6 Things the HTC 10 Gets Right—And 4 It Gets Wrong

It's not the HTC M10, or the HTC One 10. It's just the HTC 10. As we near the decade mark for high-end smartphones, too many names have gone completely off the rails—the iPhone 6S Plus, the Galaxy S7 Edge, the Xperia Z5 Compact. So many words! HTC's numerology makes no sense, but at least it's simple. It's just the HTC 10.

This phone is big and thick on paper: 5.6 ounces, 9 millimeters. In my hand, though, it just feels sturdy and solid. It doesn't slip out of my hand because its designers didn't try to shave off every conceivable millimeter. The aluminum body is coldly metallic and nicely made, and the rounded back nestles comfortably against my palm. The 10 feels like an object meant to be held and used, not like it's permanently apologizing for being more than just a piece of glass.

The 10 doesn't look or feel like the iPhone, but it's clearly meant for the same sort of person who might buy one. By which I mean, people without strong feelings about which phone they should buy, people for whom "iOS or Android" is the only question they ask. The 10 is a straightforward, somewhat uninspiring but entirely unloathable device. This would be fine if HTC executed the everyman design as well as Apple does. Instead, there are too many haphazardly placed buttons and ports, and too few eye-catching detail. The parts that do shine are dulled by those that don't.

Thanks to a USB-C port and a super-fast charger, an impressively efficient Snapdragon 820 processor, and a big 3,000mAh battery, the 10 lasts a day and a half no matter how hard I use it. All told, you're on the charger for 90 minutes every other day. Until someone figures out how to make batteries dramatically better, that's probably the best you can hope for.