HTC U11 Review: AMAZING Camera, AWFUL Design – Android Oreo Update Officially Confirmed – Know Your Mobile

HTC has just released a new update for the HTC U11 bringing it up to software version1.27.400.9. The update is a 665MB download and adds 1080p video recording at 60fps, as well as the August Android Security Patch and various fixes and tweaks for better stability.

More importantly, HTC has now confirmed that the HTC U11 (as well as the HTC U Ultra and HTC 10) will be updated to the recently announced Android Oreo.

"We're excited to bring Android Oreo to HTC U11, HTC U Ultra, and HTC 10 owners worldwide! Details & additional devices to be announced soon," the firm wrote in an official Tweet.

HTC used to be one of the Android spaces shining lights. Its phone launches generated a lot of heat and punters, generally speaking, were very interested in what the company was doing on a monthly basis. New phones sold well and the company enjoyed rapid growth, which helped propel Android into the mainstream.

But then everybody else got in on the act and, well, things kind of started spiraling out of control shortly thereafter. Samsung and LG grew their share of the market and then, in recent years, we had an influx of Chinese phone makers (OnePlus, Huawei, OPPO) which made matters worse for HTC.

This fall from grace was not all HTCs fault, though it is a relatively small fish in a pond full of sharks. The fact that it has managed to hang on until 2017 is, quite frankly, a miracle. The companys financials for the last few years have read like a Cormac McCarthy novel (and not in a good way).

Still, things arent all bad. The company is now back, vying for your custom, with another flagship handset called the HTC U11.

As before it's a metal, premium-grade flagship, though this time with a bit of extra glass thrown in for good measure.

Can it fare better than 2016's all-metal HTC 10?

As time goes on I find it very difficult to critique the aesthetic design of most high-end smartphones, but particularly ones from HTC - HTC is arguably one of the earlier pioneers of luxurious metal smartphone design, but like Sony, it is also one of the Android OEMs that has remained mostly static.

In the case of the broad outlook of the smartphone industry though, it must be said that flagships are looking more and more alike than ever, and they all more or less fall into that iPhone/Galaxy S type design. Which is fair enough, clearly this is what consumers want and what they tend to buy. A kind of consumer tech natural selection has led us to this ubiquity of metal and glass slabs somewhere around the 5in size with rounded off corners, industrial style design, and neatly punched and machined grilles, ports, and buttons.

And, I dont really have a problem with this.

But from a critique perspective, the sameness does tend to blur the lines after a while, so much so that its difficult to venture any kind of useful opinion.

Im reminded of a professional wine expert friend of mine who, while we were holidaying in South Africa and tasting various locally produced wines, commented (as the rest of us tried desperately to identify the different notes and flavours) that a particular well-reputed Chardonnay tastes like a Chardonnay, much to our bemused befuddlement. Indeed, in the current market, many phones including the HTC U11, by the same token look like high-end phones.

In neither case is it a criticism, but nor is it praise; theres nothing wrong with the HTC U11 design (or indeed any other similarly designed phone), in fact its very good, but it still just looks like a high-end phone with nothing particularly spectacular about it. It cant really escape what it is. Just like that Chardonnay. Good. Very good. Great even...but not that different from the rest.

The last few successive generations of HTC flagship have not been very different from each other at all. Theyve still been pretty great when it came to aesthetic design and build, however, and the low number of units flying off the shelves could hardly be attributed to this facet of the phone.

I can totally understand why HTC went in a different direction this time around - as its sales of previous models werent doing well, it wanted to grab a bit of attention with something flashier.

Personally, for my blood (and I realise it is totally subjective), HTC went a bit too far on the flashy front - or should I say flashy rear. I just cant get past that high-sheen gloss metallic finish, its far too shiny. In and of itself I just find it garish and that is enough for me not to have any desire to use a phone like this as my daily driver, or even out in public.

But on top of that it does have many practical ramifications as well. Its more of a fingerprint magnet than even your average glass-backed phone, it is extra, extra slippery; it wont sit happily on virtually any surface you leave it on and it is unsteady in the hand. And as well as being unsightly, the mirror-finish back also reflects your face and anything else around it, but not in a nice way - remember those freaky circus mirrors from the fairground that give you a giant Franken-forehead or a huge goofy chin? Yeah, its like that and its because of the phones curvature combined with the mirror finish.

I do not like it, sir, not one bit.

Which is a shame, as otherwise there is a lot to like about the exterior design and build. As Ive come to expect from HTC, it is reassuringly solid and well put-together; the physical keys have excellent and satisfying clicky feedback (plus the power button is textured for easy location by feel), and best of all this is the first HTC flagship with proper IP67 waterproofing. Its great, this is the first HTC that you can take near the water - but what a price to pay that we have to put up with super shiny circus mirror finishes.

