The HTC 10 Review
by Joshua Ho on September 19, 2016 8:00 AM ESTSystem Performance
One of the major areas worth discussing when it comes to mobile devices is computing performance. As much as OEMs try to not talk about this, ultimately what distinguishes a smartphone from a featurephone or simple flip phone is dramatically improved compute. Running a web browser, running a full Linux OS with apps that require JIT or AOT compilation are all tasks that demand large amounts of system memory and compute. Similarly, any kind of 3D game is going to require quite a bit of compute power and memory in general. As mentioned in previous reviews a major focus for this year has been trying to make our benchmarks more focused on real-world performance, so we’ll be better able to show how the HTC 10 actually performs relative to other devices on the market.
In the basic browser benchmarks, we can see that the HTC 10 is pretty much on par with all other Snapdragon 820 devices. This shouldn't really come as a surprise given how much of an optimization target all of these benchmarks are for the OEMs and SoC vendors, but performance in general on Snapdragon 820 is not necessarily great for web browsing with Chrome.
PCMark is very sensitive to DVFS changes in most cases so it's interesting to see how closely it performed to the Galaxy S7 and G5. What is notable here is the poor showing in video playback, which persists even if you use HTC's CPU cheats which are still accessible from the developer settings. The average scores that PCMark records is significantly higher than what I can achieve with the HTC 10 unless I enable high CPU performance mode. Determining what this means has been left as an exercise to the reader.
Looking at the HTC 10 overall results it might be tempting to simply suggest that overall performance is comparable to the Galaxy S7 with S820 but when you look at the individual breakdown the main reason why the HTC 10 seems to be so slow is because the location provider in Maps is causing its launch time to be significantly higher than most phones I've seen before. In just about every other situation the Galaxy S7 is significantly behind the HTC 10. Overall, I think the HTC 10 performance is in line with what I'd expect for a Snapdragon 820 phone here.
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jfallen - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
I don't use screen protectors, as I find them irritating. I just can't imagine how such an obvious issue would pass the design room. Speaks of careless/rushed design to me.I understand some screen technologies produce polarized light, nothing wrong with that. Just cut the panel in such a way that orientates so that it doesn't appear black in the upright position. I know not everyone wears polarized sunglasses, but come on...
Impulses - Thursday, September 22, 2016 - link
I actually wouldn't mind this much... Being able to see the display outdoors without raising my sunglasses or turning the screen isn't nearly as annoying as having to do it while driving and having it mounted in landscape orientation (for nav)... So I would in fact prefer this, largely for driving/navi.It's a preference thing to an extent IMO, same scenario happens with cameras and rear displays and/or EVFs... You either deal with it, or you go get something with an OLED panel instead.
Panic_ - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Who's making the Pixel phones again?Impulses - Thursday, September 22, 2016 - link
HTC, both of them apparently, Huawei is making the next small tablet.jaden24 - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link
Negative. I have been waiting for it to come out in black for Sprint.itsjustaprankbro - Friday, September 23, 2016 - link
It was too pricey. It still is.You can get an LG G4 for 280$.
While this device costs 750$ still.
It's crazy.
HTC somehow also forgot about carriers here.
Back then I was able to buy the One X and the M7.
Now they sold (only a few carriers) the M9, but no M10 whatsoever.
It's like HTC is trying to kill itself.
If they fixed the carrier and price situation (lower it as device gets older), I would have bought a few for the company already.
BUT, currently, this thing is 750$, meanwhile an S7 Edge is 160$ with plans.
Now, which one would you pick? Even if you are not a Sammy fan... ?
The Gonz - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Hey Costanza...you're not a hand model anymore. Let it go.fanofanand - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link
The hand in the picture provides a sense of scale. It doesn't bother me one bit, though your Costanza reference isn't all that bad.tipoo - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Among explosions and all the debate over the headphone jack debate, this all rounder really seems to have fallen off the collective consciousness, hasn't it? Just HTCs lack of marketing power, or does the very fact that it's so just "good" in every area make it forgettable in the Androidscape?
Cliff34 - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Partly is a marketing issue and the other part is that it looks so similar to S7 that why would people choose this over that? I would rather pick the S7 (which I am using a S7 Edge) bc I know it is a good phone for what it is worth.Unless HTC or other phone company does something that really stands out, their phones will be lost in the crowd.