HTC 10

We won’t beat about the bush and just say it up front – the HTC 10 doesn’t break the mould in terms of design. And yet, it manages to stand out with its own distinct character – a feat in itself. While Samsung has chosen to take the safe route by not mucking about with the design of its latest flagships, LG is making a bold move with the G5 by making it semi modular. HTC on the hand, seems to have chosen middle ground – as it hasn’t changed the design for its flagship significantly, but has still managed to give it a different look and feel.

The HTC 10’s 5.2-inch QHD display is very capable, and produces lovely visuals. The Super LCD5 panel lacks the AMOLED goodness of Samsung Galaxy S7’s screen which makes the colours look less punchy in comparison, but it still does a great job and we think the hues look quite natural. We had no issues with sunlight legibility or viewing angles.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Marshmallow on a new Android flagship, and since this is an HTC smartphone we’re talking about, there’s no escaping the brand’s Sense UI. The HTC 10 ticks both boxes. This time around, HTC says it has worked closely with Google to ‘reboot the Android experience’, as it says, and has cut down drastically on bloatware and app duplication. This means that standard apps like the image gallery, calendar and music aren’t to be found, and the device depends on Google for those.

HTC is known for its innovation in the smartphone photography segment, and it’s leaving no stone unturned to make sure its latest flagship hits bull’s eye in this department. The 10 doesn’t play up too much on megapixel count, offering a 12-meg primary and a 5-meg secondary shooter. It does however, bump up the pixel size in an attempt to capture more light and come up with worthy shots. Laser autofocus has been added to ensure speedy focussing, while OIS takes care of eliminating blur resulting from shaky hands. Going a step ahead, even the front camera rocks optical image stabilisation, making the HTC 10 smartphone the first with this particular trick up its sleeve.

After the disaster that was the Snapdragon 810, things seem to be looking up for Qualcomm, as its latest top-end SoC, the Snapdragon 820 has been getting a great response. This chip is now the defacto standard for flagship smartphones, and the HTC 10 also relies on the same for horsepower. Combined with 4 gigs of RAM, it delivers buttery smooth performance with the HTC 10… with nary a sign of lag.