At this point it’s probably not a secret that HTC has been struggling for the past few years. While the One M8 was a solid upgrade to the One M7, it was unfortunate in the sense that it did not resolve the problems that the M7 had. HTC made a leap in extending the One's core strengths of an aluminum unibody design, dual front-facing speakers, and generally polished user experience, but they left other matters unresolved. More frustratingly, with the One M9 it seemed that HTC had taken a step back as there was very little that had meaningfully changed, and it wasn’t entirely unusual to see changes that were a regression relative to the One M8. To be honest, I was ready to write off HTC entirely from the market as the One M9+ felt like it was just more of the same mistakes from HTC.

However just as I was ready to write them off, HTC did something to make me stop and take notice. With the One A9, I was shocked to see just how quickly HTC seemed to respond to external criticism. One of the major concerns I had with the M9 lineup in general was that the camera processing was disappointing compared to the competition. With the One A9, HTC had seemingly done an about-face here. While I didn’t have time to review the device itself, the camera was hugely improved compared to the One M9. Of course, with the Snapdragon 617 ISP there were still some notable camera issues that HTC alone couldn't solve, but for a company that I was ready to write off as irrelevant I was ready to give them another chance in this regard.

Similarly, while the One M9 had a disappointing display all around, the One A9’s AMOLED display was impressive in terms of how well it was calibrated and other characteristics like maximum brightness. HTC Sense, which was getting to be a bit long in tooth with the One M9, was notably improved with the One A9. However while the One A9 was interesting, it really wasn’t a high-end smartphone like the M9, so it really went without saying that the next flagship was the one I really wanted to see.

Basics

This brings us to the HTC 10, the high-end flagship to succeed the One M9. With their newest phone HTC wants to highlight in particular that this isn't just an increment to the One M9, so to distinguish it by name HTC has decided to call this device the 10. There's nothing else in the name this time, just 10.

To figure out whether it stacks up to the competition and whether the HTC 10 can be the leap forward that HTC needs to stay relevant, we can start with the usual spec sheet.

At a high level, the HTC 10 is probably one of the most promising HTC flagships ever released. The SoC maintains parity with every other high-end device you’re going to see in the US for now, with the same amount of RAM and storage at 4GB and 32GB respectively. However unlike the competition it looks like the HTC 10 is still using eMMC which could have an effect on performance, although HTC is claiming that overall responsiveness with regard to app launch and multitasking exceeds that of the competition. The unit I got to spend some hands-on time with appears to use SanDisk DF4032 NAND, and SanDIsk has confirmed that this is iNAND 7232 so it isn't necessarily a guarantee that this storage will underperform relative to UFS solutions.

In addition to SoC parity, HTC is maintaining battery size parity with a 11.55 WHr battery, which is going to be comparable to the Galaxy S7 and Xiaomi Mi5, although again HTC is claiming that they’ve been able to keep power efficiency higher than the Galaxy S7 to get better overall battery life. To round out the list of things that HTC has included to keep up with the competition, we see the inclusion of Qualcomm QC 3.0, USB 3.1 over USB Type-C, and LTE UE Category 9 support. HTC also continues to include their fingerprint scanner with automatic finger scanning with the display off. For the HTC 10, this fingerprint scanner should only take 200 ms to unlock.

Of course, HTC is seeking to set themselves apart from the competition, and to that end they’re bringing a new 5.2” 1440p Super LCD 5 display. I’m not entirely sure why HTC skipped Super LCD 4, but it’s possible that they either thought that this display is two generations worth of progress or that they just didn’t want an “unlucky number” to be used. Regardless, this display distinguishes itself from previous generations by having a wider gamut - HTC officially claims 92% NTSC, which should put it around 96% Adobe RGB - and a significantly improved Synaptics DSX touchscreen. HTC is claiming that with their touchscreen tuning at the hardware and software level that their touch latency is almost half that of the Galaxy Note5 and appreciably lower than the Galaxy S7.

