HTC has been competing with Samsung for years to bring out a phone to rival their highly popular Samsung S range. HTC fans will be happy to know that the company have been behind the scenes preparing a phone which is ready to rival its biggest adversary.
The HTC U11 has an impressive list of specs in a form factor that includes squeezable sides and a decent camera, which has been HTC’s downfall for some time.
The HTC U11 design is something that is quite different from your array of phones that are on the market at the moment. With light gorilla glass and curved the metal backplate, it feels a little less premium than say the Samsung S8 or HTC 10.
Although I can’t say it ‘feels’ like the best phone on the market, the build quality is very well designed and sturdy, after a couple of days you will probably get used to it.
The colour choices for the U11 however, are extremely pleasing to the eye. HTC opted to go for a shiny metallic backing which reminds me of “shiny Pokemon cards” that come in one of five different colours; Amazing Silver, Brilliant Black, Sapphire Blue, Ice White and Solar Red. We looked at the Amazing Silver but really depending on the light it’s more of a two toned bluey-purple colour.
Changing of the colours for the back of the phone is really impressive, the colours shift between a range of hues of blues and purples making it really stand out. The U11 is not a phone you want to put in a phone case. Its only downfall is that it is a fingerprint magnet which ruins the sleek look of the design straight away. You could put the phone in a case but for one that you need to squeeze this adds a layer of complexity to it considering as a phone minus the “squeeze” it does not do anything mind shatteringly new.
It is a phone that has refined all the parts of today’s smartphones and makes sure it does them well. The fingerprint and home button works perfectly for something which is a touch sensor instead of an actual clickable button. The buttons all react with a decent tactile click with the power button and volume controls on the right side and sim slot sitting on the top.
Sitting in one hand, you can use the phone quite easily, the placement of the volume controls is precise to make this work. The curved design fits in your palm and is a rectangular design probably to be easier to make it IP67 water resistant that makes throwing it into water keep it from becoming an expensive paperweight. Real life means you can drop it in a puddle, toilet or in the shower and it will function perfectly fine. No bowls of rice needed to dry it out.
Taking a page from the iPhone book, the headphone jack has been removed with the extension cable thrown in for good measure. For the sake of a few millimetres, it is a shame new phones keep taking away something which is still so widely used in the world. Yes, you can still use a jack cable with the USB-C adapter but it means one more thing you need to carry on your person at all times if you want to spontaneously connect it up to something a little more old school.
As the USB-C port acts for both power and audio it does mean that you can’t charge your phone while listening to music but luckily the phone does last a decent amount of time off the wall.
The screen for the HTC U11 is perfectly fine, it is 5.5 inches, bright, clear and with a QHD display making it a 1440 x 2560 resolution. The only problem is when you compare it to the S8 it starts to look a little dated with a lot of bezel around the screen.
If you are not bothered about the “seamless displays” that are coming out on phones, laptops and anything else they can make, you probably won’t be too bothered by such a small differences which do not impact the phone’s performance. It’s just a shame HTC always seems to be that one step behind Samsung in the innovation department than sticking with the norm.
It does have a bright screen but it also reflects the light quite a lot which outside in daylight can make it seem a little dimmer when comparing it to the Samsung S8. It does have a lot more punch though than the HTC 10 Evo which has a fairly dim display even on full brightness. Same as the HTC 10 Evo, the auto brightness can be a little slow to respond. Quite a few times when going from indoors to outdoors, it would take a long few seconds before it kicked the brightness up to make the screen readable. I found a lot of the time I would manually be tweaking the brightness through the navigational menu rather than let the U11 decide for me.
It’s not, by all means, a bad screen but the HTC U11 isn’t the best with the constant shift of technology for screens in the phone market. You won’t miss out on anything but as a flagship phone, it does feel a little behind.
Edge Sense is the main selling point from HTC for their U11 which allows you to squeeze the sides of your phone and it will respond with an action you can set. The force of your grip and how long you grip the phone for can be different for what stuff it will do.
