HTC 10 hands-on: First play

Introduction

The HTC 10 is like a great remix of all your favorite songs - the new flagship brings back UltraPixel and BoomSound, but nostalgia is mixed with a much-improved performance.

HTC was pushing for large pixels in camera sensors years before Google and Samsung did and was among the first to bring optical image stabilization to a mobile camera. This happened on a phone you may remember fondly - the HTC One.

We finally have a proper sequel to that great device in the shape of the HTC 10 - the world's first phone with an optically stabilized selfie camera. HTC also boasts that the 12MP main camera got a perfect 10 so to speak from DxOMark.

The camera sensor has big pixels - 1.55µm, bigger than what the Galaxy S7 has and the same size as the Nexus 6P camera. However, the HTC 10 has a brighter aperture than the Nexus (f/1.8 vs. f/2.0) and OIS, so this is not an even fight.

HTC's other obsession was pitch perfect audio - a 24-bit DAC earns it a Hi-Res Audio certification (from the Japan Audio Society), something Sony loves to brag about and LG offers as a $150 add-on for the LG G5. The company even added a premium headset to ensure you have the right hardware to enjoy the DAC.

Solo listening is half of HTC's passion, its engineers also popularized stereo speakers on a phone and now they are changing the game again. The HTC 10 splits the sound into low (played by the woofer) and high (played by the tweeter). So it's still two speakers, but this is not stereo sound - it's more like a single 2-way bookshelf speaker.

HTC 10 at a glance:

• Form factor: Metal unibody designed to take a hit (testing included 10,000 drops, scratches, corrosion, 1 week in extreme temps from -20°C to 60°C)
• Screen: 5.2" Super LCD 5 with QHD resolution (1,440 x 2,560px, 564ppi); 2.5D Gorilla Glass
• Camera: 12MP sensor (1/2.3", 1.55µm pixels), 26mm/80° lens with f/1.8 aperture and Optical Image Stabilization; Laser AF and dual-LED dual-tone flash; Manual mode with 12-bit RAW
• Selfie camera: 5MP (1.36µm pixels), 23mm/86° lens with f/1.8 apertrure and Optical Image Stabilization (a first); 1080p video recording
• Video camera: 4K 2160p video recording with Hi-Res audio (24-bit stereo from three mics with noise cancellation); 720p @ 120fps slo-mo; Hyperlapse
• Audio: 24-bit DAC and premium headphones; BoomSound dual speaker with two dedicated amps
• Platform: Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Sense UI; Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM; 32GB or 64GB of storage expandable with a microSD card
• Connectivity: LTE 450Mbps, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2; Display Port (USB Type-C connector); wireless streaming with Apple Airplay, Miracast, Chromecast
• Battery: 3,000mAh; Quick Charge 3.0 (50% in 30 minutes)
• Misc: Fingerprint sensor (recognition in 0.2 seconds)

We tried to keep it brief and the list still got quite long even though we skipped interesting features. Did you know that HTC removed duplicate Sense apps and decided to use the familiar Google ones?

That's one of many things we wish other makers would imitate - read on to find the others.

Update: We've added more photos of the phone on Page 2, went over the new software and benchmarked the Snapdragon 820 on Page 3 and tested the camera on Page 4.