Technology

First encounter with the HTC 10

YOU GOT TECH - Abe Olandres - The Philippine Star

May 1, 2016 | 10:00am

Announced just early this month, the HTC 10 is the Taiwanese company’s latest flagship handset. Coming from a long line of HTC One devices (the first one being the HTC One M7 right up to the HTC One M9), the HTC 10 basically followed the same design signature but with a couple of changes or improvements.

Unlike the previous generations, the HTC 10 has its front panel completely covered with Gorilla Glass, which slightly curves toward the edges. The metal frame surrounds the glass panel that stretches all the way to the back with a unibody design.

The dual front-facing speakers have been replaced in favor of a more compact design. They redesigned BoomSound with one of the speakers up on top along with the front-facing camera and the second speakers at the bottom end beside the USB charging port. That means you have front-firing speakers and side-firing speakers that provide stereo sound with a still very loud output.

The more compact body also means better one-handed use while the thick chamfered edges offer a more comfortable grip. Up in front is a physical home button that also serves as a fingerprint sensor. The scanner is actually very fast and responsive although the button itself is slightly recessed and there’s basically nothing to press in there. Flanking the home button are two capacitive buttons for Back and Recent apps with backlights.

The volume controls and power button are on the right side. The power button has ridges on the top for better grip and easy identification even if you’re not looking at the device. The nano SIM card slot is just above it while the microSD card slot is on the opposite side which, by the way, HTC claims can support up to two terabytes of expandable storage.

On top is the 3.5mm audio port in the middle of what could be a polycarbonate strip that is part of the antenna band. HTC has also removed the IR blaster, which has been there since the first HTC One. At the bottom end is the USB Type-C charging port, the secondary loudspeaker and the primary microphone.

The back panel is curved with two antenna bands running across the top and bottom corners. Another noise-canceling microphone is placed along the upper band. The rear camera is in the middle with the dual-LED flash and a laser autofocus on the right side.

The display uses a quad HD Super LCD 5, which is HTC’s usual display technology in its flagship devices. It’s comparable to the usual IPS LCD panels and though not as rich or vibrant as AMOLED, it has its own advantages.

Powered by a Snapdragon 820 chip with 4GB of RAM, the HTC 10 is expected to bring the same performance as the other Snapdragon-flavored Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro and the LG G5. The handset runs on the latest Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with a custom HTC Sense UI. It has that same look and feel as the previous HTC Sense user interface but has been trimmed down in some corners.

As a long-time HTC user, and having owned a lot of their flagships from the HTC One M7 and M8 right up to the HTC Desire Eye, the HTC 10 has finally made significant hardware improvements to its flagship while retaining that signature design. It looks gorgeous, has great performance but could still find it hard to make a dent considering the number of equally competitive flagship devices that came out this first quarter.

HTC has given up in the Philippine market so the HTC 10 will not be officially released or supported locally. Fortunately, long-time HTC fans can still source it from their favorite online sellers.

HTC 10 specs:

5.2-inch QHD display @ 2560 x 1440 resolution

Super LCD 5

Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor 2.15GHz quad-core processor

4GB RAM

32GB/64GB internal storage

up to 2TB via microSD

4G LTE Cat 9.

Bluetooth 4.2

WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

NFC

12MP (HTC UltraPixel 2) rear camera w/ laser autofocus, OIS, and F1.8 aperture (ultra wide-angle lens)