Setting the phone up from the box, you can get it to open up the camera with a double squeeze in normal mode. You can go into the settings to tweak some more advanced commands such as a long press to launch Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa if you have installed it.
It’s not just limited to Google or Camera, there are lots of options you can play with from turning on the torch, enabling the U11 as a hotspot or launching Facebook.
There are also secondary commands in apps you can set Edge Sense for, in the camera app squeezing again will take a photo for you. It does not currently work inside every app through but it has been promised by HTC to arrive at some point which will make it quite a powerful tool.
The idea is simple, to be able to use your phone without having to make as many touch presses to get to your desired result. You might want to be careful on the pressure sensitivity as it can be quite responsive and setting it too low will mean picking up your phone could open an app you might not want.
The innovation is great from HTC but it feels like it was released a little unfinished not having to full functionality or finishes touches to make it a truly impressive feature. It is also sometimes a worry when you try and fundamentally change how to use a mobile phone, think Windows 8 and ask users to learn again how they need to hold their device.
Interface-wise on the U11 is very clean and quick, the Sense UI is void of a lot of bloatware some other phones can have and on the latest HTC phone, they have moved to a lot of Google default apps. This is a good choice than just adding in the same app but made by HTC instead.
Google Photos, however, is one of the apps which would be best left as an additional extra, a lot of the time it seems like you are waiting for the phone to get an internet connection before you can view your photos. This means that moving from camera to photos causes a couple seconds delay which wouldn’t happen on a built-in app.
Finding device folders takes a little longer to find than you’d expect because you’d assume they’d be in a gallery but instead photos sit inside Google Photos and you need to open the menu and select “Device Folders” in the options.
For the most part, the software works well but it does have the occasional lag when using it such as moving into split-screen for example. It not a major issue but just seems a little early.
In terms of power, it is a beast and has a lot of great internals to make it play games effortlessly and this is thanks to the Snapdragon 835 CPU and 4GB of RAM. Running the phone through GeekBench is scored an overall 6312.
Blinkfeed is still on HTC phones but it’s not something I have ever felt the need to use it. It contains an aggregation of all your social networks and other information such as your calendars but it just seems messy and something you can’t really keep on top of. The News Republic app is similar but just for news and the most annoying thing about it is what seemed the endless notifications.
Touchpal which comes bundled with the phone is a pretty decent keyboard but if you don’t pay for it then you get bombarded with advertisements which seemed like everytime the keyboard opened up. This meant that I decided to just install Google Keyboard which works the same but without the annoying adverts.
The Sense Companion which is HTC’s version of the Google Assistant is pretty neat being able to tell you about your phone usage and when your battery gets low to give you a reminder to top it up but other than a few little additions it does not stand out compared to the others available such as Amazon Alexa.
A 12-megapixel camera is part of the U11’s specs with a single lens which is different when looking at the other smartphones which are flagship devices from their competitors. It does not make too much difference though as the camera is exceptional for a single camera.
The HDR Auto mode combines three photos together to create the best possible version of that image, making it clearer and more vibrant. When using the same feature on the HTC 10 Evo it takes a few seconds for it to finish working in the background to get the photo. On the HTC U11 though it is much much quicker that shows the power of the phone.
There is also a range of other options such as Panorama and Pro mode which allows you to tweak the more advanced camera settings. Google Photos can then enhance these RAW shoots further by using all the available data from the sensor.
Although quicker than last years phone it still is a little bit slower than I would have expected, not slow enough for you to be waiting but just long enough to notice. This mainly comes in the form of the shutter lag between shots which seems to be prevalent on all of the HTC phones. This can make it hard to grab a decent photo of a moving subject such as an animal or fast moving action such as sports.
The front facing camera is one of the better ones out there with a 16MP sensor and f/2.0 aperture it makes for some nice high-quality clear photos, great for those Instagram selfie shots on the beach showing just your legs.
