HTC Bolt review: Wait for act two
The Bolt is a fine phone that should have attempted to fly on its own — without buckling to a carrier’s demands.
The bottom line
In the HTC Bolt you get a stylish smartphone and a solid performer with the latest software. But with its aging spec offerings and a couple odd decisions, it costs just a little too much to consider adopting “Sprint’s fastest smartphone ever.”
The Good
- Stylish, aluminum build is IP57 rated
- Runs Android 7.0 Nougat right out of the box
- Capable set of camera specs
The Bad
- You’ll have to spend time undoing Sprint’s tweaks to the interface
- There is no headphone jack, nor is there a dongle
- The processor is too old for this price-point
I’m not going to start off this review with any puns related to lightning bolts, nor am I going to delve into the history of HTC’s gradual disappearance from the smartphone players marquee. Instead, I’d like to launch off the simple fact that the HTC Bolt is a great smartphone.
Admittedly, it was difficult for me to feel that way at first, and that’s partly Sprint’s fault. The Bolt is a Sprint-exclusive release, but its sole purpose appears to be to help raise awareness of the carrier’s 3x CA (carrier aggregation) LTE network, hence the tagline, “Sprint’s fastest smartphone ever.” That doesn’t seem fair for HTC, considering it had to make hardware decisions to fit that marketing narrative, but the Taiwan-based company doesn’t have much choice at this point. It needs the visibility boost in the U.S.
The Bolt likely won’t be a heavy player for HTC. If anything, it should be considered a glimpse at what’s to come. Its sole existence, besides propagating Sprint’s LTE Advanced network, appears to be to test what works in the market. And if the Bolt is any indication of where HTC is headed in terms of making smartphones, it may finally turn things around.
About this review
I (Florence Ion) am reviewing the HTC Bolt after spending six days with it on Sprint’s network in the San Francisco Bay Area. The phone is running Android 7.0 Nougat under HTC’s Sense UI. It did not receive software updates during my testing period. The phone was provided to Android Central for review by HTC.
HTC Bolt Hardware
I like the trend of matte, aluminum-bodied smartphones and the Bolt in particular sports a futuristic coolness about it that you don’t typically see with a glossy, glass-covered device like the Galaxy S7, or even the Pixel. I’m also digging the Bolt’s minimalist design and I like that the back panel isn’t crowded by giant camera lenses and LED flash bulbs. Just remember that matte doesn’t necessarily mean scuff-free, however. The metal that covers most of the surface held up well, but there’s still vulnerable glass on the front — after a week it was already sporting nicks on the display from being inside my purse.
The Bolt is pretty big. It’s about the size of the Pixel XL, but it’s actually wider — and what makes it particularly hefty is its overall density. I got tired of holding it one-handed, so I found myself curling up with it a bit more and using two hands just to navigate the interface. The one time I didn’t want to be holding it at all was when it’s charging — it’s almost too warm to hold when plugged in.
The Bolt gets really warm when it’s charging — almost too warm to hold.
I know what you’re probably thinking. No, the Bolt’s propensity for being a hot potato is not directly correlated to the Snapdragon 810 powering it, despite its reputation for overheating. The giant metal frame dissipates all sorts of heat, not just the processor’s. This processor’s only folly is that it’s too old for a smartphone offered at this price point and in late 2016. I actually no issues while I was using it, and the Bolt benchmarked like the Nexus 6P in PCMark. Anyway, this is all moot because HTC had to stick with the nearly two-year-old processor since it’s one of the few chips that supports Sprint’s new LTE network.
The Bolt’s battery life seemed impressive at first. I left the phone off the charger for about three days and on the morning of the fourth day, I found it hanging on at one percent. I thought to myself, “Man, that last few minutes of usage could really come in handy.” I thought it was a good sign that the Bolt could manage to hold on like that.
