The HTC 10 Review
by Joshua Ho on September 19, 2016 8:00 AM ESTLatency with Google WALT
One of the major points of differentiation with the HTC 10 is supposed to be smoothness. This, more than anything was something that HTC emphasized repeatedly in their initial introduction of the HTC 10. This phone is supposed to be smooth in a way that most of the Android competition isn’t. It’s really kind of disappointing to me that there isn’t a lot of information in the public domain testing HTC’s claims.
So in the interest of testing this out, I managed to get a WALT device working. What's WALT, you may ask? It's an internally developed Google toolset and hardware device combination to measure touch latency on Android (and Chromebook) products. By combining some simple external sensors connected to a Teensy board with the appropriate software to measure those sensors, WALT makes it possible to directly measure several forms of touch and audio latency of an Android device. Normally this would require a high-speed camera, but Google has developed WALT as a more practical alternative, internally validatating the product against said high speed footage.
To start we can look at tap latency and screen response time. Combining these two figures together will give us the total time it takes at minimum for the device to respond to a tap. It’s worth noting here that there is an upper bound to screen response time because devices are generally locked to 60 Hz and triple buffering means that our response time at best can be 48 ms. The screen response time figure is dominated by this latency in almost all cases, with some extra overhead for the panel’s native response time and some OS overhead can be involved as well.
In tap latency the HTC 10 performs fairly well but everything is so close here that I'm not sure it really matters. In the interest of trying to see what exactly HTC was trying to highlight I also went ahead and used the drag latency test to try and see if this was a notable point of differentiation.
While I would say that WALT's drag latency test seems to be highly unreliable and I'm kind of questionable on whether these results can really be trusted, there's definitely a noticeable difference in how quickly the HTC 10 responds to a swipe compared to most of the competition. The Galaxy S7 seems to keep up which is kind of surprising. I suspect that most of the difference in response between the two devices is the momentum given to a swipe rather than the actual latency.
Misc
With every review there are a lot of little things here and there that I end up discovering along the way that are interesting and worth discussing, but often cannot be discussed in a section of its own, but there are definitely things that have managed to grow past this section into their own as noteworthy.
One of the first places to start is the GNSS of this phone. I’m not sure what exactly HTC did here, but it’s remarkably fast and high quality. When connected to a network A-GPS through the cellular modem (Qualcomm gpsOne) allows for near-instant locks, but I managed to achieve a true cold lock in 1 minute and 6 seconds and it reached a precision of 13 feet within 10 seconds after initial position fix. Precision seems to be as high as 10 feet, which is pretty much the lower bound of what GPS can do without differential GPS systems which allow for precision down to about 10 centimeters.
In addition to GPS reception for whatever reason the HTC 10 seems to have noticeably good reception on AT&T LTE in the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles. It was not unusual for me to see the One M7 sitting on HSPA+ while the HTC 10 would still be on LTE. Of course, I don’t have any formal testing to back this claim up but generally speaking I saw anywhere from 3 to 6 dBm of difference in received power in favor of the HTC 10.
As far as design wins go, ST-M takes the design win for the laser auto-focus sensor, Synaptics is used for the touchscreen, Cypress CapSense Cy8C PSoC is used for the capacitive buttons, an NXP TFA9888 amp is used for the speakers, NXP PN544 is used for NFC, and an Analogix chip is used to enable the USB-C port. It’s identified only by the codename Ohio, but it’s fairly likely that this is the ANX7418. There’s also an ANX7816 for 4K30 over SlimPort. Looking at the SPI bus, for some reason there’s a Micrel KS8851 Ethernet MAC controller and HTC’s custom MCU which is referred to as CwMcuSensor. There’s also an Fingerprints FPC1155 for the fingerprint scanner, and an AK8789 hall sensor.
HTC claims that audio is over a separate DAC and amp, but I really can’t find any evidence that the HTC 10 has a DAC outside of the Snapdragon 820 in the system files, namely the WCD9335. Regardless, the speakers on the HTC 10 are a lot better than most other Android phones on the market. They’re still a step down from the One M9 or M8, but they do provide a fairly convincing stereo effect if you turn it on and overall quality is acceptable. I’m not exactly an audiophile but music over the 3.5mm jack didn’t have any noticeable issues like hissing or popping or anything strange like that.
