HTC with their tagline " quietly brilliant" has been quiet for some time as they have been trying hard to gain some market share however , not achieving much. They gave some insight into their U series during the CES 2017 after which launched the U ultra with some flagship specs. However HTC claimed that it would not be their 2017 flagship. The U ultra didn't do well by any means as the asking price was Rs. 60000 which it did not deserve.
Keeping that aside lets talk about the next flagship from HTC i.e (alleged) U 11. Last year they named their flagship with just a number and this year its under U series. According to me the best device from HTC was their one M8 (although let down by camera) launched way back in 2014 however dont get me wrong the HTC 10 was a great device too let down by poor marketing and pricing.
The main reason for HTC to make a mark was their build quality and probably the first OEM to use metal for the body. This tradition changed with the U ultra with full glass body and chosing of glossy colours. No doubt the device looks great with those colours yet it seems a copy from LG (for the secondary display) and Samsung (from the back).
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| HTC U11 |
The above image represents the upcoming flagship i.e the U 11. This image was posted by Evan Blass via Twitter quite some time ago. It shows resemblance to the U ultra and indeed a glass body. The home button can be clearly seen which should be similar to the U ultra. The rear is quite different as it has a round camera cutout as compared to square of the U ultra.
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| An image of the box of U11 displaying specs |
Few days ago, another image popped up revealing the device's specs. The image is of the retail box of the device. The specs include:
- Snapdragon 835 SOC clocked at 2.45gHz and comes with adreno 540 GPU
- 6 GB RAM with 128GB internal storage. (However, nothing can be said about RAM and storage as it could be either region specific or a high end variant hence expect 4GB and 64GB variant)
- 5.5 inch 2K display with Gorilla Glass 5 protection
- Support for micro sd card upto 2TB
- 12MP rear camera with f/1.7 aperture , HTC ultra Pixel 3 with OIS
- 16MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture
- IP 57 dust and water resistant. (The competitors have better i.e IP67 or 68 rating)
- HTC boomsound speakers
- 4G LTE, dual nano sim, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 and NFC
- No headphone jack
- It will run Android Nougat based on HTC Sense UI
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| HTC hinting on the release of U11 on 16th May |
The HTC U ultra could be launched on May 16th. The specs seem decent enough however one main highlighting factor or Innovation from HTC will be the edge sense. This edge sense was once teased in a video which shows the response of the software with the help of gestures on the edges of the phone. The video showed a person making some gesture like swiping or moving the fingers over it and the UI showing various options to choose from. The best part the options can be selected from the edge itself like tapping on it. Do remember that the edge refers to the metal or glass frame and not like the edge display on Samsung devices.
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| A still from the video showing a demo |
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