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6.05 147.5 mm |  |
| 3.04 in77.3mm | 0.32 in8.1mm |
- Display:
- 5.5-inch QuadHD
- Super LCD3 Display
- 2560×1440 resolution (534ppi)
- Camera:
- 16MP, ƒ/2.0 lens, OIS, Dual LED flash
- 8MP front camera, 1080p
- Battery:
- 3200 mAh capacity
- Quick Charge 2.0
- Chips:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor
- Octa-core 1.5GHz
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB internal storage
- microSD slot with adoptable storage
And then I performed my battery benchmark. The Bolt did not perform on par with the other smartphones I’ve tested with the same battery size and QuadHD display combination. It managed only five hours and 24 minutes of on-screen usage in the PCMark battery rundown test, and that’s with Nougat’s renovated Doze mode. What’s even more annoying is that when you’re ready to charge it up, you’ll have to wait around for a bit. The Bolt is only compatible with QuickCharge 2.0. It takes more than an hour and a half to fully replenish the Bolt’s 3200mAh battery.
HTC Bolt Cameras
The HTC Bolt’s 16-megapixel rear-facing camera shoots at an aperture of f/2.0 and comes equipped with optical image stabilization. Normally, I’d complain about how much smaller the aperture is compared to its flagship, the HTC 10 which shoots with an aperture of f/1.8, but the inclusion of the RAW and manual shooting mode makes that less of a limitation to fret about. If you want, you can use that mode to keep the shutter open for up to 16-seconds. The low-light limitation only becomes an issue when you’re using a third-party camera app, like Snapchat, in an attempt to make the next social media masterpiece.
I was impressed by the Bolt’s imaging capabilities. I liked the way the photos were composed in ample lighting and I liked that the post-processing engine didn’t blow out or overly contrast the end result. Overall, the camera resolution is fine for a second-tier smartphone, but I hope we see more of the HTC 10’s camera sensor in the next flagship.
My favorite thing about HTC phones is the native camera app. It used to be one of the easiest camera apps to use, years before Samsung and LG simplified their feature-heavy menus. The Bolt is well-equipped with its own library of camera features, too, but the options aren’t all crowding the screen when you tap into that particular menu mode. Instead, you can simply scroll through the different options available to you, all of which are self-explanatory. It’s the least overwhelming camera app, sans the stock Google camera app, and I like that you can even change the camera resolution without tapping into another Settings menu.
HTC Bolt Software
The Bolt runs HTC Sense on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. This is one of the better versions of Android as translated by a manufacturer floating around out there. It includes a theming engine, if you don’t like the color scheme, and a notifications shade that’s similar to what you’ll find on the Pixel. The BlinkFeed is still a thing, too, but you can disable it if News Republic and all the sources you’ve selected become too much for you. BlinkFeed feels too noisy sometimes. Isn’t life busy enough?
HTC optimized the software on the Bolt so that even though this is Android 7.0 running on subpar specifications, you’ll hardly notice it with day-to-day usage. Even Snapchat ran without a hitch and I have issues with the app even when using it with the latest hardware. But while HTC left Nougat relatively unscathed by redundant apps, Sprint went rampant bundling in its own. The Bolt is not only preloaded with about 20 apps, but you can only delete about half of them. The interface also comes pre-skinned in Sprint’s themed icon pack, which is as gaudy as it sounds, and a Sprint wallpaper, which is the default background for the app drawer. Thankfully, the Android interface is customizable as long as you’re willing to put in the time.
HTC Bolt Odds and Ends
They keep taking away our headphone jacks to make smartphones thinner, but that’s what’s in style now, and it looks like we may have to accept the inevitable. For its part, it appears HTC is attempting something with the one-port-to-rule-them-all motif before its flagship next year. It included a pair of USB Type-C earphones that work with the Bolt and take advantage of its adaptive audio capabilities, which adjust to ambient noise and your ears to offer the best sound. But there’s no included dongle for any other old school earbuds and headphones you might have around the house. That’s a bummer.
Believe it or not, the Bolt is HTC’s first water resistant phone, and has almost the same dust and water resistance standard as Samsung’s latest phone. The Bolt’s IP57 rating will keep the device safe in three feet of water for up to half an hour, but you’re better off just keeping the phone away from large bodies of liquid in any case.
