advertisement

Follow Mint Lounge

Latest Issue

Home > Smart Living> Innovation > Review: HTC Desire 10 Pro isn’t armed enough to take on the OnePlus 3

Review: HTC Desire 10 Pro isn’t armed enough to take on the OnePlus 3

HTC Desire 10 Pro, at its current price, is going up against OnePlus 3, and that remains its biggest worry

Mobile gaming grew to $116 billion, as an additional $16 billion was added in gaming consumer spend in 2021, fuelled primarily by a preference for hyper-casual games.
Mobile gaming grew to $116 billion, as an additional $16 billion was added in gaming consumer spend in 2021, fuelled primarily by a preference for hyper-casual games. (HT_PRINT)

Listen to this article

OTHERS :

HTC has a lot riding on the new Desire 10 Pro smartphone, in an attempt to regain a foothold in the Android smartphone space. This smartphone has those typical HTC design lines and is priced at Rs26,490, which pits it against the OnePlus 3T (starting at Rs29,999).

Design: Handy and good-looking

Desire Pro 10 has a plastic body. The SIM tray on the side panel provides better protection to the phone’s two nano SIM cards compared to the plastic flap cover that HTC still uses in many of its budget and mid-range phones.

The gold rim and the metallic power button along the spine looks good. The phone is available in four unique colour options—stone black, polar white, royal blue and valentine lux. The back panel has a soft matte finish that feels good in the palm. Despite being a big screen phone and the 165g form factor, the phone feels handy and light to hold.

HTC has also added a circular finger print sensor, which is placed at the back and is well within range every time one wants to unlock the phone with that tap of a finger. It is quick and accurate most of the time. The camera on the back isn’t completely flush with the panel, which makes the glass on it prone to scratches.

In terms of the in-hand feel, there really is a refreshing feel about the Desire 10 Pro, because it isn’t too heavy or bulky. However, the unibody aluminium design that the OnePlus 3 has, is in a different league altogether.

Display: Big and bright

Unlike many smartphone makers trying to dazzle users with high resolution displays, HTC has used a LCD panel with screen size of 5.5-inch and resolution of 1,920x1,080p. It is bright looking display, text looks crisp, colours in games and videos look bright without distorting colours or hurting he eyes and we feel this resolution is enough for most smartphone use cases. The auto brightness setting handles sudden shift in ambient light very well. The phone’s display settings also offer option that allows one to switch to warmer and cool screen tone.

Performance: Not in the league of flagship killers

The Desire 10 Pro runs on a MediaTek MT6755 octa-core processor with 4GB RAM in tow. It is dependable processor and powers the likes of LeEco Le 2 (Rs11,999) as well. It was able to handle switching between apps, multi-tasking and many of the high end games without any hiccups or heating issues. However, it is not in the same league as the Snapdragon 821 that powers the OnePlus 3T. The Desire 10 Pro offers 64GB of internal storage. The phone’s 3,000mAh battery can deliver a day’s backup at most on modest use.

Here, despite being a consistent performer, the Desire 10 Pro falls behind the OnePlus 3 because of the less powerful processor, lesser RAM and battery life.

Software: Custom UI with a the familiarity of plain Android

The phone runs Android 6.0 with the latest Sense UI over it. Though a custom UI, Sense looks good and feels familiar with nicely laid out app icons and app drawer. It is not lacking in customisation options, a feature that is very popular with most mainstream users. You can arrange the apps in app drawer according to the alphabetical order or the most recent ones, apply new themes.

Camera: Daylight warrior

The 20-megapixel camera on the Desire 10 Pro works best in daytime. In properly lit environment, it captures both colours and detailing well. Low-light shots look noisy and a bit washed out. The interface looks smart and clean but the camera modes are very limited. The few notable ones include the hyper lapse, panorama and pro mode. The 13-megapixel front camera delivers good looking wide angle shots even in low-light.

Verdict

HTC’s new smartphone delivers a steady performance, has a good looking display, a funky UI and a very user friendly design. However, at this price it certainly doesn’t look at par with the OnePlus 3, which runs on a more powerful Qualcomm 820 processor, offers more premium design, better battery backup, runs plain Android and has a superior camera.

Next Story