At an event in Taipei today HTC unveiled its latest flagship smartphone – U11, to commemorate its 20 years of existence. HTC U11 It will be made available in India in the second week of June. As of now, the India pricing has not been unveiled but it’s expected to be priced at around Rs 50,000. It will be available in five colour options – Amazing Silver, Sapphire Blue, Brilliant Black, Ice White, and Solar Red. In Europe, it costs 749 euro.
HTC U11 has a 5.5-inch Quad HD Super LCD 5 display with 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and having the screen resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Under the hood, it will be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor clocked at 2.4GHz along with Adreno 540 GPU. The model that will be launched in India will have 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, which can be further expandable up to 2TB via microSD card. However, there is one more variant which comes with 4GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage.
On the camera front, it comes loaded with a 12-megapixel rear camera with 4K recording, auto focus, HDR photo, LED Flash and face detection. The device comes with advanced HDR settings such as HDR+, Smart Video Zoom, 3D Audio and Hi-Res recording features. The phone also comes with IP67 certification water and dust proof.
Similar to what we saw in the U Ultra, the HTC U will come with an option to record Hi-Red audio and 3D Audio. The HDR+ “Real-Time HDR scene detection”, which might improve the quality of the images. For the front, there is a 16-megapixel shooter for selfies and video calling.
HTC U11 runs on the latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat and has HTC’s proprietary Sense 9.0 skin on top of it. On the battery front, it has a 3000 Mah unit with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, which claims to deliver a talk time of up to 24.5 hours and standby time of up to 14 days. It has hybrid dual SIM slot (nano SIM). Besides, the smartphone offers 4G, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port, GPS/AGPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5GHz)), NFC, HTC Connect for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to compatible multi-room audio systems, TVs, portable speakers and home entertainment systems, Streaming media from the phone to compatible AirPlay, Chromecast, DLNA, and Miracast devices. Sensors include EDGE Sensor, Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor, Motion G-sensor, Compass sensor, Gyro sensor, Magnetic sensor, Sensor Hub for activity tracking. It also houses a Fingerprint sensor as well for enhanced security.
HTC U11 comes loaded with HTC Edge Sense, Liquid Surface, HTC USonic, HTC Sense Companion, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. The most striking feature in U 11 is probably the simple squeeze on the side panel that allows you to initiate actions like take photos, open Facebook, or launch any of your favourite apps.
One can even use squeeze functionality to use voice to text feature. One needs to Lightly squeeze, speak your message and send your texts on the go. And because Edge Sense is based on the actual pressure applied to the side of the device, it can be used in nearly any condition – including while wearing gloves or in weather such as snow or rain that would normally be a challenge with capacitive buttons.
Additional features include Always-on voice commands, Motion Launch, Quiet ring on pickup, Pocket mode, Flip to mute and Display colour personalization. The handset measures 153.9 x 75.9 x 7.9mm and weighs 169 grams.