HTC U11 Review - Review 2022

HTC needs to confront the music. The company's passion for sound has come through in its phones for years, and I hear information technology again in the $696 U11 for Sprint, a shimmery slab of audio excellence. In that location'south more than going on with the $696 U11, as it's also the get-go US telephone with always-on Alexa back up. But if you're going to pick 1 reason to buy information technology correct now, it'due south the sound. Otherwise, the Galaxy S8 remains a slightly more than well-rounded device, and our Editors' Choice.

Models and Design

At that place are actually ii U11 models: one for Sprint, and an unlocked model (available for $649 from HTC.com) that volition work on the 3 other major US carriers. We're reviewing the Sprint unit of measurement. Many of the other reviews y'all see out there will be for the unlocked unit, which has slightly different firmware.

The outset matter you notice well-nigh the phone is the design. The U11 ($819.00 at Amazon) is shimmery and gorgeous. It comes in black or silverish, just the color you really want is the deep, automotive-paint blue. There's a big price to pay for the baked-in, unscratchable color, though: The phone is a fingerprint magnet, and it'll be perpetually greasy unless you go for a (articulate, delight) case.

I've been very spoiled by narrow phones like the Samsung Milky way S8, the LG G6, and the BlackBerry KeyOne recently. At half-dozen.07 by ii.99 by 0.31 inches and 5.96 ounces, the U11 is a standard size for a 16:ix, 5.5-inch phone, but it still feels too wide in my hand. The sleek back turns slippery chop-chop, and specially when trying to clasp the edges of the phone, information technology feels similar you can drop it.

The ii,560-past-1,440, Super LCD 5 is visible outdoors and in, and looks razor sharp. Beneath information technology, in that location's a fingerprint sensor/home button flanked by two stock-still, capacitive keys. On the sides of the phone, invisible, there'southward the innovative "squeeze" section, a pressure sensor that tin can launch the photographic camera, flashlight, or whatsoever other app.

The telephone is IP67 water resistant, which means it tin can be dunked in up to three feet of water for xxx minutes. HTC's previous generations of phones weren't water resistant, only competing flagships from other manufacturers tend to be now.

Networking and Bombardment

The U11 initially billed itself equally Dart'south beginning gigabit LTE phone, although Sprint says that it removed the gigabit badge after launch. We tested it against a Samsung Milky way S8 using our field test software and didn't encounter whatever advantage for the U11. Comparing three locations with good Sprint point in Manhattan, we got an average of 29.2Mbps down on the S8 every bit compared with 23.6Mbps on the U11.

That said, you'll find a dramatic improvement in Sprint coverage in weak indicate situations when compared with older phones. The U11, like the Galaxy S8 and LG G6, has HPUE (high performance user equipment), which nosotros've seen improve Sprint point in several dissimilar tests.

Operation on other U.s.a. carriers with the unlocked model should be very good, only will probably fall brusk of the Galaxy S7 and S8, equally the U11 lacks the 4x4 MIMO antennas for other carriers' bands. It has all of the bands T-Mobile and Verizon employ, but lacks AT&T's supplementary bands 29 and 30, which assistance in high-traffic areas.

Battery life on the iii,000mAh cell was proficient, at seven hours and one minute of LTE video streaming with the screen on full brightness. The phone supports Qualcomm's quick accuse technology, but non wireless charging.

Android and Performance

The U11 runs Android 7.1 with HTC'southward relatively aggressive skin. The skin doesn't hold back performance: With the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor platform on board, we got absolutely terrific criterion scores and all-around shine operation.

There's 64GB of storage, eleven.54GB of which is taken upward by organisation files, plus room for a microSD card in the nano SIM carte du jour slot.

Run across How We Test Cell Phones

The most exciting new feature, of form, is the squeeze sensor, which HTC calls Edge Sense. There's a sensor area most two-thirds of the way down the sides of the phone you can calibrate to your liking when you set the phone up. And then, when you squeeze it, it'll launch the camera or the flashlight. Information technology's completely customizable—you tin use it to launch any app, and HTC says it'll release an app that lets information technology hook into other apps on your phone as a click activeness inside the apps.

Yes, it's a gimmick. Information technology'due south non going to change your life. Only it's a useful gimmick, much like Motorola's twist-to-camera feature. I concluded up using it less than I idea I would, though, because I plant the U11 to be a little uncomfortably broad to securely grip and squeeze in my hand. Folks with larger hands will probable get more utilize out of it.

HTC's most imposing modify is to put NewsRepublic news headlines on your lock screen. Plow information technology off, and you'll however get ambitious NewsRepublic alerts in your notifications. Fortunately, you lot can disable NewsRepublic entirely. You lot'll still meet news headlines in Blinkfeed, the Flipboard-similar page that's to the left of the main habitation screen (pictured above).

At that place's also the mystery that is HTC'due south Sense Companion. Information technology's supposed to suggest local attractions to you and things like when to recharge your phone, just I didn't become any suggestions from it during my test flow. It may just need more time to work.

