[Device Reviews and Information] t3chfan:
Hi All,

First review so please be kind. I have also posted this at Mod Edit: Link removed.

HomTom HT10 - The eyes have it?

HomTom is a brand who are trying to make a name for themselves by releasing devices at a low price point with interesting features. In reality, HomTom is a subdivision of DooGee so there is shared experience in making decent devices at a reasonable price. I've owned a few lower spec DooGee phones in the past and have found them reasonable given the price tag so will be interested to see how the HomTom HT10 can make a name for itself with a top end set of specifications.

Key Spec:

SoC	MediaTek Helio X20 10 Core

CPU	2 x 2.3GHz, 4 x 2.0GHz, 4 x 1.4GHz

GPU	Mali T880, 700MHz

RAM	4GB, 933MHz

Storage	32GB + SD Slot

Screen	5.5 inch, 1920x1080, 401ppi

Camera	Rear: 21MP, Front: 8MP

Battery	3200mAh

The HT10 is touted as coming with the same Iris Recognition technology that the ill-fated Samsung Note 7 utilised.

Unboxing

The HT10 comes in a plain dark blue box with HomTom branding and with slight wood effect. Opening the box reveals the phone, charger and cable. You don't get any headphones in the package which I'm fine with but the overall impression of the packaging seems a little dated.

A tab reveals a 'secret drawer' containing a wood-effect flip case, and very rudimentary and superfluous instruction booklet.

The flip case actually replaces the removable back cover so doesn't add a great deal of extra weight or size to the HT10 which was a nice touch, though the front is just a simple flap, there is no magnetic magic to keep it shut. final point to note is that this had a screen protector installed which is a bonus.

On the whole a rather boring retail box, I'm not swayed by such things but may be pretty underwhelming for some.

Hardware

Looks-wise the HT10 reminds me of my old Samsung Galaxy S2. A fairly inoffensive shape, with an array of sensors and notification LED at the top and off screen buttons at the bottom.

The first major whinge here is that the buttons are not back-lit, in this day and age this is only excusable in the cheapest of budget phones and certainly at this price point, for a manufacturers top device this is a total no no.

On the top of the phone is a trusty 3.5mm audio jack, and at the bottom we find a standard micro-usb port, 2 speaker grilles and the microphone. On the right side is the power button and volume control.

The screen features the now obligatory '2.5d' glass curving at the edges, and is a decent size though there is a slight element of cheating as there is probably 1mm of black space around the viewable screen meaning that the visible bezels are artificially small.

The rear of the phone has the camera, another microphone and a single LED flash. Again that is a little disappointing as the standard for a top spec phone these days is to have dual-LED flash at least. The back panel is removable and rather cheap feeling plastic, but there are no creaks or areas which depress under pressure.

The sides of the phone are made from metal and look nice - mainly matte silver with a beveled shiny edge. The power/volume buttons seem to have a little lateral play though and could perhaps be slightly better sized to give a more premium feel.

In terms of look and feel I think HomTom have done a reasonable job here. Nothing groundbreaking or uber premium, but it looks and feels nice enough.

Software

The HT10 runs a skinned version of Android 6.0 which seems to be called HomTom Fire. This has inexplicably altered some of the generic Google App icons, such as Play Store and Maps, and as per the majority of import phones does away with the App Drawer in favour of having all apps accessible from the main screens. Though this is what any iPhone user has to deal with, many Android users find this a difficult concept to deal with, but a solution would be to use a third party launcher such as Google Now or Nova. The other option of course is just dealing with it!

There is not a great amount of bloatware on the device which is refreshing, and the majority of what's there can be uninstalled anyway.

Display

I was impressed with the display HomTom have provided for the HT10. Everything looks crisp and clear. The screen is capable of going very bright and I had it set on auto-brightness defaulting to around 40%, and had no issues both at night or in bright sunlight. I could find no evidence of light bleed on my unit which you might expect from a 'budget' device.

Performance

This is where the HT10 really excels. The HT10 comes out very well against more established flagship phones using the main benchmark apps.

Geekbench results below.

