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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Badelhas - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link
My experience with HTC has been great, including the HTC Vive. Do you have any HTC product to support your theory?JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link
If you've dealt with Vive support, you already know what I'm talking about. It's no secret that their support is hopeless.ACM.1899 - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
tnx for the review . great Job. impressed with the Camera. how about audio quality? although we know it's great. so there is no DAC? i've heard (read) there is.in android phones , i guess HTC 10 is the best as long as you don't like One+3 or a Nexus (Pixel).
specially Nexus devices that somehow are at the beginning of their era , compared to HTC's that i think are at the end.
Haldi - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Qualcomm AqsticACM.1899 - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
and by end i meant : not much left to achieve... ;)zepi - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Nice review.What should I make of the that HTC wifi performance figure? Your graph shows that it still has some throughput at well under -80dBm signals when other phones stop much earlier?
Then in the test you mention signal strengths are about 5dB worse than with S7. Should I read this that in the end, all phones lose connectivity at roughly same location?
WoodyPWX - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Where are the OnePlus 3 in the results for a comparison? That phone actually kills HTC 10. Is that a coincidence?Lau_Tech - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Hi Josh, thank you. I enjoyed this review greatly and learnt much from it. I bought the HTC 10 in May and through my own informal testing I can confirm the majority of your findings regarding the build quality, camera, WIFI performance, U.I and even display contrast (however, my screen does not have the "pink" off angle issue though, possibly because it is a Sharp-manufactured panel).One area which the HTC 10 is a stand-out (and possibly still worth due consideration even at this juncture) is in its internal audio performance. I understand that Anandtech lacks the equipment to test this objectively but I can confirm that the HTC 10 is within a select group of smartphones that audiophiles can consider. (the others being the LG V10,V20, Iphone 6s,7 and possibly the ZTE axion 7.)
From your review I infer that this has become your new daily driver. Coming from a One Plus One, I do agree the rock-solid reliability of the Sense U.I is a big differentiator. The HTC 10 really is a phone that ages well, and the software updates do quite alot to address the obvious issues that crop up. in version 1.90 the option for 16second shutter delay was also added, I wonder what are your thoughts on this? For me it seems largely unusable without a tripod.
Once again, thanks for getting this out, and for taking the 'badgering' in your stride. Having read and watched every review of the HTC 10 on the web I can say without qualification that this one is by far the best. Well done!
Lau_Tech - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/MobileComm/M.1462332737.A.C...A taiwanese side-by-side of the two panels. I must say the Sharp Panel does seem more subjectively appealing.
ACM.1899 - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
couldn't agree more