HTC U11 The Squeezable Phone

HTC U11

The Squeezable Phone with Bluetooth 5.0 Support Incoming

 
The HTC U11 is the 2017 flagship device from the struggling Taiwanese phone-maker. Coming on the heels of the disappointing sales of its high-end model from last year, the U11 has had a lot to prove in order to keep HTC in the smartphone game.

The HTC U11 ia the world’s first handset with hug-friendly haptics. Those squeeze-sensitive touch panels at the sides give you a new way to interact with your phone, one that won’t have you tapping on a touchscreen. Is it unique? Definitely. But is it enough to buy a phone for?

There’s more to it than that, of course. Picking up where the HTC 10 left off last year, the U11 packs in top-end specs, a laser focus on sound quality, and a set of AI assistants that are meant to streamline your life.

The name might seem confusing but HTC is continuing the numerical series it started with the HTC One M7 and tagging it onto the end of the more recently U range of glass phones. The main selling point of the HTC U11 is that you can squeeze the sides to perform various tasks.

HTC, in comparison, hasn't really done a huge amount different to previous years, but it’s largely got things right. So could this still be the phone for you?

HTC U11 Design

HTC has always had a penchant for beautiful design and solid build quality, so it’s no surprise to see the U11 excels in this area. Instead of a metal construction like it normally employs on its high-end offerings, HTC has opted for metal and glass with the U11. The device features rounded corners, curved edges on the front and back, and an aluminium frame sandwiched between two glass panels. This all makes for a seamless, comfortable in-hand feel.

This design language is something we’ve seen numerous times now, but what makes the U11 stand out is the liquid glass surface on the back. This design is bound to turn heads, and the way to color shifts and changes depending on the angle results in a stunning effect.

Because this is a rounded, glass phone, it’s also quite slippery. HTC thankfully includes a clear plastic case in the box though, so perhaps this isn’t the biggest issue for folks who like to protect their devices. One other thing that case is good for: protecting against fingerprints. The U11 is an absolute fingerprint magnet, so keep that in mind if you’re worried about your phone looking smudgy.

HTC U11 Display

The screen may be one of my favorite aspects of the phone, though its specs can seem disappointing to fans of super high-end devices. But let’s start with the basics.

The HTC U11 offers a 5.5-inch QHD Super LCD5 screen with a density of approximately 534 pixels per square inch. What that translates to in human speak, is a crisp, beautiful display, that looks great in every single scenario. It also means HTC isn’t exactly pushing the boundaries with these specs, since QHD was present on the HTC 10 and LCD has recently fallen out of favor for high-end devices. Still, I think there’s a good argument to be made here that the whole is greater than the sum of these parts.

Over the years we've tested larger screens with higher resolution, more brightness, darker blacks and special sunlight-modes that made visibility better. However, in my experience, the HTC U11 hits that sweet spot where all of its features come together harmoniously, without feeling gimmicky, without destroying battery life for the sake of extra pixels, and without distorting images for the sake of readability. It’s the perfect blend of resolution, density and performance to make this screen one of my all-time favorites.

The 5.5-inch size results in a good viewing experience as well as the ability to reach the top of the screen with your thumb. It also means you can take advantage of the resolution, by having smaller text and icons, but without straining your eyesight. Little aspects like these sound unimpressive on paper, but they can make a world of difference in terms of user satisfaction over time.

That being said, we do really wish HTC had opted for AMOLED. We don’t know whether they chose LCD for budgetary considerations, or availability or a combination of factors, but the addition of AMOLED would have made this screen almost perfect in my book. Alas, as things are, the HTC U11’s screen only gets a strong pass from us.

HTC U11  Edge Sense Squeeze

HTC calls the touch-sensitive panels built into the sides of the U11 Edge Sense: give 'em a squeeze and you can do all kinds of actions, like launch an app, turn on the torch, or even snap a selfie.

Even better, it'll work when you're wearing gloves, so you can take photos on the ski slopes without risking frostbite. Or maybe you want a neat throwback to an 80’s walkie-talkie? Use it to launch Google Assistant, without having to shout “OK Google” first. It works when the screen is off, too, so you can jump straight in rather than waking the phone first.

Out of the box, you’ve got to squeeze pretty hard to get it to work, but a quick dive into the menus and you can adjust the sensitivity. It only recognises one kind of squeeze by default, too - you’ve got to turn on Advanced mode to get short and long squeezes to work side-by-side.

The sensors only cover the bottom half of the phone, though: depending on how you grip it, you might need to shimmy your hands down a bit to properly register your squeezes.

HTC has clearly given the tech some thought, adding a delay to the camera so your hand doesn’t shake every time you squeeze to snap a photo, but right now it still feels more like a neat concept than a must-have addition.

That’s mainly because at launch there are only a few HTC-specific apps that fully support Edge Sense. Yes, developers can now start adding their own squeezy shortcuts, and yes, HTC will eventually release an official app that will let you add personalised shortcuts to any app you’ve got installed, but that’s all just potential as it stands. As with the LG G5’s modular add-ons, how useful it ends up being will depend on how well it’s supported.

So, after a few weeks of use, it hasn’t transformed my handset habits. But I’ll stick with it until more apps support it, and update this review with how I get on, because as a concept it’s a good one.

