HTC 10 vs. HTC One M9 – Camera Comparison

HTC is the last of the big boys which launched flagship smartphones this spring and, according to the first impressions, they pretty much nailed it, the HTC 10 being considered the best Android phone of the moment.

Its no secret that the last year was a total disaster for the Taiwanese manufacturer, as 2015s flagship was far from what everybody was expecting, resulting to surprisingly low earnings. So, they did their best, spotting the One M9s minuses and improving them.

Besides the Snapdragon 810 chip from under the hood, which was heating like crazy, one of the other minuses was the camera, which was performing very poorly, no matter the conditions in which a photo was taken. HTC considered a simple principle when they designed the One M9s camera, the more, the merrier, loading the phone with a 20 MP rear-facing sensor. Still, the principle was wrong, as in most cases, its not just the number of megapixels that makes a camera great.

Now dont get us wrong, the One M9 was a good phone overall, but one of the main aspects the common consumer looks at when buying a phone is who good the photos taken with it are. And when were dealing with a flagship, which doesnt come for cheap, well…its mandatory to shoot some flawless images.

After receiving a lot of negative feedback, the folks over HTC decided that its time to put their resources into this and develop a great camera, able to make everybody forget about last years disaster. Because yes, it was a disaster. But enough with the stories, lets move on to the technical details!

Last years HTC One M9 featured a 20 MP rear camera, with an f/2.2 aperture lens and autofocus. It also had a few decent tricks in its sleeve, like a dual-LED flash, smile detection and, of course, the ability to shoot 4K videos. The optical image stabilization was missing, by the way. On paper, everything sounded good, but it was an average snapper for a flagship.

Everything changed this year, as the HTC 10 is packed with a top camera, able to compete with the likes of Samsung Galaxy S7, Nexus 6P or iPhone 6s. Despite having a lower megapixel count – 12 instead of 20 –its the lower aperture, f/1.8, giving us a hint about the flagships improved photography capabilities.

The pixels are also bigger this year, meaning that more light will fall on each of them, improving the cameras results in low light. Its aided by laser-assisted autofocus and optical image stabilization, while the dual tone LED flash should help you in those moments when the light is at its lowest. Finally, the phone offers 4K video capture and 24-bit audio capture.

To sum up, we can say that its obvious that the HTC 10s camera beats the one from the M9 from all points of view. If the snapper mounted on last years flagship was decent, satisfying most users, this year HTC nailed it, with a camera able to impress even the most pretentious smartphone enthusiasts!