The Taiwanese manufacturer, HTC released an upgrade to their U11. The U11 plus (U11 + as the company calls it) is an improved and enhanced version of its predecessor and not much has changed under the hood.
We were able to get our hands on the phone and here is all that you need to know about the latest HTC U11 Plus.
Display:
HTC U11 plus follows this year’s flagship smartphone trend means that it sports a much bigger screen than the 5.5 inch U11 in a much compact body. The HTC U11 plus has a 6 inch Quad HD (2880 x 1440) Display with an aspect ratio of 18:9.
The Display will support HDR 10 which is gonna provide you with better contrast, greater depth, color saturation and realism to videos.
HTC has used Super LCD technology that uses DCI-P3 color space. The screen in sharp, vibrant and fairly bright even in direct sunlight.
Viewing angles are what you can expect from an LCD display, in spite of the Super LCD display the company has a programmed the display for always-on function which can also work as an ambient display when you move the device
If you compare the screen to body ratio with U11, it has 10 percent more screen and still manages to have almost the same size with just a handful of millimeters difference.
Design:
HTC U11 has a very minimalistic Design with tiny bezels to make it feel small and compact in hands but it loses the tapered rounded edges of its predecessor making it feel a bit blocky and chunky. Gone are the days of metal-clad HTC phone and it’s all about that glass now. The phone has a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 at the front and at the back.
The phone measures at 158.5 x 74.9 x 8.5mm and weighs about 188 gm, which is quite heavy compared to the U11 which weighs at 169 gm.
The built quality feels premium and the phone looks very minimalistic. The power button and the volume rockers are easily accessible and are located on the right side of the phone.
The fingerprint scanner is placed at the of the phone way below the camera to eliminate the confusion between the lens and the scanner and to avoid smudges on the camera lens.
The phone is glossy making it a fingerprint magnet, the company has not used any kind of protection to avoid fingerprints.
The major improvement in the built quality department is waterproofing. The company has taken a step forward and has improved by making the U11 plus IP68-rated water and dust resistant, meaning that the phone can survive in up to 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes, so you don’t have to worry about taking it to the pool with you.
Hardware:
The HTC U11 shares almost the same hardware as its predecessor, it is rocking the Snapdragon 835 processor paired up with 4 Gigabytes of RAM and 64 Gigabytes of internal storage, there is another model available with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. A micro SD card slot is available in case you run out of on board memory.
The back camera is also the same as the U11, which is a 12 megapixel Ultra Pixel 3 sensor with f1.7 aperture and 1.4 μm pixels.
The front camera has been changed and now it is an 8 megapixel sensor instead of 16 megapixels to improve low light performance.
There is still no headphone jack, I guess it is we are moving towards the wireless future. However, it comes with a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm jack if you wanna connect your wired headphones.
The audio department has been significantly upgraded with HTC’s Boom sound Hi-Fi speaker which produce deeper base and are 30 % louder than the U11. The bottom firing speaker provides stereo sound but the U11 plus audio is primarily “front channeled” through the earpiece speaker.
The HTC Usonic wireless earbuds are included in the box. The earbuds feature active noise cancellation and you can even tune them according to your hearing profile to get the best audio experience out of them.
The U11 plus also features Bluetooth 5.0 on board and high-end audio codecs like Sony’s 24-bit LDAC and Qualcomm’s aptX HD if you go wireless.
The battery has been upgraded from 3000 mAh to 3980 mAh and there are also two power saving modes available. The phone will easily last for a day even if you are a heavy user.
Edge Sense:
The squeezable, Edge sense technology was first introduced in HTC U11 which then made its way to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but the U11 plus comes with a unique launcher for this feature.
The Edge sense squeeze feature basically allows you to perform basic tasks like opening an app, launching the assistant or taking a screenshot by just squeezing the phone.
This option on the U11 plus by default is set to open up a wheel of app icons to one side of the display (you can select either right or left depending on hand dominance), this will allow you to quickly access favorite apps with just a squeeze.
You can also adjust the pressure you apply while squeezing and can also assign different tasks for a shorter and a longer squeeze from the settings menu.
Software:
The U11 plus will come with the latest Android 8.0 oreo with HTC Sense skin on the top of it. The user interface is very simple and accessible, you can swipe up from anywhere on the screen to bring the app drawer and swipe down from anywhere to bring the notification panel which is gonna help a lot to people with short hands.
Over all this is a decent upgrade to the U11, the phone will be available in ceramic black and a semi translucent option to show off the NFC bands at the back.
It will be available in the UK on 20th November for £699 and in Europe for €799.