HTC 10 - a huge disappointment

HTC 10. It's a very small

The box is so nice,

look at it. It's got these little

holes in it. Don't just hate that sound.

How do you open it?

Oh, here you go. Just lift it up.

Ta-da! Let's move the camera.

So you've got a little tab. Oh no.

Oh, there we go. This is the phone.

Um, how do I get this plastic off?

Oh, you just rip it off. Okay.

HTC. Oh, it's cold. It's made out of

So while that boots up, let's see what

else is in the box.

We've got— oh,

we've got, um, stickers with

nothing on them. Blank stickers. That's

useful. I don't know what this is. More

stickers. We got little booklets

that I'm never gonna read. Why would you

need to read a booklet for a phone? I

don't understand it.

Phone's powered on.

We have mains charger,

USB-C charger, earphones.

Oh, that's lucky. I lost mine.

They look like this. Oh, I don't like

these types. They're in-ear with these

little rubber things. I don't like these

rubber things. They kind of feel like— it

feels like my ears are all blocked up and

you can't hear anything. Android is

starting. Optimizing app 22 of 61.

It does look really nice, doesn't it? It

looks a bit like— a bit like an iPhone.

Camera can't even focus.

I like this kind of, um, this design

on the edges. It's like sharp. I don't

know how to describe it. Just look, look

for yourself. It looks very,

um, angular. Is that the word? There's

only one camera on the back. My LG G5 has

2. Why does this only have one? No

wide-angle lens, but this does have

stabilization on the front-facing camera,

which is the reason why I bought it. Oh,

this is very disappointing. The microphone

jack is on the top right next to the

camera. That means using this, uh,

using this wind muff is going to be

impossible. It's just going to block the

whole camera, isn't it? Look at that,

terrible. I don't even know if I can use

this. I don't even know if this is gonna

block the camera. Look, if I plug it in,

it's just like this. It's right on

top of the camera. Ah,

that's so disappointing.

Oh, it's ready! Welcome.

English, yes please. Terms of use.

Next. Okay, I'm going to set this up.

Hold on, it finished, finished updating.

So this is what the phone looks like.

Let's have a look. Pretty much standard

Android. I'm not sure which version it is.

It's currently restoring applications.

This is what the notification tray looks

like. Got brightness, Wi-Fi,

standard buttons. Aeroplane mode, blah

blah blah. Oh, it's got calculator as

well.

Yeah, I'm gonna have a play around with

this. Hold on. Hey look, there's a pause

button! My favourite feature. You can

pause while making a video. Phew, I was

worried about that. Recording paused and

resumed. Paused, and then you can— I don't

know what this does. I guess it takes a

photo. No, there's no pause button on the

front-facing video. When you switch the

camera around, there's a pause button,

but when you do front-facing video,

there's no pause button. Why?

Record. Look, there's no pause button.

Let's just stop and take a photo.

If you turn it around— oh,

there's no pause button. Oh, there is,

see, a pause button. That's so annoying.

This is kind of embarrassing. I just spent

like 20 minutes making a video on the HTC

10 talking about what I thought about it.

This video isn't on the HTC 10, it's on

the LG G5, and I lost all the video

footage because I wasn't happy with the

HTC 10, and I decided to

return it. So I did a factory reset and I

put it back in the box. Then I remembered

I hadn't transferred any of the video

files, and I just lost them all. And I'm

too lazy to retake them all and take it

all out— back out the box. So why didn't I

like the HTC 10? Well, it made my skin

look terrible. I have really freckly skin.

And I don't like it when it's really

visible. On the LG G5, there's like a

smooth skin effect that actually works on

the video mode, but the HTC doesn't have

that. And, and to make things

worse, it's like they boosted the

sharpness on the video so things become

even sharper and detailed, and there's

no smooth skin effect. Made my skin look

horrible. It's like someone got a black

pen and put loads of dots all over my

face. It's just such a shame because I

really wanted to use that camera, the HTC

10, because it's the only smartphone out

there that has stabilization on the

front-facing camera. No other smartphones

have that, and it just means you get

really shaky videos if you don't have

stabilization. Like what I'm using now,

it's kind of shaky, isn't it? Especially

when I start to walk. But on the HTC 10,

it actually has stabilization on the

front-facing camera, and the video looks

so nice when you're walking. It, it

doesn't look shaky or stuttery. So that

was great, that was what I wanted, but

they didn't have smooth skin and they

boosted the sharpness. I don't know,

maybe everyone at HTC has perfect skin and

they didn't really care about that, but

most people don't have perfect skin and If

they're aiming it towards people who make

videos like me, you want, you want the

video to make you look nice, not, not

really horrible. This is the main reason

why I don't use a DSLR or a decent video

camera or compact camera, because they're

just getting too good now, aren't they?

