HTC officially unveiled their 2016 flagship device, the HTC 10, around a month ago and some weeks behind the other two big flagship reveals so far this year, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the LG G5. By the time the HTC 10 was revealed, many of the new device’s specification and features had already been leaked and there were relatively few surprises behind the device. As with the S6 and G5, HTC had powered the smartphone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset, backed up by 4 GB of RAM and with at least 32 GB of unformatted internal storage. There’s a 5.2-inch, 1440p resolution fifth generation SuperLCD panel, a 3,000 mAh main battery recharged via the USB Type-C standard, a MicroSD card slot, optically stabilised front (5MP) and rear (12MP) cameras, a new generation Boomsound set up, device-wide 24-bit high definition audio and new generation LTE networking. The device runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow under HTC’s latest generation of the proprietary skin, which includes features such as Blinkfeed. The HTC 10 features a metal and glass chassis, which hints at the 2013 HTC One M7, but brings the theme right up to date.
Earlier this week, HTC announced that it would be fulfilling North American preorders in the order that they were received. The first of these devices should have already shipped. Now in the case of a major smartphone release into the North American market, some customers will buy the unlocked device whereas others will wait for their carrier to sell the device. Here, HTC have released the device a few days before the next carrier but for customers wanting to use the HTC 10 on the AT&T network, the carrier has reported that it has no plans to carry the device. These customers must buy the device direct from HTC, which is currently selling at $699.
From what we are seeing and hearing with regard to the preorders, everything has gone smoothly for HTC – and the company needs something of a break after a difficult few years. HTC earlier this week released an advert filmed entirely on the HTC 10’s front facing camera, have been promoting the #powerof10 campaign on various social media websites and have also emailed some of the first people to preorder the device explaining that a “small token of appreciation” should arrive in “next couple of weeks.” Unfortunately, we don’t know what this will be. It could be the HTC Ice View case, or it could even be a pair of HTC’s Active Earphones – or HTC may be sending customers the HTC High Resolution Audio Earphones, which aren’t included as standard in the North American variant. When we see any news on this development, we will let you know.