HTC Bolt: Ancient processor, no headphone jack and only from Sprint

We have heard about the HTC Bolt for weeks now and today it was finally announced officially by both Sprint and HTC. At least for now, it will be a Sprint exclusive although HTC may decide to release the phone outside of the USA under a different name in the future. Thanks to an aluminum built, its IP57 resistance against water and dust and the preinstalled Android 7, the phone may seem like an interesting choice but you should be aware of some of its shortcomings before committing to a 24 month installment plan with Sprint.

First of all, for some weird reason, HTC decided to add last year's processor, the Snapdragon 810. If you remember, this one was often said to cause excess heat in smartphones and was not the best choice last year. This year, the Snapdragon 820 offers a much better balance between performance and efficiency, so HTC's choice was definitely a bad one. Second, unless you want to be very courageous and listen to music via USB-C only, the HTC Bolt will not make you happy because it misses the headphone jack. HTC does include an USB-C Boom sound headset but no USB-C-adapter. If you live in a major US city that is covered by Sprint's LTE Plus network, the HTC Bolt will support the necessary 3x20 carrier aggregation.

The 5.5 inch LCD-display offers QHD-resolution and Gorilla Glas 5 protection, there are 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of expandable storage. The battery gives you 3,200 mAh of capacity and can be fast charged with Quick Charge 2.0 compatible chargers via USB-C. The rear camera offers 16 megapixels, OIS, an aperture of F/2.0 and can record 4K video. The front camera can shoot 8 megapixel selfies. A fingerprint sensor is integrated into the Home Button on the front. HTC did the right thing to go with Android 7 from the start but The Verge criticizes the massive amount of bloatware coming with the HTC Bolt on Sprint. It is available starting now in both silver and black.

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