC seems keen on. The “One” and “M” may have been dropped from the title, but the HTC 10’s launch price is doggedly staying up there with the big boys. At £570 SIM-free, it’s the same price as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and £30 more than the entry-level iPhone 6s.

Say what you like about HTC, that’s a bold statement of intent. Unfortunately, despite being a fantastic smartphone – and the best thing HTC has done in years – it doesn’t quite live up to the billing.

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HTC 10: Appearance

From the smash-hit One M8 to the somewhat underwhelming One M9, HTC should have learned that the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t always pay off in the technology world. Not only did the HTC One M9 offer few obvious advantages over its predecessor, but also it looked almost identical.

This isn’t the case with the HTC 10 – if you’re looking for an elevator pitch description, it’s a bit like the One M8 and One A9 has a baby. A big baby, at 5.2in, but, since both of those handsets are good-looking, this is far from a bad thing. Our review model, which arrived in Carbon Grey, is a rather stylish-looking phone. Since HTC has ditched the logo and speaker beneath the screen, it has found room to swell the screen size a tad and add a touch-sensitive home button that doubles up as a fairly reliable fingerprint scanner.

There are other changes, too, the most obvious of which is that all of your micro-USB cables are in danger of redundancy: HTC has decided that USB Type-C is the way forward. The power button has moved from the top of the handset to the side and now comes with an oddly serrated texture. The headphone jack now sticks out the top, which will prove something of a Marmite move. So far, you might argue, it’s all change from previous HTC flagships.

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Turn it over, however, and things feel more familiar. The all-in-one metal design – pioneered by the Taiwanese manufacturer and subsequently “adopted” by almost everyone else – is proudly on display again, as are the familiar lines that slice across the curved corners. The round camera housing is as distinctive as ever, but now protrudes by a couple of millimetres. The HTC logo is embossed in the centre, as before, but the rounded rear is now framed by sharper, chamfered edges running around its circumference.

It’s not the lightest phone. Tipping the scales at 161g, it’s a fair bit heavier than the iPhone 6s (129g) and the Samsung Galaxy S7 (152g), although nowhere near as weighty as the iPhone 6s Plus (192g). Make no mistake, though: the HTC 10’s build quality makes for a phone that feels wonderfully solid and substantial.

Once again, there’s no removable battery, but you’re free to pop in a microSD card and expand the 32GB of storage to your heart’s content (as long as your heart is content with a 2,032GB cap).

HTC 10: Screen

For three generations, HTC has clung doggedly to 1080p as its smartphone resolution of choice. However, with this larger screen comes a substantial resolution boost – the new display now stretches to a Quad HD, 2,560 x 1,440 resolution. The screen is sharp and vivid, although, to the naked eye, the leap from 441ppi to 564ppi is a marginal improvement. At least HTC hasn’t gone down the route of chasing 4K magic beans like Sony.

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And a fine screen it is, too. It uses Super LCD 5 panel technology with a protective layer of Gorilla Glass 4, and in our tests it performed very strongly indeed. It reaches a maximum brightness of 449cd/m², covers 99.8% of the sRGB gamut and serves up an impressive contrast ratio of 1,793:1.

To be clear, these are all really good scores – as you’d expect from a selection of handsets very close to the top of our best smartphones of 2016 list – but the HTC 10 locks horns with the best of them, performing solidly in every single metric. For me, the Galaxy S7 just snatches it, despite its seemingly duller screen (a quirk of Amoled technology: it sometimes goes brighter when required, but you can’t manually turn it up that high yourself to prevent it burning out), but the fact the HTC 10 is in the same ballpark is a strong start.

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HTC 10: Performance

But performance is what keeps people upgrading every 24 months, and if the HTC 10 is hoping to compete with the Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6s, it needs to be speedy. On paper, the specifications of the HTC 10 are pretty much identical to the LG G5: both contain the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, and in both the processor is backed up by a beefy 4GB of RAM.