HTC Bolt The bottom line
I can’t help but feel like the Bolt would have been a better device if it weren’t beholden to another company. I’m assuming that in exchange for exclusivity and front-and-center marketing mojo, HTC had to compromise on the Bolt’s performance so that its hardware could accommodate Sprint’s LTE network. That’s a hell of a compromise to make for the fourth largest carrier in the U.S., but in the end, having any sort of carrier backing is better than not having any presence at all — which the HTC 10 does not.
The Bolt is a definite look at what HTC has in store for us next year. I’m expecting a super cool aluminum smartphone with top-of-the-line hardware and a rear-facing camera that can better capture low light. For now, consider the Bolt a mere test run that shows off Sprint’s network — and one that isn’t likely worth $600 to you.
See at Sprint
Best Buy’s 2016 Black Friday deals are here: Google Home, Galaxy S7 and more on sale
There are 48 pages of sales to peruse through.
Don’t you just love a sale? Best Buy’s Black Friday preview flyer is now available. Beginning November 24, you can get some great deals, like a Google Home for $30 off. It’s a good deal and you’ll still get the free perks that come with it, including six months of YouTube Red.
Further on the smart home kick, Samsung’s SmartThings Hub and the Insignia Wi-Fi Smart Plug are also on sale for $50 and $10 off, respectively. But the deals don’t stop at the smart home — there are about 48 pages of deals you can scroll through, with some big savings:
- $120 off + free wireless charger with unlocked Galaxy S7 purchase
- $250 gift card and free Gear VR with (carrier) Galaxy S7 or S7 edge purchase
- $384 off a Moto Z Droid
- $18-53 off Samsung microSD cards
- $20 off Fitbit Charge 2
- $40 off Amazon Echo
- $10 off Amazon Echo Dot
- $10 off a 2nd gen Chromecast
- $100 off an Axon 7 Mini
While some of the deals are “in store only,” most are available online, so you can shop for new stuff comfortably from your own couch the day after Thanksgiving. Hit up Best Buy’s online Black Friday deals page for every single sale.
Volkswagen will reinvent itself as an EV maker
There may be something of a silver lining to Volkswagen’s corrupt attempts to cheat emissions tests with it diesel and gas vehicles. The company, reeling from the fines it’ll pay for its misdeeds, has announced a radical plan to overhaul itself. It’s called “Pact for the Future,” and sees the carmaker making a huge commitment to build more electric vehicles, reshape its business and clean up its working practices. Change, however, comes at a price, and in this case it’s that the company will shed up to 30,000 jobs.
VW thinks that it can trim the bulk of its workforce without a lot of pain simply by refusing to hire new workers. Instead, it’ll gently encourage those close to retirement to take up fishing or golf a few years earlier than planned. In their place, of course, come the robots, and the company is planning to spend billions on new automated production lines. The overall goal is to have significantly fewer warm bodies, but produce 25 percent more cars than it currently does by 2025.
If there’s a trend to be identified, it’s that human labor is increasingly becoming one of the most expensive parts of manufacturing businesses. Companies, especially big ones that can afford big purchases, will inevitably look to replace people with robots. Another big German brand, Adidas, has factories in Ansbach and, soon, Atlanta, that can whip up a pair of sneakers in five hours. By comparison, a regular sweatshop shoe takes “several weeks” to be produced and shipped to the west on a freighter. So, yeah, the robots are coming for our jobs, and they’ll waste no time in making us all look outdated.
Via: Business Insider
Source: Volkswagen
‘Genital Jousting’ brings a new level of silliness to Steam
As Goat Simulator and Surgery Simulator prove, many folks don’t take their gaming too seriously. And what could possibly be less serious than dueling penises? That’s pretty much the premise of Genital Jousting, a game where you control a “wiggly anus” and (flaccid) penis, complete with testicles. First conceived at a game jam, the title has finally got a full release, as it were, to Steam Early Access.
