New phone looks to be much better than HTC's last flagship phone

HTC has unveiled its new HTC 10 flagship phone. Carved out of a solid block of aluminium the 5.2in display sits behind a layer of glass that covers the entire front. Key features include 24-bit audio, a double-optical-image-stabilized-camera-system, reduced interface bloat and an impressive, rear, 12-megapixel, f1.8 camera which gives the iPhone 6S Plus a run for its money.



In our brief hands-on it felt much better than the disappointing, upgrade-by-numbers predecessor, the HTC One M9, which was a lazy upgrade at a ridiculous price – phones that were half its price offered better features and performance.

It feels incredibly solid and, with the latest-generation innards, felt very fast and responsive. People who don’t like thin phones may dislike the 3mm-thick sides, though, which can make the phone hard to hold securely. A new official case, called the Ice View, lets you see through the flappy cover. While it’s not as cool and retro as the coarser, dotty cases we saw on predecessors, the finer mesh shows more information and better notifications for third party apps.

The 3,000mAh battery promises a whopping 27 hours of talk time and two days of average use. The M9 barely lasted a day so we hope this lives up to the specs when we fully test it.

It comes with “hi-res audio” earbuds which can make use of the 24-bit audio. The new fast charger apparently can fill the battery to 50% in 30 minutes.

HTC has proudly removed a great deal of bloatware and unnecessary apps, saying that Android’s own apps are now mature enough not to need duplicating. Fans of HTC’s own Calendar app and such like will still be able to download them on the Google Play Store.

It doesn’t run a pure version of Android – a reduced version of the HTC Sense interface is retained. New optimisations include the ability to move app tiles anywhere across the screen (no more grid spacing) and icons can be changed to different shapes and sizes. A new app called HTC Boost+ apparently helps with battery life by acting like an intelligent task manager. A new Personal Audio Profile allegedly dynamically matches sound to your ears – we’ll be interested in testing that claim out.

In terms of handling, the bottom button is now a non-pressable fingerprint reader and the power button on the side is ridged to make it quickly identifiable as a power button and not a volume rocker.

It all amounts to an impressive-sounding phone that looks to live up to its promise in the brief time we had with it. It’s already significantly better than the M9 and already more attractive to Android fans who don’t like Samsung’s S7 Edge screen or Sony’s glass monoliths. However, in a crowded market much will depend on price. This is a premium phone and the price will likely be too... unless HTC feels like apologizing for its previous flagship by overcompensating with much better value this time around. Price and availability are yet to be announced.

Specifications



SIZE: 145.9 x 71.9 x 3.0 - 9.0mm

WEIGHT: 161g

DISPLAY: 5.2-inch, Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels, 564 pixels per inch) Super LCD 5 with curved-edge Gorilla Glass

SOFTWARE Android 6 (Marshmallow) with HTC Sense

PROCESSOR

Qualcomm Snapdragon 820

Quad-core, 64-bit, up to 2.2Ghz

MEMORY

Total storage: 32GB

32GB RAM: 4GB

4GB Expandable: microSD™ expansion supports additional memory cards up to 2TB with Flex Storage (optional cards not included)

Cameras

Main Camera

12MP HTC UltraPixel 2 (1.55µm pixel size)

Laser autofocus

BSI sensor

Optical Image Stabilization (OIS)

f /1.8 aperture, 26mm focal length

/1.8 aperture, 26mm focal length Dual tone LED flash

4K video recording with Hi-Res Audio

Slow motion video recording at 720p, 120fps

Modes include Auto-HDR, Panorama, Pro mode with manual control and 12-bit RAW format support, Hyperlapse, Zoe capture, Video Pic, and continuous shooting up to 8fps

Front Camera

5MP (1.34µm pixel size)

Autofocus

BSI sensor

Optical Image Stabilization (OIS)

f /1.8 aperture, 23mm focal length

/1.8 aperture, 23mm focal length Full HD 1080p video recording

Modes include Auto-HDR, Auto Selfie, Voice Selfie, and Live Make-Up

SOUND

HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition

Dolby Audio

Personal Audio Profile

Hi-Res Audio certified

Hi-Res Audio earphones

Hi-Res Audio stereo recording

Three microphones with noise cancelation

NETWORK

2G/2.5G GSM/GPRS/EDGE:

850/900/1800/1900 MHz

850/900/1900/2100 MHz

Asia/Europe: FDD B1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 20, 28, 32; TDD B38, 40, 41

Support Cat 9 LTE: downloads up to 450Mbps, uploads up to 50Mbps

3G UMTS

4G LTE (up to 450Mb/s)

SIM Supports VoLTE

Nano SIM

SENSORS

Ambient light sensor

Proximity sensor

Motion G-sensor

Compass sensor

Gyro sensor

Magnetic sensor

Fingerprint sensor

Sensor Hub for activity tracking

Location

GPS + GLONASS + Beidou

Capacity: 3000mAh

Talk time on 3G/4G: up to 27 hours

Standby time on 3G/4G: up to 19 days

Power saving mode

Extreme power saving mode

Quick Charge 3.0 with cool charge: up to 50% charge in 30 minutes

Display colour personalization

Ice View case

Motion Launch

Quiet ring on pick-up

Pocket mode

CONNECTIVITY

USB 3.1 Gen1, Type-C

3.5mm stereo audio jack

Bluetooth® 4.2

Wi-Fi®: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5GHz)

NFC

DisplayPort

DNLA

Miracast

Google Cast

AirPlay

HTC Connect™ for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to compatible multi-room audio systems, TVs, portable speakers and home entertainment systems

BATTERY

Capacity: 3000mAh

Talk time on 3G/4G: up to 27 hours

Standby time on 3G/4G: up to 19 days

Power saving mode

Extreme power saving mode

Quick Charge 3.0 with cool charge: up to 50% charge in 30 minutes

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

Display colour personalization

Ice View case

Motion Launch

Quiet ring on pick-up

Pocket mode