Let’s see how it compares against the same handsets on our standard benchmarking tests:

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is still the phone that crushes most of the opposition – including the HTC 10 – in Geekbench’s multi-core test, but it offers weaker frames per second in the gaming benchmarks. Despite having ostensibly the same hardware, though, the HTC 10 is a fair bit behind the LG G5. The Nexus 6P fares considerably badly in all the tests, but then it does pass the wallet test by retailing for more than £100 cheaper.

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What you really need to know is that the HTC performs as slickly as you’d hope a top-of-the-range handset would. Swiping between screens is seamlessly quick, and everything performs very smoothly indeed. With the kind of specs included, you wouldn’t expect any current games to struggle either, and during my time with the handset it scythed through everything I threw at it.

HTC 10: Software

HTC’s Sense overlay was a great addition to Android back when the HTC Hero launched in 2009, but as Android has matured the need for user-friendly overlays has reduced considerably. The company has moved with the times in this regard and – icons aside – the only obvious sign you’re using something different is the presence of Blinkfeed, HTC’s news aggregator, which you can access with a quick swipe to the right from the homescreen.

Connect Blinkfeed with Facebook, Twitter and your other favourite news sources, and you’ll be presented with a tailored spread of news from your friends and trusted news sources. It remains a handy tool, although nothing rival handset owners should feel particularly jealous of, given the quality of alternative offerings on Google Play.

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Curiously, rather than lumbering you with Android apps you might not want, the HTC 10 presents you with a strange halfway house – it suggests apps you might like, and then invites you to download them when you touch them. Case in point: Facebook. There was a Facebook icon on the desktop; I tapped it preparing to log in and was offered the chance to download it. The same is true with Instagram and Messenger, suggesting some kind of deal with the biggest social network in town.

Other than that, HTC has gone quite easy on Android, reflecting how solid the operating system has become with each improved version. There are a couple of HTC apps built in – HTC Club and a help system – but unlike on previous handsets these can be deleted at will. The other additions – Boost+, for example, which clears memory and theoretically improves gaming performance by clever power-management – are welcome, and there’s nothing I’d describe as bloatware. 

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Recent HTC cameras have been a touch lacklustre, and the company has clearly been eager to put that right in the HTC 10, with vast improvements to both cameras. Ahead of the phone’s launch, the company submitted the HTC 10 to imaging benchmark specialists DxO Labs, and the phone’s Ultrapixel 2 camera gained an impressive score of 88 overall. This puts it level with the Samsung Galaxy S7 in their estimations. For comparison’s sake, last year’s HTC M9 got a measly 69.[gallery:14]

The HTC 10 packs a 12-megapixel sensor with 1.55μm pixels alongside an f/1.8 aperture, support for raw image files and a revamped image-processing algorithm. It’s all change for HTC in the camera department – especially as the often-overlooked front-facing camera is the first on any handset to get optical image stabilisation (OIS) alongside a f/1.8 aperture and 1.34μm pixels.

The results are extremely good. Even in lower light conditionsm where some cameras struggle, the HTC 10’s shots are crisp and vibrant. Up close and personal, the camera retains its sharpness, with every hair on my cat’s decidedly disinterested face highlighted for the world to enjoy. The lack of overzealous edge enhancement or noise reduction is a joy to behold. This is a great smartphone camera.[gallery:13]

As for the selfie camera, this isn’t the first time HTC has tried to appeal to that particular crowd, and results here are pleasing enough. Perhaps there isn’t a big enough difference from rivals to act as a clear USP, but if you love crisp, perfect selfies I suspect you’ll find much to love.

HTC 10: Battery Life

Battery life is slowly creeping up consumers’ list of desirable qualities in a smartphone, and it’s arguably even more significant in the HTC 10, thanks to its adoption of USB Type-C charging. Ask a colleague for a spare micro-USB cable and the chances are they’ll have one lying around (even if they don’t know that’s what it’s called), but USB Type-C? Expect a lot of blank stares.

