HTC Bolt preview: First look

16MP shooter with OIS

The HTC Bolt has a 16MP rear-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture, dual-LED flash, and OIS. Our initial impressions of the camera on this phone are good. There's no laser autofocus like the HTC 10 has, but the phase detection AF does a well enough job of refocusing on the subject.

Here are some sample shots taken with the HTC Bolt.

Camera samples

Details look good, but white balance tends to normally shift between neutral and 'a little warm'. The camera also clipped highlights in the third photo above. Will HDR be able to correct overexposed highlights? Well, you tell us.

Here are some HDR shots. In scenes with high-contrast, HDR isn't always able to save the image. These two sidewalk scene photos were taken the shadows, so it would be quite hard to expose the sky while also exposing the scene well enough. In these cases, HDR only raised the shadows a little bit and struggled to bring down the highlights, although an attempt was made.

HTC Bolt, HDR: Off • On • Off • On

Here are scenes where HDR worked better. The following two scenes can be viewed side-by-side with the HTC 10's shot. Is the HTC Bolt getting pictures as good as the HTC 10's?

HTC Bolt, HDR Off • HTC 10, HDR Off • HTC Bolt, HDR On • HTC 10, HDR On

We still can't see the sky in the scene with the trees, but the tree tops were clipping with HDR Off. The HTC 10's looks similar, but overall it's exposed a little less. The blues in the sky are shining through on the HTC 10 with HDR while the HTC Bolt still shows some clipping of the highlights, though much of it was reduced.

Here's another scene where both smartphone cameras fared quite well. Both cameras did a great job of exposing the scene properly, but you can see a purplish-pinkish tinge on the HTC Bolt's image colors overall. The HTC 10 better represented the real-life scene.

HTC Bolt, HDR Off • HTC 10, HDR Off • HTC Bolt, HDR On • HTC 10, HDR On

The HTC Bolt's rear facing camera works quite well. Colors are well represented but the camera tends to take warmer images in certain scenes.

We've yet to test low-light shooting, this is where the HTC Bolt might not do as well as the HTC 10, seeing as the aperture on the HTC 10 is f/1.8 and the Bolt has f/2.0 (a lower aperture lets more light in).

The HTC Bolt records Hi-Res audio like the HTC 10. Similarly, when switching to Hi-Res audio, the file format is changed from MP4 to MKV.

The HTC Bolt takes great details with 4K video, even though there's no digital image stabilization. The 1080p video with standard sound does look pretty rough. We don't even see an option to toggle image stabilization as we've seen in other phones.

Here are a couple of video samples, the 4K sample has Hi-Res audio enabled while the 1080p does not. Likewise, you can download the untouched samples here: 1080p with Hi-Res audio (~62MB) \ 1080p without Hi-Res audio (~53MB).

Performance

The HTC Bold, rather weirdly, opted to use an older, and not very successful at that, Snapdragon 810 chipset, while the world is already gearing itself toward Snapdragon 821 and even 830. Let's crunch the numbers - the Snapdragon 810 has 4 fast Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and four energy efficient 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 cores.

Graphics are handled by an Adreno 430 GPU and there's a lowly (for Android that is) 3GB of RAM.

Onto the scores - predictaby the HTC Bolt is last in every single CPU test we ran when compared to its current competition - all of which is equipped with faster, newer chips.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  5664
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  5245
• Google Pixel XL
  4152
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  4139
• OnePlus 3
  4045
• LG V20
  3890
• HTC 10
  3621
• HTC Bolt
  3466

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3473
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  1854
• OnePlus 3
  1719
• HTC 10
  1708
• LG V20
  1590
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  1535
• Google Pixel XL
  1507
• HTC Bolt
  1024

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  173110
• HTC 10
  154031
• OnePlus 3
  141764
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  141193
• Google Pixel XL
  141186
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  132084
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  129229
• LG V20
  101167
• HTC Bolt
  84094

In graphics tests the HTC Bolt understandably parks itself in the bottom of the table. Faced against current-gen smartphones its Adreno 430 GPU can't compete. While most GPUs right now are just starting to achieve the 30 fps required for a smooth experience the older-gen Adreno 430 stays well below in all but the older Manhattan 3.0 offscreen test.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  60
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  49
• HTC 10
  47
• Google Pixel XL
  47
• OnePlus 3
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  38
• HTC Bolt
  27

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  56
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  48
• OnePlus 3
  45
• Google Pixel XL
  30
• HTC 10
  28
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  27
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  27
• HTC Bolt
  16

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  39
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  33
• Google Pixel XL
  32
• HTC 10
  31
• OnePlus 3
  31
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  28
• HTC Bolt
  11

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  42
• Google Pixel (5.0)
  34
• OnePlus 3
  30
• Google Pixel XL
  17
• HTC 10
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  15
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  15
• HTC Bolt
  11

Day to day performance on the HTC Bolt should be fine - the Snapdragon 810 is still featured in some capable smartphones from 2015. But it won't be able to compete with the top phones of 2016.