HTC Bolt arrives for the US market, Snapdragon 810 inside, no headphone jack

The HTC Bolt arrives to the US market today, and it will give you all the midrange feels but with a speedier data connection. We won’t mind if you mistake it for the HTC 10, because it does look like the Taiwan-based company’s 2016 flagship. But the specs will tell the tale – it’s not the HTC 10, but it is an option in the niche just below the flagship phones.

The HTC Bolt hypes its data connection because it is able to do 3×20 MHz Carrier Aggregation due to the Snapdragon 810’s embedded X10 LTE modem. Yes, you read that right – the Bolt is sporting last year’s Qualcomm flagship processor. Not that it’s not capable, as you can still see people using phones like the OnePlus 2 and they’re pretty competent. The HTC Bolt is bringing 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage as support for the SD810, and a 5.5-inch Quad HD display is front center. Not bad at all.

It has a 16MP optically stabilized rear camera, but not the Ultra Pixel one in the HTC 10. There’s also an 8MP selfie cam. Pretty interestingly, the rumors were true — it is one of the phones that does away with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Instead, it gives you a set of USB-C headphones out of the box with noise adaptation features. It also gives you Android 7.0 out of the box, so there is that.

You can buy it at a pricing of USD$600 off contract, or USD$25.00 per month for a contract over two years. The phone does look good – it comes in silver and gunmetal. But for that price, it feels well below spec. You can get better deals for your USD$600, if you know what we mean. It will do the job, but there’s this feeling that we can definitely do better with that amount of money.