So, how does it compare to the other flagships? Let’s return to that table one last time. All tests were done at a standardised 170cd/m² screen brightness to prevent any misleading figures.

So, the HTC 10 is slightly above average, but a long way behind the Galaxy S7, which thoroughly distorts the graph. That’s far from a bad result – especially as there’s a fast charger in the box – but, given you can’t replace an ageing battery like you can with the LG G5, you’d hope for a better result fresh out the box.

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HTC 10: Ice View case

Debuting alongside the HTC 10 is a brand new official case. HTC broke the mould with the Dot View case on the HTC M8, which allowed you to see notifications while keeping your handset completely covered.

The Ice View case is HTC’s sequel to this, and it’s actually a big improvement. Not only does it sit flush against the phone screen when flat (early Dot View cases would be left semi-open unless held in place), it also grants you some basic phone functions when closed, from seeing your call history and skipping music tracks all the way up to operating the camera, if time is of the essence for capturing that perfect snap.[gallery:18]

All of this works because the touchscreen operates through the plastic cover, leaving everything on screen misty, but clearly visible. It’s like looking at everything through a frosty Instagram filter, and the results range from brilliant for the notifications (HTC has deliberately chosen bright, dayglo colours for a retro neon vibe) to usable for the camera – good for a quick snap, but advanced settings would be really fiddly. It’s also extremely hard to see in direct sunlight, which made getting usable photos of it in action tricky to say the least.

It’s not clear exactly how much protection it would offer the butterfingered, but it does make the handset feel a bit safer in your hands, without the slipperiness of the metal frame exposed. Our review sample also arrived with several scratches on the plastic screen cover itself which wouldn’t scrub out – we can’t say how they got there, and therefore how easily it was done, but it does take away from the case’s style and make capturing the perfect snap a little bit harder, should the same fate befall yours.[gallery:17]

With a RRP of £39.99, I can’t say it’s something I’d buy for the phone, personally, unconvinced as I am for the protective benefits. But it looks stylish enough and HTC has clearly given some thought to how to make the whole thing as unobtrusive as possible.

Buy the HTC Ice View case from Amazon

HTC 10: Verdict

HTC has gone to great trouble to correct the weaknesses highlighted by reviewers of its past few handsets, and the results are really impressive. The HTC 10 is a great-looking handset with a superb screen, great performance and good – if not great – battery life. The camera, once a weak spot for HTC, can now compete with the very best of the bunch.

The trouble is that the “best of the bunch” in other key areas is exactly the same price as the HTC 10. The Samsung Galaxy S7 offers slightly better performance in day-to-day use, an Amoled screen, waterproofing, wireless charging and a battery that seems to last forever. This strikes me as a slight error of judgement on HTC’s part, given that – in the UK at least – Samsung is the only Android game in town for most consumers. Short of a brilliant offer or a mortal hatred of TouchWiz – Samsung’s version of Android – there’s no good reason I can think of that anyone would pick this over the S7. Which is a real shame, considering how good it is.

You’ve got to hand it to HTC, though – this is a confident return to form for the company. If you can find it for a good monthly price, then you won’t be in any way disappointed with the HTC 10: it’s a great handset, and jumps straight into our league table of the finest smartphones. But, given the strength and popularity of the opposition, HTC may begin to wish it had tried that bit harder to win the all-important price war.

READ NEXT: Not sure about the HTC 10? Then check out our guide to the best smartphones that you can buy instead

HTC 10 specifications
Processor	Quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
RAM	4GB
Screen size	5.2in
Screen resolution	2,560 x 1,440
Screen type	Super LCD 5
Front camera	5 megapixels
Rear camera	12 megapixels
Flash	LED
GPS	Yes
Compass	Yes
Storage (free)	32GB (23.9GB)
Memory card slot (supplied)	microSD
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.2
NFC	Yes
Wireless data	4G
Size	146 x 9 x 72mm
Weight	161g
Operating system	Android 6.0.1
Battery size	3,000mAh