[HTC 10 Guides, News, & Discussion] Nitemare3219:
My thoughts on the 10 vs other flagships...

Used the S7E and 10 side by side for a bit tonight... and actually the 6P. Had them all at 100% brightness and 50% brightness on sRGB and saturated modes, viewing content on Instagram and other photos. The OLED screens looked almost identical - particularly, in sRGB the whites were warm and looked properly calibrated, but in saturated modes the whites were a little blue/green compared to the 10. The 10 on the other hand, at all times, had the red/pink tint to the whites. You may never notice it if you don't do a side-by-side comparison, but now that I have seen it I cannot unsee it. Also, the 10 is actually less bright than the OLEDs until you hit 75%+ brightness levels. At that point, it equals out (the 10 may be brighter at that point but without a lux meter I have no idea - my eyes thought they all looked pretty equal).

One big thing I noticed though and has bothered me a lot. The 10 has BLUR, BLUR, and BLUR that I cannot stop seeing compared to the OLED panels. Chalk that one up to inferior LCD technology taking much longer to refresh compared to OLED. HTC is touting a low latency panel, but it feels just as fast as the 6P and S7E, but it has tons more motion blur/ghosting. And I mean tons. But that's not to say the 10's display is bad. It's the best LCD I've ever used (short of lack of a sunlight boost mode).

I'm not even going to bother doing the camera comparison. Plenty of review sites are. I did a few shots on all of them in my room, and the results were so close it's pointless to even base that as a decision on whether or not to get the phone. All 3 phones have fantastic cameras.

Using my SE846 IEMs, I haven't really noticed any difference in audio other than EQ differences. On the 6P I use V4A, the 10 I used the tone adjustments, and the S7E I have tried experimenting with both the EQ and tone adjustments - surprisingly both can be enabled at the same time. I only listen to music EQ'd via my IEMs because I prefer a V-shaped sound signature. In my car with Bluetooth, I leave the EQ's off because my sound system is perfect as it is. And BT has no effect anyway since the car's radio is doing the processing. The 10 is obviously going to be the best device for audio, especially if you use actual headphones, but I don't really notice a difference with these sensitive IEMs. I am mad that Samsung got rid of the preset "clarity" mode because it really brought out the bass and treble on the Note5 and I loved it. V4A was a decent substitute, but strangely not as satisfying. I can't use V4A on the S7E, and the EQ leaves a lot to be desired. The 10 also lacks a bit of true adjustment, but V4A is possible so it makes up for it.

In terms of smoothness... the 6P feels faster most of the time. The 10 and S7E are by no means slow, but they have their hiccups more-so than the 6P.

The fingerprint scanners... they're all about as quick as each other from a locked state. At the lock screen, the S7 is slower than both of the other phones but by milliseconds. I have to listen for which unlock sound I hear first to determine which phone unlocks first - that's how close they are. I don't have issues with any of them, but the S7E is annoying because I have to press the button, and the 10 can be annoying because the detection area is small. The 6P wins out for me because it is a large detection area, is a standalone sensor, and unlocks without pressing anything.

The navigation buttons... The 10's buttons are a little too low for my liking. The S7E's are a lot easier to hit without missing them. I have missed the buttons on the 10, especially in landscape. Also, people knock Samsung for having the back button on the right... yes, it is a little wonky, but it just feels easier to reach with my thumb than if it were on the left side of the phone, and being as it is the most used button, my guess is that is why they have always done it that way. The 6P's on-screen buttons are great obviously, especially since you get that real estate back for the actual screen when consuming video content, but in terms of actual browsing, with the S7E and 6P both set at 540 DPI and the 6P's navigation bar actually further downsized via ROM settings, the S7E has more usable space.

None of these phones are particularly better than any other. It all boils down to preference. But there's not much I would personally choose the 10 to do if I had all 3 phones with me on a day to day basis. I'd use it to listen to music and take selfies, and I like its design the best of any of the phones. But other than that, it really doesn't stand out like HTC wanted it to. It doesn't have stock Android with a massive dev community like the 6P. It is a large phone for being 5.2". It doesn't have the best screen. Its camera is just on-par with other flagships. The front speakers are a cut above the single firing speakers of many phones, but not as good as the 6P's in my opinion. The battery has not gotten anywhere close 2 days of use, probably because I keep the brightness fairly high (the screen looks even worse if it isn't up high). It's not particularly faster at anything than any other phone. I just don't know what to say that is great about it. Is anything great about it?

The S7E has a unique display that is a joy to use - it feels like it's floating, and it's incredibly great to look at. It's truly water resistant. It has Samsung Pay, and a lot of features that you may or may not use. Incredibly fast AF on the camera, and most of the time takes the best photos. A huge battery that gives tons of SOT. Wireless charging, and actually charges up more mAh per minute than the other phones. It has a vapor chamber heat pipe to keep it from throttling. It has the latest, fastest storage in a phone (for the OS and apps - SD card is a different matter) In every way, it just works. It's a great out of the box experience. I have been rooting and ROM'ing since the G1, and root really isn't even necessary for me on Samsungs phone's anymore (although something like Package Disabler is until they stop loading it up with garbage bloat).

The 6P still has the best low-light camera as of right now. Google's HDR+ takes the cake. Its display is just as high-end as the S7E, but it is larger for content viewing and has front facing stereo speakers. It has an incredible fingerprint sensor. You can modify the phone to your heart's content. It has the hot ass SD810 in it, but works incredibly with it and feels just as fast if not faster than the aforementioned devices. It has 128 GB of internal storage rather than relying on a typically slower SD card. Its battery lasts plenty long. It gets updates right away.

The G5 has the best manual camera and app setup. As pointless as they may be, it has the friends modules and a removeable battery. It can have hi-res audio, just the same as the 10 (and the V10 already does as well). But again, the audio is not stand-out on any of these devices. If it were, that would heavily weigh into my consideration. But since they all relatively sound the same to me with my IEMs (once EQ'd), it doesn't matter how good any of these devices are on paper.

The point is, I can list a lot of things I love about the S7E and the 6P. I haven't used the G5 so I can't comment much on it. But look at my previous phones. I've had devices across the spectrum of manufacturers, so I'm not being biased. I used to hate Samsung, and in some ways I still do - but you can't deny they make a damn good phone. LG has tried a lot of stuff to be different, and they have caught my eye several times in the past, and almost did with the G5 but its build quality was plain bad. As much as I love Google and the Nexus program, Nexus devices have NEVER really been that good until the 6P. I'm sure once the new Nexus comes out, it will continue that and I'll be getting it.

With the 10, it's like HTC tried to innovate with EVERYTHING, but there's nothing in particular that the phone reigns as king with. Maybe it's the jack of all trades and master of none? But that just means you're overall average, and I don't want average.