Subjectively, the display of the HTC 10 is probably one of the better displays I’ve seen this year. Like the LG G5, the display has high color stability under viewing angle changes and when appears painted on to the display because of how close the panel appears to be to the glass. Unlike the G5 though there is an sRGB mode and the color temperature tends slightly warm. The color temperature is adjustable, but there is no clear scale here to indicate where 6500k is. Subjectively, for whatever reason navigation does feel noticeably smoother and responsive compared to the Galaxy S7, especially when dealing with long scrolling lists in apps like Reddit is Fun. I’m not sure if the HTC 10 is actually smoother here or if Samsung is just doing something different when it comes to touchscreen response because it’s entirely plausible that the Galaxy S7 just gives less momentum to a swipe, but it’s something I’ll have to test with more than just subjective testing. Regardless, something as simple as swiping through the app drawer causes what looks like dropped frames on the S820 GS7 while the HTC 10 is flawlessly smooth here.

In the grand scheme of things, while smoothness is definitely a big deal, it’s not really something that will immediately stand out unless you get to use a phone for an extended period of time. HTC seems to have realized this and in response they've also focused on some key areas of the device to make themselves stand out.

Differentiation: Design, Audio, and Camera

In order to differentiate themselves beyond these subtle nuances like battery life and touch latency, HTC is attempting to stand out from the crowd with design, audio, and camera that is supposedly better than the competition. There's a lot to talk about here, so we'll dive right in with design instead of trying to discuss everything all at once.

On the design front, the HTC 10 is actually an interesting departure from the M7 lineage that was carried forward from the M9. While it’s definitely still an aluminum unibody, the front of the device is now more like the One A9 than anything else with 2.5D rounded glass edges. Unlike the One A9 though, the HTC logo is finally gone. Of course, if you look carefully the DDIC is still on the bottom of the phone which explains why the fingerprint sensor isn’t perfectly centered. To compensate for this fact HTC has gone back to capacitive buttons. As a result of this change, typing on the HTC 10 is noticeably more comfortable than the One M8 or One M9, and the amount of screen estate you have when the keyboard is open is noticeably improved.

The design has also regained the chamfers and sand-blasted finish that the One M9 lost, which results in noticeably improved in-hand feel. The chamfer on the back is noticeably more visible than before, which HTC claims is to create a unique look depending upon lighting conditions. I don’t know how I feel about this aspect of the design yet, but it’s definitely a departure from what I’m used to. The ID also sees a move back to a circular camera lens on the back cover, which is definitely a lot more HTC-like than the squared-off lens that we saw with the One M9. The power button remains on the side and in a rather uncomfortable position unless you use the phone with your left hand. However, the button doesn’t suffer from the accidental activation issues that I experienced with the One M9 which is good to see.

On the audio front, HTC has completely revamped how they think about audio when it comes to the HTC 10 in a lot of ways. It’s interesting to see how HTC doesn’t seem to fear killing sacred cows, as it was only a year ago that HTC seemed to believe that retaining dual front-facing speakers was non-negotiable for their high-end flagships. With the HTC 10, we see a significant departure in the speaker setup of the device. Rather than two front-facing speakers, there’s only one front-facing speaker that doubles as an earpiece. This speaker is specifically tuned for high-frequency performance, and is highly directional in nature. The other speaker is downward firing, but is tuned for low frequencies as a subwoofer of sorts. Both speakers have their own amp/protection IC to dynamically boost output based upon environmental conditions. This design should retain the front-facing speaker quality that we’ve come to expect, while reducing the bezel of the device with some minor loss in stereo separation.

In my time with the HTC 10, I actually discovered that the bottom-firing speaker is more isotropic or omnidirectional than what I’ve come to expect from phone speakers. While cupping my hand around the speaker does affect volume depending upon the audio and volume level, it’s less than most phones. More notably, the speaker doesn’t muffle like I would expect if I cover it with a shirt sleeve or jacket. Of course, covering the speaker entirely with a finger does muffle the speaker significantly, but this isn’t really a surprise. Overall, it looks like the HTC 10’s speaker system lives up to the promise that HTC is making here, but we’ll have to see how it really performs in the full review.

