HTC have dropped out of the limelight of late. Vodafone don’t seem to be ranging any of their handsets and Three are all out of stock of the HTC 10. Whilst playing with their U Play and U Ultra it occured to me that both handsets had pretty much appeared without anyone noticing. It was a bit of a shame too, because they really are rather good phones.
Likewise, this, the HTC U11, has a lot of the shiny similarities and it’s good to see both EE and O2 ranging the handset.
This, out of the box, is great just to look at alone. That super-shiny back is gorgeous.
The phone has a new HTC feature which we call “squeezy” and they call “HTC Edge Sense”. After a quick squeeze on the sides of the phone you can launch certain features which we’ll be looking at more in the review when it goes live.
Until then though, here’s an up-close look at the thing. It’s 153.9 x 75.9 x 7.9 and weighs 169g. It’s powered by Android 7.1 and has a 12 megapixel camera (HTC UltraPixel) with “UltraSpeed Autofocus”, an ƒ/1.7 aperture and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). You’ll also notice the dual LED flash.
Up front, and this might seem a little weird, is a 16 megapixel camera – yes, more megapixels. This has an ƒ/2.0 aperture and you can beautify yourself with live make-up. It also has an auto selfie and voice selfie mode plus timers and a HDR boost for better shots.
Along with the usual Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi, FC, VoLTE, WiFi Calling and GPS, you’ll also get some news sound features such as HTC USonic. This combines active noise cancellation with that tune-able audio we’ve seen on HTC handsets before, so it not only suits your ears but also blocks out external noise. If you choose not to use the headphones, the BoomSound Hi-Fi speakers are beefier than before.
When you record video, there’s also omni-directional microphones for 3D audio recording, so when you zoom in it’ll concentrate the amplification in that direction.
The U11 has an IP67 water protection rating and the screen is a 5.5″ Quad HD unit (2560 x 1440 pixels) with 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It’s all powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 64 bit octa-core CPU running at up to 2.45 Ghz. You’ve got 64GB storage, 4GB RAM and a microSD card for more.
There’s 3000 mAh battery with Quick Charge and “Extreme power saving mode” if you need to squeeze (geddit?) some extra juice out of it.
We’ll be bringing you a full review of the HTC U11 very soon, but until then, enjoy the photos and get more information at HTC.com. You can also buy it SIM-free for £649.
