With 2016 now almost halfway done, smartphone makers all over the world are reaping the rewards of their flagship launches early on in the year. One company however, has decided to come late to the party, and that is HTC. HTC didn’t get much of a pop at the MWC earlier this year, and many were left wondering as to what exactly was going on behind those closed doors. Well, the curtains are finally off, and what we have is a flagship that portrays the best of HTC thus far. HTC has been synonymous with some brilliant designs in the past, and with the A9 gaining reasonable popularity, they finally looked ready to take the quantum leap ahead, and with the new HTC 10, it seems they made the jump after all. While HTC has brought back past concepts like the Ultrapixels and the Boomsound software, but in a new and evolved state,which should get the people back on board for sure. So, enough build up, lets get right to it –
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DESIGN AND DISPLAY –
HTC has never compromised on build quality, and the HTC 10 is no different. The premium build is right up there or even higher than the other flagships in the market. Now I too criticised HTC a lot when I saw the early images of the device with its big chamfered edges on the top, but after looking at the phone in the flesh, I completely get why HTC went for that design route . The phone feels amazing in the hand, while the chamfered edge nicely improves the ergonomics of the device.
While most phones today are all about curved backs and endless wobbles on flat tables, HTC has actually made the mid section of the device flat, so that the device does not give you those annoying wobbles when you place it on a flat surface. I would have loved to see the camera fit into the phone, but that is not the case unfortunately. The camera does protrude, and when the device is placed on a surface, the entire weight of the device will act on the camera ring, which does not bode well in the long run. So, keep that factor in mind, or just buy a phone case along with he device and fix this problem then and there.
Another noticeable change is the speaker grilles. HTC decided to phase out the dual front facing speakers, and instead, place the tweeters in two different locations on the device. The lower bass and mids are restricted to the bottom firing speaker, while the mids and high tones are taken care of by the earpiece speaker.