There's a bit of other bloatware on the phone: UA Tape, a fettle app that'southward part of HTC'due south bargain with UnderArmour; Viveport, HTC and Valve's VR app shop; Heave, a memory optimization app; and HTC'south Zoe video editor. In general, though, HTC manages to concord off from calculation too many redundant apps. The browser is Chrome, the photo app is Google Photos, and the music app is Google Play Music.

Hey, Alexa!

One of the U11'south most interesting features cannot be tested correct now: It's the first "dual wake discussion" phone. That means yous tin say "OK Google" to get the Google Assistant, or "Alexa" to wake up Amazon'southward vox assistant. You tin even switch back and forth, query by query, depending on which one tends to requite the all-time responses.

This isn't a mandatory feature. Alexa will be a downloadable addition y'all'll exist able to get afterwards this summertime. And there are some potential kinks to work out: Y'all'll probably have to set all of your Amazon Echo devices to a different wake word, or the phone and your Echos will fight over your query.

Simply with the growing popularity of Alexa, information technology'southward worth keeping an eye out for this feature. No other carrier-sold phone in the United states lets you holler "Alexa!" to wake upwards Amazon's assistant. And for what it'south worth, OK Google works fine, just as it does on other leading Android phones.

A Marvelous Music Telephone

The U11 is the best music phone we've tested. Start with the speakers. In speakerphone or music playback mode, HTC uses a speaker on height as a "tweeter," while the master speaker, on the bottom, is a more powerful "woofer." The elevation speaker basically offers a little bit of high-end enhancement, but the overall effect is more the sum of its parts—a noticeably richer sound than on most other phones.

If you intend to use the included earbuds, they're a treat. HTC includes special Usonic USB-C earphones that only work with this phone. They use a sonar-like engineering science to map your hearing and equalize the phone's audio to compensate. Information technology's an especially effective technology for older ears, like mine: With Usonic, I got to hear a lot more loftier-cease than I usually do, because that office of my hearing is shot. The earbuds as well do a niggling bit of active noise cancellation when they're playing music, although it isn't active when music isn't playing.

There'south no headphone jack, simply HTC supplies a special dongle with its ain DAC in information technology. Paired with super-high-end headphones, even my tired, onetime ears could hear the departure when compared with the otherwise excellent Milky way S8: The U11 has more detailed highs, better texture and shape to sound, and longer decay. This is the commencement disarming argument I've heard for using a dongle.

There's ane exception to the U11's audio excellence: If yous rely on wireless headphones, the phone doesn't stand up autonomously. It'due south fifty-fifty a step behind the Milky way S8. With Bluetooth 4.2 rather than Bluetooth v.0, it can't do the new fox of playing to two sets of headphones at once, and the audio quality of Bluetooth audio is dependent on the encoding scheme, non the phone'south own amp.

Photos and Videos

The U11 has a 16-megapixel front-facing camera and a 12-megapixel rear camera. The phone records "3D audio" surround stereo using its four microphones.

Still camera quality wasn't quite upwards to the fearsome standards of the Galaxy S8 in testing. I know this is an expanse where my results differ from other early reviews, and the departure may be that my telephone is using Dart firmware while other reviewers are using international units. HTC told me that the international models take a newer version of the camera software than the Sprint units exercise.

So, that said, the U11 took slightly done-out photos where the blacks weren't equally deep and truthful as on the S8. In low calorie-free, information technology managed to eke images out of even very dark environs, only at the cost of some blur and precision. The front-facing photographic camera gave me a lot of pixels, but in dimly calorie-free scenarios, the images were aggressively filtered and sharpened. HTC says camera upgrades will come.

I know people are going to be a niggling skeptical because HTC'due south heavy photograph focus in its marketing, but the proof is in the images below. The top i was taken with the U11, the bottom ane with the S8.

Video recording had fewer caveats than however photos. Videos in both 1080p and 4K were shine and articulate, with stabilization bachelor on the 1080p clips.

Conclusions

HTC has spun out a confusing and unconvincing prepare of phones so far this year. Seeing the U11, clearly HTC's flagship, I wonder why the HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play came out at all—although they didn't fully come out in the US, with neither phone getting official carrier support.

In that location's also a lot of unrealized promise inherent in the HTC U11—features we couldn't quite test. Alexa integration, for instance, sounds great but isn't here yet. Sense Companion doesn't seem to do much. We would love to come across Gigabit LTE restored. And HTC is promising camera software upgrades to fix the epitome issues we saw during testing.

The U11 is the all-time contest for the Galaxy S8 on Dart. We're going to keep our Editors' Choice with the S8 for its superior photographic camera and network performance in our tests. Fifty-fifty if the U11's spec sheet says differently, nosotros accept to become by our results. But while the U11 doesn't outpace the S8, I'd suggest it to audiophiles for whom music and speakerphone are principal uses. And we'll take another look at it in the months ahead, to see if this promising phone evolves into a real winner.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/old-cell-phones/15594/htc-u11-review

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