HTC hits the high notes with HTC 10

Apr 12, 2016

It's also apparent that HTC has finally settled on how a metal phone should feel

The narrative of HTC over the past half-decade has been a tale of upheaval, misfortune and constant reinvention. Compared to its heyday in the beginnings of Android's ascension, the Taiwanese phone maker now seems a diminished presence in a market increasingly cornered by Samsung, Apple and nimbler Chinese upstarts.

A tough 2015 didn't help matters. A tepid high-end offering, the One M9, set the tone for a dismal year at HTC, even as its fledgeling efforts in virtual reality started to show promise.

Once a colossus of smartphone design, the firm seemed to be losing its way.

But HTC is still hungry, and it isn't going away anytime soon. Today, almost 14 months removed from its last flagship announcement, HTC unveils the product upon which its hopes for the next year are pinned.

This is the HTC 10. In it are contained the biggest changes to HTC's design language, software experience and branding since 2013's One M7. And it might just be the return to form that this company so badly needs.

At the most basic physical level, the HTC 10 takes many of the best HTC design traits and mixes them into a new and eye-catching package. After flirting with a perilously iPhone-esque design in the One A9, the company's standard-bearer for 2016 sports a far more HTC-likeaesthetic.

The gentle curve of the back, paired with sharp chamfered edges, reminds us of the fan-favorite M7, while the new, deep chamfers add an ostentatious twist, particularly in the silver and gold models. And the contrast between sandblasted matte aluminum and highly polished angular accents give HTC's new phone an eye-catching edge in a world of increasingly interchangeable metallic slabs. Protruding through the metal is a pronounced but fairly inoffensive camera bump.

It's also apparent that HTC has finally settled on how a metal phone should feel. The curve of its back makes the HTC 10 more ergonomic than most flat aluminum rivals. After experimenting with slippery curved sides in the One M8 and weird plastic shelves in the M9, the side walls of the HTC 10 are all part of the metal unibody.

Measuring a mere 3mm at its thinnest point, the phone's outer edges don't give you much to grip onto, but this is offset by its curved back and angular joins.

Even with such slim sides, there's plenty of room for a the textured power key, volume rocker and SIM tray on the right edge. It's also pretty easy to hold onto — when picking up the phone and manhandling it, even for the first time, I didn't feel in any danger of dropping it.

That metal unibody comes in three main color options — silver, gold and gray. If you buy silver in North America it'll come with a black front; in other territories you'll get white.

Meanwhile the gold model features a white front, and the grey version's extremely dark grey metal merges into a pitch-black glass face. The in-hand feel of the grey model also differs dramatically from the other two.

As is often the case with darker anodized colors, it's a bit more plasticky, and attracts fingerprints far more easily than either gold or silver.

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