Device - Single Core - Multi Core

Oneplus 3 - 1698 - 4015

HT10 - 1655 - 3298

Huawei Nexus 6P - 1212 - 2848

Antutu results below.

Device - Score

Huawei Honor 8 - 94164

HT10 - 87631

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge - 81087

What this shows us is that the HT10 benchmarks very well against phones that are more than twice the price. The Helio X20 SoC that powers the device definitely seems to hit the sweet spot, and we can presume that it's just the Mali GPU that is hindering the scores, but this shouldn't make too much difference if you're not a hardcore gamer

Obviously statistics don't really tell the full story but I've had no issues whatsoever in daily operation of the HT10. I can run all the apps I want with no discernible slowdown.

Iris Recognition Unlocking

Of course the elephant in the room that I've not discussed as yet is the HT10's USP, the 'Second Generation Iris Recognition Unlocking'. What this means in reality is that to unlock the phone you press the power button, then look at the screen. A small window opens up to show you what the iris recognition camera can see, and will tell you to move closer or further away if required. The iris recognition function was present in the top end Lumias released last year, but they were hardly big sellers, and the less said about the Galaxy Note 7 which also has this feature the better.

Apparently iris recognition is much more secure than fingerprint scanners, though I thought fingerprints were unique so I'm not really sure why the wheel needed to be reinvented. The iris recognition works perfectly well in standard light and even darkness, but is very flaky in even moderate sunlight outside. If the iris recognition is unable to match, you are reverted to the standard pin unlock, however irritatingly you still need to confirm the pin meaning an extra screen press when most devices now will unlock automatically after a the right pin is input.

Another annoyance is that the iris unlock takes precedence on the 'unlock screen', so if you are used to your music app telling you what song is playing on this screen you will need to unlock the phone in order to see this.

Overall, this feature is not a disaster, in fact it is certainly pretty cool and definitely (mostly) unique thing to have. I just wish it worked a bit better, and remain to be convinced that it in any way improves on fingerprint unlocking.

Camera

Unfortunately even though the camera in the HT10 (IMX230 Exmor RS) is the same as the one in the best camera phone I've ever owned, the Honor 7, the results from the HT10 were patchy to say the least.

In a well lit situation I could get some of the best photos I've ever got from an 'import phone' (though still miles away from the Honor 7's quality), but as soon as the lighting conditions were less than perfect the photos suffered massively.

In low light both inside and out photos had very poor detailing, with a flattening of features and a watercolour effect.

Hopefully HomTom will be able to resolve this with a software update, as well as the annoying bug which caused the LED flash to activate all the time in auto-flash mode, even in bright sunlight.

If anyone can advise the best way for me to share images I will do this

Other features

Battery life on the HT10 is pretty good. While I'm no power user I managed to get through every day with plenty to spare, at worst I managed to get it down to around 40%, but through general internet/app use and listening to music you'll have no issues at all. The device does apparently feature 'Pump Express' fast charging, but in reality I found it quite slow to charge the 3200 mAH, it took about 3 hours to complete a full charge from flat, though this may be because the charger supplied was not UK spec so I had to use a different one.

Connectivity is fine, I had no issues with my wireless speeds or range, and could get 4G everywhere that I'd expect. The HT10 is touted as a 'Global 4G' phone so all in all the connectivity gets a thumbs up. Bluetooth connected quickly and worked fine in my car for both music and phone functionality.

GPS worked absolutely fine both driving and walking. MediaTek phones have caused me a lot of woe in the past due to poorly performing GPS so they have clearly upped their game.

Music sounded fine through headphones. The loudspeaker is a little flat for music and could be louder for calls but even still it is acceptable.

Conclusion

Taken as a complete package the HT10 really does take some beating for the price. The Iris Recognition seems slightly pointless, and the camera performance isn't anywhere near flagship standard, but in every other area the HT10 performed well, so much so that it has become my 'daily driver' when not reviewing other devices.

Score: 8.5/10

Price when reviewed £199

Review sample kindly supplied by those lovely chaps at LightInTheBox. Head over to Mod Edit: Selling site link removed. for the cheapest price available!