Here are my final impressions of the HTC 10:
Previous Phone: Nexus 6P, Moto X Pure (2015), S7 Edge
Purchased: HTC 10 Silver/Black, 32GB, Verizon Wireless
Replaced With: Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
BUILD
Absolutely marvelous. I was very impressed with how this phone felt the minute I took it out of its box and placed it in my hand. It was just so incredibly comfortable while still feeling like it could take a tumble. I was especially impressed with the volume and power button keys. I don't think I've ever used more responsive or tactile keys than what I used with the HTC 10. I also enjoyed how easy it was to pick up off a desk. The phone's aesthetic was also quite unique in a sea of Samsung's and iPhone's, with the chamfer being the most eye-catching part. Overall, quite possibly the most "premium" phone I've ever held.
DISPLAY
A mixed bag if you're coming from other flagship devices like the S6, Note 4/5, or even Motorola's 2015 Moto X. This is by no means the best display out there. Anyone who says otherwise is just kidding themselves. I know I tried to, but the faults were too glaring to be ignored, particularly the pink shift in color tone when viewed off-angle. It's quite drastic and very noticeable when, say, the phone is sitting on a desk. When centered, the display is pretty great, colors pop, whites look white, but closer inspection reveals certain deficiencies my eyes just couldn't stop focusing on.
In particular was the fact it didn't look as sharp or bright as my Moto X Pure. It also lacked clarity. While colors were slightly deeper, everything just looked soft, not as sharp if you will, with my eyes focusing on what seemed to be a weird sheen, almost as if a screen protector was on the display or something. This was particularly noticeable against white background when or when scrolling. Speaking of scrolling, there was also a little more trail than I would've liked. Like, on text when scrolling and looking at the screen there was a ghosting-esque look to smaller, non-bolded text. It's a small detail but a noticeable if you know what to look for as far as display quality goes. Overall, it's still a very fine LCD display, better than previous HTC devices, but when a mid-range device is rocking a better screen than a high-end one, um, no...
SOFTWARE
Stock Android with HTC's Sense launcher. That pretty much sums it all up. It's a very fast phone, but I still found some hiccups here and there as I did on the Nexus 6P. No phone is infallible to little skips here and there, but this phone at least kept it all looking clean, simple, and with additions that were welcome like tap-to-wake.
SOUND
When held in landscape mode, the phone's speaker setup provided audio that gives off a sort of stereo illusion that sounds full, especially with bass, but it's not necessarily super loud. It doesn't reach the heights of the HTC M8 (no matter what AC tells you), nor does it get as loud as the Nexus 6P, but its fidelity is definitely better. It trounces most phones with single speaker setups since the audio sounds very rich, and when you use headphones it leapfrogs over them all , but the external setup won't blow you or others away in the same way the M8 did.
CAMERA
The best camera HTC has ever put in a phone, but not the best camera put in a phone. Compared to the Nexus 6P, it's slower to auto-focus, and night shots don't look as good, but in daylight or moderate lighting conditions images look pretty good if a little soft and a little cooler in temperature. Low-light performance was disappointing. In my living room, with the only light source being the light in the kitchen, everything was super grainy and blurry most of the time, with a lack in detail. Overall, it's a very solid camera, but the Nexus 6P and S7 provide consistently superior images.
BATTERY
Exceptional. For being 3,000 mAh, this phone's battery sipped power in a very efficient manner. My benchmark for how good a battery is how much juice I have left after coming home from work. The area where I work is notoriously bad for service. Signal strength is terrible with most phone's having one bar of LTE signal or none, dropping into 3G often. Clocking in around two hours of screen on time with my 6P usually saw it at around 20-30% by the time I got home. It could barely make it into the night with use at home before being dead. However, the 10 was at 40% battery by the time I got home with the same screen on time, being bested only by the S7 Edge.
This for me speaks volumes on how good the battery of this phone is. In regular areas where signal strength is solid, I could easily get to the 4.5 screen on time mark with this phone with around 16-20 hours of overall battery time. For a phone not packing a huge battery size and for a phone that is also not a phablet, again, this is an amazing showing. Of course, this is a very subjective category since some may live in horrible cell areas, while others do not, but if your signal strength is in the green for most of the time you most likely won't be disappointed with this battery.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So why did I end up returning the HTC 10 and going with the S7 Edge? Well, because quite simply I wanted the best battery, best display, and best camera available to me. I didn't want features that got "close" or that were "almost as good." Plus, the Edge 7 is the only phone that's ever gotten me five to six hours of screen on time (with my kind of use) and its waterproofing actually saved my butt the other day. All that being said, the display was the biggest deal-breaker for me. If you're coming from devices like the M7-M9, or S5, second-gen Moto X's and below, it'll serve you well, but the pink color tone shift (just look at the first picture from the OP) is just too noticeable for me to tolerate. Also, its camera was a little too inconsistent when compared to others, but if you can live with that you will love the HTC 10.
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