HTC U11 Prformance

In terms of specifications and hardware, the U11 ticks all the right boxes. Under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor backed by 4 GB of RAM, and overall performance is just as fast and fluid as you would expect.

Touch response and scrolling is excellent and it runs apps and high-end games with no issues at all. Multi-tasking is also nice and quick, but I did notice that the RAM management is quite aggressive with the device sometimes closing apps after opening only five or six of them. While that isn’t a big deal for me, it’s still something worth noting.

The U11 in the United States comes with 64 GB of on-board storage, which you can expand up to an additional 256 GB via microSD. There’s also a global variant of the device that comes with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. That’s great news for folks outside the U.S., though we wish the higher-end model was available for everyone.

HTC U11 OS

Software is an area in which HTC has excelled in recent years. This is because it was one of the first smartphone companies to realise it didn’t need to reinvent the wheel when skinning newer versions of Android. As a result, HTC has made some terrific decisions, such as removing duplicate applications and ensuring it installs only a limited amount of third-party software onto its handsets.

This legacy continues on the U11, which, from what I’ve seen, has one of the best implementations of Android 7.1 Nougat to arrive this year.

Like the HTC 10, the U11 is free of bloatware and doesn’t feature any duplicate apps; there’s only one music player, one email client, one calendar and so on.

This sounds insignificant, but it makes the entire UI feel less cluttered and means you won’t have to go through the laborious process of deleting unwanted clone apps – as you do with certain handsets, such as the Huawei P10.

HTC U11 Camera and Audio

The U11’s 12-megapixel camera is cracking. It is capable of taking some really stunning photos with rich detail, deep colour and has very good low-light performance, which means it’s very difficult to take a bad photo with the U11. It’s right up there with Google Pixel as the best camera phone on the market.

There are also plenty of manual controls within the pro shooting mode, which can get as complicated or as simple as you’d like with sliders and custom presets plus optional RAW output. HTC’s camera app is one of the best on the market, missing only a golden-ratio grid.

The 16-megapixel selfie camera is also very good, producing great shots even in difficult lighting conditions. There are three modes: selfie video, selfie panorama and selfie photo. All of them are pretty self explanatory and work well. You can smooth skin with a makeup mode, but I found the photos were already of softer focus than my personal preference, without any skin-smoothing modes active.

Audio

HTC has always aimed to offer a premium audio experience with its phones and the HTC U11 is no different.

Like previous devices, the U11 supports Hi-Res 24bit/192kHz playback but there's more. Once again the USonic headphones can, via sonar, personalise the audio output based on the shape of your ear canal but this time the included headphones feature active noise cancelling.

These are powered by USB-C and the only way of connecting them as there's no headphone jack. As mentioned earlier, a 3.5mm adapter is included in the box and even has a tiny amplifier inside.

Furthermore, HTC continues with BoomSound and the U11 has the Hi-Fi Edition which combines the old style stereo speakers with the newer Hi-Fi setup found on the HTC 10. This time the firm is even using the whole phone as an acoustic chamber.

Apart from the lack of a headphone jack, the HTC U11 is one of the best audio phones around.

HTC U11 Battery

When it comes to battery life, that’s reasonably good as well. In the first few days of use the phone has comfortably made it through a full day, right from 6:30am to 11:30pm without needing to be topped up. Although the 3,000mAh battery isn’t the largest we’ve seen the Snapdragon 835’s 10nm manufacturing process and more efficient modem is clearly having a positive impact on overall efficiency. And our continuous video test proved as much: running for 13hrs 18mins before needing to recharge.

HTC U11 Price

The HTC U11 costs £649 and is available in silver, black or blue, which makes it one of the cheaper top-end smartphones available, if not by much.

For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S8 costs £689 with 64GB of storage, the Galaxy S8+ costs £779 with 64GB of storage, the Google Pixel XL costs £719 with 32GB of storage, Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus costs £719 with 32GB of storage, the LG G6 costs £649 with 32GB of storage, and the Huawei P10 Plus costs £649 with 128GB of storage.

Verdict

If you want to buy the HTC U11, you have a few options. HTC is selling it through its website for $649, and you can also buy it on Amazon for that same price. If you need a carrier partner, Sprint is the only U.S. carrier that will carry it in-store and online.

The HTC U11 is an excellent smartphone. It has a superb camera, its battery life is decent, it looks wonderful and performance is superb. Throw in active noise-cancelling headphones, storage expansion and, despite the lack of a long, tall screen, you have one helluva smartphone.

The missing headphone jack is annoying, but the bundled in-ears are decent enough and active noise cancellation is a nice little extra. The camera’s raw speed might not be a strong point, but you can’t fault image quality. Battery life is great, too, even if small details like wireless charging are missing.

Yes, there’s a handful of small things the HTC U11 doesn’t do as well as its rivals. The screen isn’t quite as nice as the Samsung Galaxy S8’s and I’d prefer the polariser to be arranged diagonally; the camera’s HDR mode can’t quite match the Google Pixel’s and I don’t like the fact that there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack.

However, these are small things I’d be perfectly prepared to live with. The HTC U11 is right up there with the very best smartphones around; it’s a phone that should put HTC right back on the map.