HTC has revealed pricing and availability details for the Desire 10 Pro but hasn’t revealed details for the HTC 10 Evo. At the launch event on Thursday, HTC South Asia President Faisal Siddiqui confirmed that the company is not looking to take on Chinese companies in the low-price segment. Instead, Siddiqui said HTC plans to compete in segments where the company’s products are more popular. We got a chance to spend some time with these new devices and here’s how they look at first glance.
The design of HTC Desire 10 Pro is its biggest feature. Its design looks unique with matte finish body and metallic gold. From a distance, Desire 10 Pro looks like any other Desire smartphone but when you hold it in your hand, it feels different. This phone will be available in Valentine Lux, Stone Black, Royal Blue and Polar White color variants.
The HTC Desire 10 Pro has a 5.5-inch screen but despite that, it feels very comfortable to grip in the hand. The phone has capacitive navigation buttons, a front camera and other sensors on the front. The power and volume buttons are on the right side while the left side has dual nano SIM and a microSD card slot. At 7.8 mm thick, the Desire 10 Pro is slim enough for everyday use and weighs 165 grams. Some people may find it heavy.
The 5.5-inch Full HD display on the HTC Desire 10 Pro is bright and looks good. The phone is legible even in direct sunlight while the viewing angles are also good. Corning Gorilla Glass is provided for scratch protection. The Desire 10 Pro has BoomSound stereo speakers which make this phone great for multimedia use. In the short time we spent with the device, we liked the sound output from its speakers in a small room.
HTC Desire 10 Pro runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with HTC’s Sense UI on top. The company has definitely streamlined the skin and it feels very light. Powering the phone is a 3000mAh battery. This phone has a 1.8GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 processor. HTC has launched a 4GB RAM and 64GB storage variant of this phone in India. While the 3GB RAM and 32GB storage variant launched in other markets will not be available in India. The expandable storage in the phone can be increased up to 2TB via microSD card.
Talking about the front camera, this phone has a 20-megapixel rear camera with laser autofocus, a BSI sensor, aperture f/2.2 and auto HDR mode. The selfie camera has a selfie panorama mode along with all these features. The shots taken indoors were quite good and the detailing and color also looked good. Due to the event, we could not test the camera modes of HTC Desire 10 Pro and 10 Evo smartphones. But we will tell you about that in the upcoming full review of the phone.
Talking about HTC 10 Evo, this phone looks very good and premium. This phone is made of full metal unibody and it looks like HTC 10. Some changes have been made in the phone in the form of front camera, sensor and LED flash. Like HTC 10, Evo has a fingerprint sensor which is integrated in the home button itself. This is the first HTC phone in which headphone jack is not given and USB Type C headphones come with it.
The HTC 10 Evo feels stable in the hand. With an IP57 rating, the phone is water, splash and dust resistant. The phone has Corning Gorilla Glass on the screen. An HTC executive at the event claimed that the HTC 10 Evo has been tested in various scratch, drop and other situations. Weighing 174 grams, the HTC 10 Evo is definitely heavier than the HTC 10 that weighed 161 grams. The new phone is also 8 mm thinner.
This phone has a 5.5 inch Quad Super LCD 3 display which is the biggest feature of this phone. We saw that the display of the phone is quite bright and has good black level. The text in the phone is sharp and crisp. Watching videos and playing games on 10 Evo feels great.
The HTC 10 Evo will be the company’s first Android smartphone to be launched in India. We couldn’t test all the new Nougat features on the Evo. But we did notice a new quick setting. Apart from this, the Settings app has also been completely revamped and all the top-level sections look like a menu that you can access by swiping to the right or tapping on the icons. It remains to be seen that HTC has not removed all the features of its Sense UI with Android Nougat. Like other smartphones running on Nougat, the HTC 10 Evo also gets free storage for storing photos on Google Photos. While the Google Duo video calling app comes pre-installed.
HTC 10 Evo has a 16-megapixel rear camera that is equipped with features like OIS, 4K video recording and PDAF. This phone has an 8-megapixel camera. The phone also has an 8-megapixel front camera that supports screen flash. Focus locks quickly when using the camera of 10 Evo. Photos taken in artificial light were quite good and photos taken in low light came with good detail. The 8-megapixel front camera also takes good selfies.
The most surprising thing about HTC 10 Evo is its processor. Due to the old Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, heating problems were seen in many smartphones. HTC 10 Evo has 3 GB RAM, 32 GB inbuilt storage which can be expanded up to 2 TB via microSD card. The phone has a 3200 mAh battery.
In the time we spent with the HTC Desire 10 Pro and HTC 10 Evo, we found both smartphones to be quite good for multitasking. Stay tuned for our detailed review of both these smartphones.
Final Thoughts
The price of HTC Desire 10 Pro is Rs 26,490 and it will be available across the country from December 15. With this price, it will compete with OnePlus 3, Asus Zenfone 3 and Huawei Honor 8 smartphones. The price of all these smartphones is around this. But HTC has not yet revealed the price of HTC 10 Evo. But we think that its price will decide the future of this product in the market. This phone has a Snapdragon 810 processor which is about two years old, so a lot will depend on the price.