It’s perhaps best to let the developer, Devolver Digital, describe it. “Players control a detached penis complete with testicles and an anus in a variety of game modes, each featuring a stimulating orgy of objectives: Penetrate and be penetrated as fast as possible or compete in absurd, silly and sexually suggestive games and challenges,” the PR actually says.
Suffice to say, the end goal, so to speak, is to get the dick into the butt. You can play online or in local multiplayer with up to eight competitors, in classic or party mode. Challenges include “Double Delight,” “Obstacle Intercourse” and “Weiner Round Up,” which, you’ll just have to check the video below to see what those are (NSFW, very obviously). If you’re up for some ridiculous fun, the game is now on Steam Early Access for $4.99 or £3.99 in the UK.
Source: Steam
A full ‘Pokemon’ game could come to Nintendo’s Switch
It sounds like a version of Pokemon Sun and Moon could be headed to Nintendo’s upcoming Switch console. It’d be akin to Red and Blue’s sibling Yellow or Pearl and Diamond’s Platinum, according to Eurogamer’s sources. Currently the codename is Stars. Now, for a bit of unpacking. Both Yellow and Pearl were similar to their generational predecessors, but offered new features like different legendary-class pocket monsters or starting with the adorable Pikachu at your side.
Eurogamer says that development paused on Stars while the team at Game Freak was wrapping Sun and Moon, but now that those are in stores work has resumed. This won’t be a simple port, from the sounds of it. The game will feature high-res graphics and new bits that aren’t in the new 3DS titles. What’s more, you’ll apparently be able to trade creatures back and forth between the console and handheld version using the Pokemon Bank mobile app. There’s also the chance for new Pokemon in Stars that aren’t available in Sun and Moon.
The main Pokemon games stick to handhelds because they’re made for battling and trading on the go with friends. As the sizzle reel from October made obvious, the Switch is in fact a portable console, so the design philosophies from the 3DS games shouldn’t be a roadblock here. If you’re hoping to play the game next March when the console is scheduled to release you’re going to be out of luck: Eurogamer’s sources say Stars won’t be out until sometime later in 2017.
Earlier this year when two of our editors faced the question of whether or not the series should move to consoles, Senior Editor Aaron Souppouris had this to say:
“Almost 30 years [since Red and Blue came out] and we have the ability to make Pokemon games that look, sound and feel better than the original animated series. And we’re not doing it.”
With this rumor, it looks like we’re one step closer to that happening.
Source: Eurogamer
Tech host Will Smith needs help funding his VR talk show
News of tech journalist Will Smith’s VR talk show broke in April and he’s looking for help funding the first season. Smith has taken to Kickstarter to raise money for the The Foo Show’s 5-episode affair that will debut on Oculus Home and Steam in December. After the premiere, the plan is to release two episodes in both January and February and the entire first season can be yours with a pledge of $20.
The Foo Show wants to use virtual reality to take viewers inside the world of film, video games and science. Each episode will interview creators from those disciplines from inside the experiences they’ve created. If you’re familiar with Smith’s work at Tested, you know what to expect here, only this time the videos should be way more interactive thanks to the addition of VR and 3D rendering.
Smith says he and the Foo crew have already built tools for the VR show that work similar to a regular video production studio. Since the workflow is already in place, new episodes can be recorded and released quickly. Smith sees this project as way to prove you don’t need millions of dollars to produce a VR show. He says the cost per episode ranges from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the amount of resources needed for building virtual sets, guest avatars and adapting art. Of course, there are travel and on-set personnel costs, too.
As we’ve already mentioned, the first episode of The Foo Show will premiere in December after the Kickstarter campaign ends. For now, you can catch an episode with Firewatch creators Campo Santo in VR right here.
Via: Upload VR
Source: Kickstarter
Can we put the fake news genie back in the bottle?