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Samus - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
The only worthwhile android device is a $100 android device like the Moto G Play or something. Why waste money on something that is going to lose all its value in a year to get virtually the same experience.I don't get the concept behind premium android devices. Just makes no sense. The most expensive one I've ever considered is perhaps the $300 OnePlus.
Murloc - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
I guess taking decent pictures or playing 3D games.I don't do that, so I don't buy high end phones.
Murloc - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
this isn't any different for iOS or WP devices btwphilehidiot - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link
I can absolutely see your point. But conversely my girlfriend bought a cheap Android phone and regretted it massively. Granted it was a crap one but she ended up using my 3 year old flagship device which still works brilliantly. The difference is that now she will use her phone for a lot more, including navigation (which destroyed the battery on the old device and couldn't keep up), youtube (useful for reference when doing something on the car or cooking and you don't have a laptop handy) as well as the much better camera. When previously she wouldn't have bothered using the smartphone camera she now does because a) it's not shite and b) the high quality screen means it's actually worth looking at and sharing photos on the phone. The other thing to remember is that the cameras on many a high end smartphone are approaching what you'd get in many compact cameras (albeit without optical zoom) according to Which? magazine here in the UK. Whilst this is debateable by photography nuts it does mean for the average Joe we get a decent enough camera in our pockets all the time. Not only does this mean you always have a decent camera but it means you don't have to buy one - the savings of which you can add to your device budget. You also have the added advantage of your photos being backed up to the cloud and so if your phone does get nicked then you still have the data. This is not something most stand alone cameras can do as they don't have a mobile data connection.I can see your point but when you have a high end phone and use it for a while it's unlikely you'll want to go back. Myself I go through two whole battery charges a day on my M9 (multiple factors but screen on time is the biggest) and that's simply because I use it for reference during work, emails, reading and editing presentations (try watching a powerpoint presentation with attached videos on a low end device), youtube and web browsing at lunch time and a massive mix of things in between including reading in the pub which isn't exactly pleasant after a while on a low end screen. The other advantage to a high end phone is it's more likely to be supported with security and OS updates throughout the product's lifespan. Partly because it has the power to run the newer features (like split screen multitasking - something I'm looking forward to) and partly because that's what the extra profit margin paid towards. You'll also find that, as software is developed based on the average specs out in the wild, as the average phone spec rises you'll be left behind - this means that applications are updated (mandatorily), you'll often find them slowing down over time as they are aiming for higher and higher specifications over the couple of years you own the device.
Whilst there are some damned good low-mid range Android phones out there, I feel that they are ultimately let down by screen, camera, R&D and long term support. I use my phone to such an extent that it's worth every penny to get something that works properly.
Sorry for the long post but I thought you made such a good point about lower end devices that you deserved someone who does invest in a high end model justifying their reasons why.
darkich - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link
^ great post, with which I agree completely, aside from the part about understanding the point to which you replied to.I really doubt Samus has used a true high end Android device enough to warrant an credible opinion.
And he's obviously missing the whole world-changing paradigm of computing that's happening before his eyes.
I suggest him to go read the first and last paragraphs of the Note 7 review on the Verge..that guy simply nailed it.
And that's exactly why myself, after using a Note 3 for three years as my main computer, camera, media and gaming device (still serves me amazingly well but the physical wear and tear started to show, the camera and GPU have become outdated, as well as the battery endurance), am now left waiting for the Note 7 re-release.
There's just no alternative for me.
londedoganet - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Oh, is that why every second comment on any article is "where's the HTC 10 review, Anandtech has sold its soul and become Apple shills, even Anand has gone to work for Apple"?jfallen - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
All this in-depth review of the display but not once did you care to look at it though a set of polarized glasses...If you did you'll note that they polarized the display so that the screen appears black when holding the phone in the normal up-right position while wearing polarized sunnies... UNFORGIVABLE!!! design decision and that's why I don't one.
Still rocking the HTC ONE M7 with it's unpolarised screen, MHC and dual front speakers. The original and still the best ;)
ToTTenTranz - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
I suffer from this issue with my HTC Butterfly 3 (exclusive japanese model that is pretty much what the M9 should've been), which seems to have this very same 5.2" 1440p screen.I have to say it really bothers me having to hold the phone in landscape if I'm wearing my polarized Oakleys.
Demi9OD - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
I use a matte screen protector and don't have any problems.ChronoReverse - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
After I put on my TGSP (Orzly), the polarization issue was resolved for mine (Tianma panel)