The other thrust that HTC is making in audio is improved output on the 3.5mm headphone jack. There are some questionable points in the marketing literature like a 16 to 24 bit audio upscaler, but the main points of interest here are a 24-bit DAC with a high voltage, low noise/distortion amp, 24-bit stereo audio recording with three dual-membrane microphones, and software to compensate for personal variation in hearing and headphones to improve audio reproduction. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test any of this in my time with the device so far, but HTC is claiming that THD and noise are both below the Galaxy S7 and LG V10, with output voltage comparable to the LG V10.

In order to take advantage of this improved audio over the 3.5mm jack, HTC is also including better earbuds out of the box for every device, with larger drivers and a new diaphragm design that should improve sound reproduction, although it’s unlikely that these are going to be better than dedicated studio monitors.

The final piece of the puzzle on the hardware side is the camera. HTC seems to have understood just how critical camera is to differentiate them from the rest of the market, and for this generation they’re promising to finally deliver one of the best cameras you can buy in an Android phone. To start, it looks like HTC is single-sourcing the IMX377 for the HTC 10, which is the same sensor that we first saw in the Nexus 6P and 5X. In addition to this “Ultrapixel 2” sensor, HTC is using a lens module that has OIS and an f/1.8 aperture. The focal length is also 26mm equivalent, which does give some cause for concern but I’ll defer judgment here until the full review. In order to try and keep pace with the dual pixel AF of the Galaxy S7, HTC has also equipped the 10 with a laser AF system that allows for improved low-light focus reliability and speed. I’m not quite ready to say much here, but at the very least the photos I took of the relatively dark briefing room had surprisingly natural post-processing, and focusing was noticeably faster than the G5 in the time I had with the HTC 10.

Of course, while hardware is the critical foundation of user experience, software is really what makes or breaks it. To this end, HTC is continuing the work that they began with the One A9. The primary goals of HTC Sense for this year is to make HTC Sense consistent with Material Design, remove unnecessary duplicate applications, and provide meaningful UX improvements where AOSP falls short. To this end, a number of HTC applications that were found to be relatively unused have been removed from the HTC 10 by default. However, applications from Sense that were found to be used more than the AOSP alternative have been retained and updated in order to fit Material Design guidelines. Examples of retained applications include HTC Mail, Dialer, Weather/Clock, and Sense Home, while removed applications include things like Scribble, Polaris Office, and Fun Fit. These removed applications will still be on the Play Store for now, but it seems that they won’t be coming back in shipping ROMs to reduce user confusion.

In addition to this general streamlining and redesigning of Sense, HTC also highlighted the addition of Boost+, which adds some features like app-locking behind a pattern, PIN, password, or fingerprint, and AirPlay support with HTC Connect. There are also some extra power management features in Boost+ like detecting apps that hold excessive wakelock or use excessive amounts of CPU, in addition to some system management features to clear caches and other “junk”, although HTC wasn’t really clear on what exactly they do here that is all that unique. This application will also allow whitelisting games/applications to automatically change system resolution to 1080p to improve frame rate and possibly reduce power consumption, which is a pretty neat way of compensating for the move to a 1440p display and the associated increase in GPU load for GPU-intensive applications.

On the accessory side, HTC is also introducing a new Ice View case to replace the Dot View case. This is basically just a TPU flip case with a magnet on the flip cover that allows for higher resolution display of things like the clock, notifications, call history, and other quick tasks. At least one reason for the change here was that the flip cover interfered with fast camera launch, so it’s now possible to take a quick photo without opening the flip cover.

In addition to the Ice View Case, HTC is also introducing a USB-C headset made in partnership with JBL called the Reflect Aware C, which are water resistant, sweat-proof, and have adjustable noise cancellation that works without any batteries in the headphones with 14.8mm drivers and 10Hz-22KHz frequency response.

Overall, the HTC 10 shows some incredible promise, but it will take a full review to see whether the phone lives up to the lofty expectations that its marketing is setting. The HTC 10 will be available in the US on Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA. An unlocked variant will also be available with support for AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, starting at 699 USD. US devices will also have UH OH Protection, which allows for one free replacement device within 12 months of purchase if the device is shattered or water-damaged. At this time global units will have the option of Carbon Grey, Glacial Silver, and Topaz Gold. KDDI in Japan will also offer the device in Camellia Red at launch, and the color should roll out globally with time.