HTC’s first all-metal water-resistant phone also has a year old processor

In the news for manufacturing the Pixel and Pixel XL, HTC is back with its own new smartphone available on Friday for Sprint. The HTC Bolt is essentially a larger version of the HTC 10 announced earlier this year with some key enhancements, but slightly worse specs.

The HTC Bolt is carved out of aluminum using the HTC 10 design, but at a larger scale – the screen is 5.5” with QHD resolution. And the body is dust and waterproof – IP57, something neither the HTC 10 nor Pixels have. HTC specifically mentions that you shouldn’t submerge it intentionally, though.

It has a 16-megapixel optically stabilized rear camera, 8-megapixel front camera, and a 5.5-inch quad HD display. Internally, it’s a bit more disappointing, as the Bolt has last year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of RAM instead of the much-more-common-for-2016 Snapdragon 820 and 4GB of RAM. A 3,200mAh battery provides “up to a day or more of use” and supports Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 2.0 fast charging. Essentially, the Bolt shares the same basic specs as the HTC M9 and Nexus 6P from last year.

HTC went where we feared Google will go and axed the 3.5mm headphone jack. At least it gives you a pair of BoomSound Adaptive Audio headphones that plug into the USB Type-C port.

The HTC Bolt is available starting today at Sprint stores (USA) – yours for $25 a month, 24 months in a row. Initially the Bolt will be an exclusive to Sprint, but the same hardware might launch elsewhere under a different name.