HTC U 11

Key Features

Processor Snapdragon 835 Octa-core	Battery Capacity 3000mAh
RAM 4/6GB	Storage 64/128GB
Display 5.5-inch	Resolution 1440×2560 pixels
Rear Camera 12MP	Front Camera 16MP

Introduction

As the rumors have swirled, the key ‘innovation’ of the Taiwan-based HTC is ‘Edge Sense’, a new technology to interact with your handset by squeezing its sides. The new U11 flagship intended to continue the path where the HTC 10 left off, with a few important improvements on functionality and style.

When it comes to the price, the new phone will be same as the last year’s HTC 10, which was priced at $700.

While the U Ultra and Play didn’t make any big difference to the phone arena in terms of popularity, the question raised is: can the HTC U 11 stand against the best-in-class of 2017’s phones?

Design
The HTC U 11 featuring again the same all-glass construction and rolling design called “liquid design language” previously introduced by the HTC U-Play and Ultra, but it doesn’t feel as premium as the metal body.
The U 11 comes in five colors: ice white, brilliant black, amazing silver, sapphire blue, and Solar Red.

The U11 has 4 microphones strategically placed, when you trigger Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, it will detect your position in relation to the flagship and use the nearest microphone to you. HTC claims this will provide accurate voice transcription result.

There’s no headphone jack on the HTC U11, but HTC will ship a USB-C to 3.5mm Jack adapter that should enhance the sonics when they’re used with other brands’ headphones. In the box, you’ll find also Noise-cancelling USonic buds. The sound is fired from behind the panel through BoomSound stereo speakers. HTC is one of the best when it comes to sound and it still.

The most over-hyped new feature is Edge Sense which is giving the ability to squeeze the phone in order to perform various actions, a light squeeze triggered Google Assistant, and a harder squeeze opens the camera app. Once camera app loaded, press down the lower side of the frame acts as releasing the shutter button. HTC stated that third-party apps will be able to make the most of these squeezy features.

Performance
The new HTC phone powered by the same processor as the one in Galaxy S8 Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 running at a clock speed of 2.45GHz, with Adreno 540 GPU which make 3d rendering performance really smooth.
By evaluating the U11 through GeekBench 4 benchmark test for single-core the phone scored an average of 1993 lagging only behind iPhone 7 Plus when it comes to multi-core it marks 6125 preceded by Samsung Galaxy S8.

In terms of memory, it will be the usual 2017 set-up a 4GB of RAM, which should be plenty to achieve high performance, and equipped with 64GB of internal storage. There is a 6GB RAM with 128GB storage model, expected to be available only in selected countries. The U11 also has a dedicated MicroSD card slot expandable up to 256GB in a case of built-in storage is not enough.

Display
The HTC U11 is equipped with a QHD super LCD5 capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and pixel density of 534 ppi, corned by Gorilla Glass 5. Super LCD technology has always a great outdoor visibility under direct sunlight. Also, it has a good contrast and saturation but not as good as AMOLED. The HTC U11 comes without any HDR tech in its screen.

Camera
The UltraPixel rear-facing camera has the exact same resolution as the previous HTC 10 remains unchanged at 12MP, but it has new wider f/1.7 aperture and quicker autofocus HTC claims it focuses in 0.3 seconds thanks to Dual Pixel Autofocus technology. It also has Optical Image Stabilization to help with low-light photography and video stabilization.
The camera testing website DxOMark has awarded the U11’s Camera a score of 90/100 one point higher than the Google Pixel which has the best camera so far.

On the front, there’s a selfie camera of a 16MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture and capable of recording 1080p HD video.

Battery
The HTC U11 packed with a modest 3000mAh battery capacity, HTC says the battery should last a full day, but we don’t think it will last for a full day along due to the high-resolution display the phone has. The U11 has the same battery capacity as the HTC U Ultra which hardly lasts for one day.

There’s no wireless charging on offer but it has Quick Charge 3.0 that enables the battery to be fully charged in about 2 hours.

conclusion
HTC has been consistently making amazing flagships for years but with a poor marketing strategy and nothing to really differentiate it from the crowd, its excellent specs and features haven’t been enough.

HTC is an eye-catching handset has many highs starting with its Liquid Surface design, Powerful processor, Edge Sense technology, Waterproof, Alexa and Google Assistant support it’s hard to ask for more specs other than a bigger battery capacity.

The HTC U11 will be facing cutthroat competition from much bigger rivals like the Galaxy S8 and LG G6 on the market, and from the yet to come handsets such as the Apple’s iPhone 8 and the OnePlus 5.

HTC U 11 Full Specifications

CELLULAR

HARDWARE

SOFTWARE

DESIGN

CAMERA

DISPLAY

BATTERY

CONNECTIVITY