After moving from a phone which was clearly dying anything could have seemed like to world the best battery but the U11 comes with a 3000mAh battery and it lasts a decent amount of time. The last HTC phone I had the M9 was great for a little while but quickly seemed to degrade which meant I spent a lot of time by a charger or carried around portable ones just in case.
HTC seemed to have solved a lot of these issues as it is nowhere near as bad as my past experiences and with the Boost+ app which helps you kill unused apps int he background, less of the battery is being drained by something you are no longer using.
There’s no wireless charging on the U11 and this was the same for the HTC 10 Evo and the M9. It was probably done to reduce the cost of the overall phone and to be honest, it is a bit of a gimmick so the savings are more than welcome. It would have been better with wireless charging don’t get me wrong but I don’t see it as a necessity.
Using the phone quite heavily in 24 hours it held the charge pretty well leaving me about 30% by the end of the day. Watching a 90-minute video I found it has lost about 20% of the battery which is better than the HTC 10 Evo which loses about 25% on the same video.
Sound on the HTC range is always one of the top performing areas of their phones and this device is no different. Paired with the USonic headphones the audio is clear and if you have HD audio files you’ll get the best sounds you can probably get with a smart phone on the HTC U11.
The earbuds have good levels of treble and pack a decent punch with the base considering how small the drivers would be. The noise cancellation is also decent as they are meant to provide a better experience using microphones in the earbuds but they don’t seem as good as actual noise cancelling headphones.
Inside the two speakers and have a special feature that when put on a flat surface will expand and create a louder experience by resonating through whatever you have placed it one. This is, of course, good for music but not so much for video as you’d need to be standing over the device to watch it.
Dropping the headphone jack is particularly annoying if you have a lot of devices that use it and forcing the user to accept it is frustrating but the adapter that you get in the box works really well and if you can deal with carrying it around with you, it works.
Really the HTC U11 is a great phone and something HTC should be proud of as their flagship device, it is packed with a lot of cool techs and powerful internals making it a phone worth glancing at. It’s not a device which has changed the face of mobile phones but is one that stands up well against the competition which also has decent flagship devices.
It’s downfall really is the fact it doesn’t do anything to stand out in the competition but more blend in with it. The S8 has an infinity edge display which makes it something different and although the U11 has the squeezable sides it’s not as “mainstream” feature users will want on their phone to be able to shift peoples opinions over to make it a done deal switch over. This is also before the signs of the iPhone 8 which will further shake up the market and make it even harder to stand out.
What it does well though, it does really well. It is a phone you could buy and be happy and safe in the fact it will last you the life cycle you need it for and be able to keep up with the stresses of day to day smartphone life and gaming if you are a big fan of mobile games. If HTC can further work on the software to iron out the bugs and speed up some of the underlying processes it would make it stronger still. That and they need to work on making their main feature and USP more customisable. Squeezing the phone is great and sure could be a final point for some who wish to use their phone in that way but at the moment it is restrictive which will turn some people away which would have said yes. Being able to
Squeezing the phone is great and sure could be a final point for some who wish to use their phone in that way but at the moment it is restrictive which will turn some people away which would have said yes. Being able to use the squeeze inside applications and control what different squeeze features do would make it a standout function for the smartphone.
I’d recommend this phone to someone who is into their audio as the sound is top notch and anyone who is on the market for a new phone should definitely look at it. The HTC U11 is an amazing looking phone and has some powerful insides which are just as good as the other main competitors on the market. Just don’t buy the phone for just the squeezable sides, it’s fine as an extra but is still in my terms a gimmick which needs more work to be practical.
Overall, the U11 is a very strong contender in a market which has a lot of heavy hitters but will mainly be for those in the market for a new phone or already a HTC user and wants to stay within the ecosystem but is looking for the same level of device as the S8 in terms of specs.