They're just getting too crisp and clear.

I don't want my videos to be so ultra

detailed. Sometimes less is more. More

detail isn't always better. And it's such

a hassle having to use a camera. You have

to transfer the SD card onto your phone,

transfer all the files, and then the

screen's smaller. The screen is a lot

smaller on a camera compared to a

smartphone, so it makes it less

comfortable to make a video on a camera.

Also, you can't do things like plug in the

microphone unless you have one of those

big DSLRs, which I don't want. And then

you have to carry around the camera and

the phone, which is just such a hassle.

Also, I really like having the wide-angle

lens on the back of the LG. It's, it's a

lot of fun using that, and I really missed

it, especially when you're in a small room

or a building. It's really handy having an

ultra-wide-angle lens that you don't have

to clip on, that's just built onto the

camera. You can just switch between it and

the normal lens so easily. And then

there's, then there's the audio, the

sound. Sound is very important for me. I

like my videos to sound good, have a nice

audio quality. But the HTC 10, the video

camera's built-in microphone was terrible.

You could hear all this hissing in the

background, like especially when you're

outside, and this just doesn't happen on

the LG G5. The LG G5's built-in mic is

really good, and it just cancels out all

like the background hissing. And I

couldn't use my built-in— my plug-in

shotgun mic on the HTC 10 because they put

the audio jack right next to the camera

lens, right above it. So when I plug it

in, you can see the plug-in microphone

sticking out into the frame, and You

could kind of fix that by angling it down

a bit, but it wasn't very good. It means

that it doesn't fit snugly on the phone

and it kind of wobbles around. And I

couldn't use the wind muff because the

wind muff would just be like this and it

would just block the whole camera. Why

couldn't they do it like the Samsung? The

Samsung S6 had the audio jack at the

bottom and the camera lens at the top, so

they were far apart from each other. They

didn't get in each other's way.

So I couldn't improve the audio by using

my plug-in mic because,

because they put the lens and audio jack

right next to each other. It's such a

stupid design choice. So those were

the 2 main reasons why I decided to return

it. Super sharp,

detailed front-facing camera with no

smooth skin effect It's just a terrible

combination if you have bad skin like I

do. And, um, terrible audio.

And they put the audio jack right next to

the camera lens, so you can't use a

shotgun mic. The shotgun mic just gets in

front of the camera and blocks the view.

This is such a shame. They were so close

to making a really nice camera, because

apart from that, the stabilization works

really well. And when I walked up and down

like this, it was so smooth. It wasn't

jittery or shaky at all. It's just such a

shame because it seemed like they built

that front-facing camera with

stabilization for people like me who like

to make videos, but then they failed on

the 2 most important things: having good

audio and having a pleasant-looking video

footage. Why did they make the microphone

so crappy on it? It's like they spent $5

on it and put all the rest of the money

into the camera or the metal body. The

camera— the microphone was terrible. That

background hissing noise. Don't know what

they were thinking. So yeah, it's just a

huge disappointment. I was so excited to

try that phone out. I thought it'd be

perfect for YouTube, but no.

It was really good at one thing, the

stabilization, but everything else just

failed. Failed miserably. I'm sending it

back tomorrow. I haven't even used it for

what— I've only used it for like 2 hours

and I just— it's not for me. It's not for

me. And it's really expensive. It was £500

brand new. For that money, you'd expect

more from the camera,

but if only LG put stabilization

into the front-facing camera. It would be

perfect. That's my only main thing

that I don't like about it. But no

other smartphones do have stabilization in

the front camera, just the HTC.

It's a shame really. It's just kind of

irritating that I couldn't show you any of

that video footage that I took earlier.

How could I forget to transfer the files

and then do a factory reset.

So I guess I'd say that if you don't

really care about how your skin looks like

or what the audio quality is like, then

yeah, it's, it's a really good phone.

The, the camera is great, video looks

great, it's very detailed and sharp. I

just don't like the, the over-sharp— the

over-sharpening. I don't like it to look

so detailed. But it's just

not for me. I'm gonna send it back. The LG

G5 is just a lot better in my opinion.

The only thing the LG G5 does worse is

stabilization. There is no stabilization

for the front-facing camera. That's the

only thing that the HTC 10 does better.

Apart from that, there's not really much

reason to buy it. Over the LG G5,

and it's so much more expensive.

You can get, you can get the LG G5 for

almost half the price secondhand,

so it's not really, not really worth the

money for the HTC 10. So I'm

sending it back.