The 2016 presidential campaign has definitively shown us that you shouldn’t rely on Facebook for all of your news. Even at its best, you’re likely to be exposed primarily to viewpoints and stories you already agree with. Being ensconced in a internet belief bubble takes away a lot of the nuance that exists in the real world — while that lack of nuance likely helped Donald Trump become the next President of the United States.
But beyond the narrow viewpoint that comes from getting news through Facebook is a bigger problem: Fake news has been proliferating on the site at a rapid pace. In August, Facebook made some changes to its “trending news” section, removing human editors and replacing them with an algorithm. Ironically, the move seemed like a response to reports that those human editors were biased against conservative news. Without those editors patrolling the trending section, it became much easier for false stories to slip through. Indeed, a false report about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly being fired spread like wildfire just days after the change was announced.
Things have gotten worse since then — over the last week and a half, fake news on Facebook has been widely cited as a potential difference-maker in the elections results. And Facebook continues to duck its responsibility even as reports circle about the company’s dysfunctional process for flagging and removing false news stories. It’s a topic that’s inescapable right now — Google Trends shows searches for “fake news” spiking in the last month.
And now President Obama has addressed the issue, speaking out against it in a press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel as well as in an excellent, wide-ranging interview just published by the New Yorker. “If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not,” he said yesterday, “and particularly in an age of social media when so many people are getting their information in sound bites and off their phones, if we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.”
The fake news genie is most definitely out of the bottle — so what do we do next? Alexios Mantzarlis, the head of Poynter’s international fact-checking network, admits it’s a big problem but thinks the first place to start is by distinguishing between fake news and misleading news and pushing back against the complete fabrications. “I’ve seen lists of fake news sites going that [incorrectly] included some alt-right sites,” he says “I’m not suggesting that those sites are 100 percent accurate — but there’s a difference between a story that is misleading and a story that is outright fake. The battle that we can win is against 100 percent fake stories, so let’s start there.”
Read this by @snopes founder David Mikkelson, who knows something or other about fake news on the internet https://t.co/bkk1YzqyQk pic.twitter.com/1zD9zCTkSc
— Alexios (@Mantzarlis) November 17, 2016
Mantzarlis mostly focused on what Facebook can do to stem the tide, a reasonable position given that about a quarter of the world’s population uses the platform. “If there are humans at Facebook, they can fact check — at least let’s keep fake news out of trending,” he says. “And if the team sees fake news, tag it so everyone knows. The Megyn Kelly hoax is shocking to me — it kept getting engaged with after Facebook itself apologized for it being a hoax!” While Facebook says it got rid of the team working on trending news, the company still has humans reviewing posts that get flagged, as NPR reports.
While it sounds like coming up with standards that Facebook can quickly and consistently apply presents a major challenge, it’s clearly something the company needs to get serious about. “[Mark] Zuckerberg has said that determining what is true is hard, and I agree with that,” says Mantzarlis. “But when you have fake stories that have been yanked out of trending, they should clearly flagged [as fake]. If you don’t want to delete content, at least annotate it — don’t let it go on more News Feeds afterwards!”
The challenge facing Facebook is walking the line between letting people share whatever they want with their friends — what the platform was originally built for — and cracking down on misinformation. “I’m aware of a strong backlash that is ready to surge as soon as Facebook pushes back too hard… they are walking a tightrope, and I wouldn’t want to be them,” Mantzarlis says. “They make decisions about how to curate the News Feed all the time — if quality of the News Feed is important, I don’t see why they can’t be more particular about this stuff.”
Unfortunately, with the ball so firmly in Facebook’s court, we’re going to be dependent on them to put the genie back in the bottle, and the question remains how interested the company will be in taking this challenge on. Zuckerberg is clearly irked by the suggestion that fake news shared on Facebook influenced the election. He claims that over 99 percent of content on the site is authentic. But despite his skepticism, the company has gone on record saying it would fight fake news — though it didn’t say how. Some aren’t waiting to find out, as reports indicate dozens of employees are privately investigating how the company deals with such matters.
