HTC Bolt review

If you’ve seen a recent HTC phone, you’ve seen the HTC Bolt. It sticks with the traditional HTC aluminum unibody design with minimal flair. You’ll find a camera on the back, volume buttons and power button on the side and a USB Type-C port on the bottom. With an IP57 rating, the phone can also withstand brief submersions and splashes.

Reviews on the design were mixed. While no one had a problem with the appearance of the phone, many mentioned problems with grip. Alphr noted, “This is not comfortable to hold, feeling too wide to sit comfortably in the hand.”

There’s also the lack of headphone jack. They don’t include an adapter either. However, they do include a set of specialized earbuds that received decent reviews. According to HTC they optimize sound to fit your ear’s shape and the environment in which you’re listening. Alphr checked out this new features and said, “Once configured, the sound does genuinely feel better to the ear, with more detail immediately noticeable.”

Heading around front, you’ll find a 5.5-inch LCD screen running at 1440-by-2560 pixels. There’s also a fingerprint scanner at the bottom of the front panel. Reviews for both were average. Phone Arena summed up opinions well, saying, “Its 500-nit output is far from bad, and should treat you well during a lot of outdoor usage. Color accuracy isn't quite spot on, but it's close enough not to be distracting.”

Powering the phone you’ll find an older octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor with 3GB of RAM. This was one area where reviews varied wildly. Alphr noted, “In 2016, no fresh install of Android should lag on the intro screens, or slow down when using the built-in keyboard. The HTC 10 Evo does both of these things.” However, many reviews found the phone performed well for most tasks. Just remember that it’s a mid-tier phone and not a flagship that the phone’s price might suggest.

With 32GB of internal storage and microSD support up to 2TB, there’s more than enough room for your favorite apps, media or pictures.

The phone runs HTC’s latest Sense UI skin over Android 7.0 Nougat. PC Magazine applauded the UI, saying, “[It] is rather light compared with most manufacturer skins. It largely resembles stock Android aside from app icons and BlinkFeed.”

However, for readers looking at the Sprint exclusive variant, beware of bloatware. Reviewers noted more than 60 apps pre-installed on their devices--many redundant or useless.

Reviews indicate that the phone’s 3200mAh battery appears enough to get a full day of light-to-moderate usage on a single charge--but only just. Fortunately, QuickCharge 2.0 support means you can charge up completely in just over 1.5 hours.

Lastly, you’ll find a 16MP rear camera with optical image stabilization and a front-facing 8MP lens. Like other aspects of the phone, reviews for these were average. Expert Reviews UK said, “Photos seemed lacking in detail and, while colours were bright and well-balanced, the focus seemed to struggle to stay locked on.” Low-light performance was respectable in many reviews as well, though it doesn’t keep up with recent flagships in that regard.

Overall, the biggest issue facing most reviewers was the price. At full retail pricing, the HTC Bolt is only slightly cheaper than the superior HTC 10 and is priced well above competing handsets with better specs. For that reason alone, most reviewers recommend passing on this latest HTC release. Tom’s Guide summed up the problem well, saying, “the Bolt is a decent but pricey midrange option — but it should have been better than it is.”