HTC 10 vs OnePlus 5T

The aluminum uni-body design is back, this time with some improvements. The power button has distinguishing ridges, the 'HTC bar" is gone, and they removed the bottom speaker helping it achieve almost 5% higher screen-to-body ratio. On the rear is a massive chamfered edge, which catches light differently and makes holding the phone feel more comfortable.

HTC's Sense 8 UI borrows heavily from stock Android, making minor additions and revisions instead of a complete re-haul. Instead of including multiple apps (a gallery app from HTC and one from Google for example), they have mostly gone with Google's apps.

Some unique features are the "Freestyle" layout, which almost acts like a personalized wallpaper/homescreen hybrid. You can add stickers that fit the wallpaper's theme, and assign them to a task then touched. These aren't restricted to an app grid either. This helps keep your home screen look clean without removing any functionality.

BlinkFeed is also back, and is the best implementation of 'bite-sized' information. Samsung and others have tried copying it, however HTC continues to excel in this area. BlinkFeed is a feed of information that almost acts like a massive widget on the leftmost home screen. It can pull information from social media, news sites, and make suggestions based on contextual data (such as good places to eat near you around lunchtime).

HTC is using a new strategy when it comes to speakers - they are using a front facing tweeter (focuses on high frequency) in the earpiece and a speaker in the bottom (focusing on the bass). It might not be the dual-front facing stereo speakers of yesteryear, but this provides space for a larger screen without making the body of the phone larger, and also doesn't compromise on audio quality

HTC is also using a DAC, as well as a dedicated amp for each speaker. The phone also supports Hi-Fi audio, putting this in the contest for best current audio experience on any phone.

In GFXBench 3.0 onscreen, the HTC 10 scores 52 fps on T-Rex and 29 fps on Manhattan. This is in line with the Galaxy S7, and about 50% better than the Galaxy S6 and Nexus 6P.

For the offscreen GFXBench 3.0, the HTC 10 achieved 90 fps in T-Rex and 47 fps on Manhattan. This is just a hair slower than the US Galaxy S7 variant, but ahead of the international Galaxy S7, Galaxy S6, and Nexus 6P.

In Geekbench 3: single-core, the HTC 10 is just a hair slower than the US Galaxy S7 and slower than the iPhone 6S Plus, but faster than the international Galaxy S7, S6, and Nexus 6P.

You can install apps on the SD card, and use it the exact same as the internal storage. Other flagship phones don't allow this - their SD cards are restricted to media (music, movies, pictures).

HTC has tweaked their 'ultrapixel' idea - this time they've gone with a 12MP sensor with large pixels (although they aren't as large at the 4MP camera in the M7 and M8, but considerably larger than the M9's 20MP shooter).

Colors can be muted in daylight shots, but the HTC 10 nails lowlight shots. No doubt the OIS and laser-assisted focusing helps here.

With 4GB of RAM, the HTC 10 can store many apps in the DDR4 RAM without needing to re-load them. This saves a bit of battery life (the processor doesn't need to work hard loading the app back up from scratch), but the more significant benefit is the speed at which users can switch between apps.

HTC uses the newest IPS LCD 5 display, which can produce very similar saturated colors that you'd find on Amoled panels, or in the settings you can change it to be more realistic looking - like a traditional LCD panel. The screen also responds faster than any other display out there, however this has never been a problem before.

The HTC 10 starts at 32GB of storage and some markets have a 64GB version available - there is no 16GB model. This storage can be expanded through a SD card, adding an additional 256GB. This SD storage can be used for anything including apps - not just media like most Android phones.

USB Type C is the new charging/data transfer standard that has just begun rolling out in 2015. It offers faster data transfer speeds, and a reversible port as well as a more durable connector. It should stick around for the next 5-10 years.

The HTC 10 is Qualcomm QuickCharge 3 compliant, and comes with a QuickCharge charger in the box. This helps it charge very quickly when the battery is almost dead, however the charging speed decreases the closer it gets to full.

The bezels on the HTC 10 are small, which helps it achieve a screen-to-body ratio just over 71%. This helps maximize the screen space, while not increasing the physical body of the phone much.

HTC was one of the first manufacturers (other than Apple) to put effort into making their phones look great - starting 4 years ago with the HTC One M7. This trend has continued with the HTC 10. The aluminum body is only broken by 2 flat antenna lines on the back, and the whole rear edge has a massive chamfered edge which catches light and reflects it. It's a beautifully elegant looking phone.

The front camera has a large f/1.8 aperture, large 1.34 µm pixels and ois which contribute to a better low light performance than competition. It is also good for vloggers as it is the only flagship device to include ois on the front camera.

The fingerprint scanner doubles as the home button, and is located centrally on the bottom chin. It doesn't click - it's just a touch-capacitive pad. Fingerprints are read quickly and extremely accurately, and the button is located on the front where you can press it while it's sitting down on a desk or table.

Despite being cheaper than other flagship phones, its raw performance power is on par or even better than its competitors. It can run multiple background tasks and even the most demanding games and apps without any stutter, due to its Snapdragon 835 chipset and Adreno 540 GPU — the most powerful GPU currently available for Android devices. It also has one of the highest RAM for mobile devices: the 64GB version has 6GB of RAM while the 128GB versions sports 8GB of RAM. It is highly unlikely that you will run into problems like application instability, stuttering, or crashing, due to insufficient specs.

The biggest change from the OnePlus 5 (and even earlier OnePlus models) is the screen. The 5T boasts a large 6.01-inch FullHD AMOLED display with a 18:9 aspect ratio that follows the trend of newer smartphones with elongated screens.

Even though it has a 1080x2160 resolution and 401ppi pixel density, it does not mean that the screen on the OnePlus 5T is poor, quite the contrary. The AMOLED panel offers bright and lifelike colors even though images are not as sharp as some other competitors.

The built-in 3,300 mAh battery can keep the phone alive throughout the day, with moderate usage. If you are a light user, the phone can even last for two days.

The phone has a dual-lens camera setup in the back. This setup allows you to zoom into objects up to 2x closer without losing image quality, like when using digital zoom. The portrait mode makes one of the cameras focus on the primary object/person, while the other camera unfocuses the background. This creates a bokeh effect that most phone cameras usually can’t achieve.

Photographers will appreciate the Pro mode that enables full manual control, as well as an on screen histogram and guidelines. It does, however, lack optical image stabilization, so you have to keep the phone really steady for long exposure shots. It also can’t capture high frame rate video.

The phone's casing is built from anodized aluminum, making it very durable and solid. The screen itself is also very resistant: having Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5, it is very hard to scratch and less vulnerable to impacts.

Even though the increased screen means that the fingerprint scanner had to be removed from the front and moved to the back, luckily it's placed in a central position which makes it easy to reach.