While Facebook bears a significant burden here, the problem extends beyond what it can control — all the way to the White House, in fact. President-elect Donald Trump himself has long played fast and loose with the truth (to put it lightly), and some in the media are noting that they’re essentially competing against his Twitter feed in an effort to tell the truth. It’s a tendency that fake news maven Paul Horner successfully exploited throughout the campaign. “[Trump] just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn’t care because they’d already accepted it,” Horner told The Washington Post. “His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything.”
1. New reality for the press: the president-elect’s Twitter account is a competing media outlet spreading fake news. https://t.co/VPvjKnW5PI
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) November 18, 2016
Trump can crow about keeping a Ford planet from moving to Mexico, the media can investigate those claims and prove them false — but at this point, the truth can quickly become secondary to the narrative Trump has created. His statements are out there, and his army of supporters won’t accept an alternate viewpoint as the truth. It’s no wonder the horrible phrase “post-truth” was the Oxford dictionary’s word of the year.
So the war on fake news has really just begun — but anyone using Facebook or otherwise reading the internet can do their part to hold sources accountable. Reporting bad stories on Facebook isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s what we can for now. Venturing far outside of Facebook directly to reliable outlets that aren’t algorithmically served to you is a smart idea, as well. If you’re wondering what’s real and what isn’t, this document is a great place to start. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is read as many sources on a particular bit of news as you can: if one site claims Trump won the popular vote and 50 others say otherwise, common sense will tell you which one is lying.
Obama honors code pioneers Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton
Bill Gates will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 22nd, but he wouldn’t be where he is without two of the other honorees, Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton. They developed the first programming language and compiler, open-architecture, error detection and recovery and end-to-end testing, among many other breakthroughs. Hopper and Hamilton also helped put programming on par with other engineering fields and were beacons of light for aspiring engineer told that “girls can’t code.”
Grace Hopper is best known for making arcane binary computer code accessible by developing English-like programming languages. She joined the Navy in 1943 and worked on the Harvard Mark I, an early electromechanical computer used to do crucial implosion calculations for the first atomic bomb. She also developed one of the world’s first computer manuals for the Mark I.
While working on the Univac I computer in 1952, Hopper wrote the first-ever compiler (the A-0) which formed the basis for COBOL and paved the way for computer languages that followed. Hopper became a Navy rear admiral in 1985 and worked at Digital Equipment Corporation until her death, aged 85, in 1992. As the David Letterman video from 1986 (below) shows, age never dampened her sharp mind, love of teaching technology and wit.
Without Margaret Hamilton’s work, Neil Armstrong may never have set foot on the moon. Several years after joining MIT in 1960, she led a NASA Apollo team that developed inflight software for the command module and lunar lander. After problems on the Apollo 8 mission led to in-flight guidance data loss, Hamilton convinced NASA higher-ups to let her team develop error detection and recovery software for the moon mission.
That proved to be a wise decision, as just minutes before the Eagle lunar lander was to set down, the computer was overloaded by data caused by a faulty radar and starting throwing error messages. The landing was highly dependent on the onboard computer, so the problem could have easily resulted in an abort decision. Hamilton’s system sounded an alarm, alerting astronauts to the error condition, while at the same time killing low-priority tasks and re-establishing important ones. Scientists back in Houston and the astronauts quickly decided to continue the descent.
Hamilton went on to found a company that created error prevention and fault tolerance tech used by the Air Force and other branches of government. She also helped pioneer open-architecture systems, man-machine interfaces, end-to-end testing and software reliability testing, to name just a few standard coding practices used today. She was also the first to use the term “software engineering,” putting it on par with hardware and other types of engineering.
Suffice to say, both women worked and thrived in a field that was heavily dominated by men, serving as inspiration for girls to enter STEM fields and learn coding. There’s still a lot of work to be done there, but we might not even be this far along were it not for Hamilton, Hopper, and others. “Coming up with new ideas was an adventure,” Hamilton told NASA for its 50th anniversary magazine. “Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.”
Via: Techcrunch
Source: White House
AIVAnet 