HTC have announced a $100 saving for their 2016 flagship device, the HTC 10, bringing the price of the device down from $699 to $599. This deal also comes with $100 to spend on accessories, too, and runs through until August 7th. HTC’s other offers are also available, such as the ability to finance the purchase through PayPal Credit and trade in an older device. For customers buying the HTC 10 through another seller, they are still able to benefit from the $100 accessory offer on HTC’s website. The reason for HTC’s $100 discount could be to attract renewed interest as this week, Samsung unveiled their latest flagship device, the Galaxy Note 7, but so far the HTC 10 is selling reasonably well and is one of the better 2016 flagship devices. However, it is expensive, even some six months after being released. This week’s $100 off does sweeten the deal somewhat.
In common with many other 2016 flagships, the HTC 10 is based around the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset paired up with 4 GB of RAM. There’s a QHD resolution, or 1440p or 1,440 by 2,560 pixel, 5.2-inch SuperLCD panel. There’s a 12MP rear camera proudly wearing HTC’s “UltraPixel” badge, which means it has larger pixels in order to capture more light. The main camera benefits from optical image stabilization and a dual-tone LED flash. On the front of the device, there’s a 5MP wide angle camera for selfies and video calling. HTC have used a USB Type-C port to quickly recharge the embedded 3,000 mAh battery. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the front built into the home button and HTC’s trademark dual stereo speaker BoomSound set up on the device too. HTC included high resolution audio across the whole device, too. On the software front, there’s Android 6.0 Marshmallow running under HTC’s Sense user interface.
There are a number of advantages associated with buying a device direct from the manufacturer. One is that it receives software updates as soon as the manufacturer has finalized and completed them; there is no carrier to perform its own testing and at the same time, add in additional custom applications. As such, customers experience the device as the manufacturer would prefer rather than their carrier – and sometimes carriers do not update devices with the latest patch for a considerable time, or for some devices, miss out whole operating system upgrades. Another benefit is that customers are free to use whatever carrier best suits their purposes without being tied into one particular deal for a two year period or until the device is repaid.