It is, aside from the shine, nicely shaped with an elegant, smooth curvature and an attractive layering of the glass and metal. I WANT to like this phones overall design - and its so closebut the finish ruins it. If HTC later releases a matte finish color option I for one will be much happier.

Battery life has been a serious sticking point of ours with past HTC flagships. I cant remember the last time we tested an HTC lead model where we were impressed with how long it could run on a single charge.

So, naturally, there was a lot of apprehension when testing the HTC U11.

In our standard video test, running a two-hour film (in this case The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug) from 100% charge, with the film pre-loaded and screen brightness set to full, the HTC U11 drained down to 69% charge.

Now, that is not bad by any means, in fact it is quite respectable. But how good or bad this actually is for you does depend on your typical use of a smartphone - and I think it's fine up until a certain level, at which point it kind of goes over a cliff.

For me, this is fairly decent power drain as Im not a power user and dont run my phones that hard outside of a testing scenario.

On a phone with this kind of battery consumption I can expect to get a good couple of days on a single charge, with my typical light-to-moderate use pattern, and I did encounter this in my non-video, day-to-day testing.

If youre a very light user who only does a bit of occasional browsing, and the odd call or text, youll find this phone will last longer, maybe three days or even a bit more.

However, if youre a bit of a smartphone fiend like Rich, youll blast through this things power reservoir in a day easily.

Id say this kind of battery life is fairly average for most high-end flagships, and for me this is fine, but for some its just not adequate. You need to factor in your own use patterns, are they light, moderate, or intensive? If you fall into the first two tiers youll probably be more than happy with the HTC U11. If youre in the third, this is a no-go.

Ultimately, its important to bear in mind that there are better options out there with much longer life even with intensive use; amongst others the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galxy S8+, the Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL, and the Huawei Mate 9.

So, once again, good...but not great. In this respect it's a lot like the previous handful of HTC flagships.

The HTC U11 sports a 5.5in Super LCD 5 touch display with a Quad-HD, 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution; giving a pixel density of 534ppi.

As with the design, I have mixed feelings about the display.

On the one hand, I like to give credit where its due; and this is on the whole a high quality display.

The resolution means that image clarity is wonderfully sharp with absolutely zero in the way of jagged lines or artifacting. I also think the colour is impressive, its nice and punchy, and although white purity is never perfect on any phone, it is VERY good here.

Brightness levels are also robust, and I must say that given my grievances with some past HTC flagships having poor visibility in bright sunlight, I am tremendously impressed with the HTC U11s screen in this respect as it performs very well indeed; there are absolutely no issues web browsing outside on a sunny day.

However, it must be said that there are good reasons why plenty of smartphone OEMs are migrating over to OLED at the moment.

LCD was the mainstay of the smartphone space for a very long time, in spite of the fact that many OEMs were well aware of some of OLEDs superior qualities; lower power consumption, better contrast, deeper blacks, better readability and lower reflectivity in sunlight, and, except in the case of very high-end LCD wider viewing angles.

This is because at the time OLED hadnt yet been perfected (sharpness and colour accuracy was a bit squiffy in the early days), it still had a few disadvantages which meant the trade off wasnt worth it, and whats more, it was expensive and difficult to manufacture. Most of these issues have now been resolved, hence why big firms are switching.

Having used both OLED and LCD displays over the years and having watched the technologies gradually change, I can say that these days Im quite firmly in the OLED camp.

OLED is not perfect, no display type is, but when its well-implemented I simply find it more satisfying and rewarding to use than even the best LCDs.

Perhaps its the little things that really make a big difference, especially in the top tier where everything is so close and even the smallest infractions count when you're talking about 500+ handsets.

I mean, I understand it is nitpicking of an otherwise enjoyable phone screen experience but having got used to the very deep and pure blacks of OLED I really notice the grey-ish brown washiness of the blacks in the HTC U11s display.

Its one of those things that once it has been seen, it cannot be un-seen.

Its especially jarring given the tendency for smartphone makers to, as with the HTC U11, put a very pure black fascia surrounding the display panel - with this immediately adjacent to the display, you instantly see the screens blacks as being quite off by comparison.

I also cant help but wonder if part of the HTC U11s fairly average battery performance comes from the use of a QHD resolution LCD panel.

So where does this leave us? Well, its a tricky one. I dont want to say the HTC U11 has a bad display because it doesnt, its really rather good, its just not quite as good in some specific areas as some other offerings on the market. And at this point, I'm aware this is becoming a recurrent theme of the review.

Thus, once again, it's a question of what's important to you and whether you feel you're getting value for money.

If having very pure black depth and high contrast on a phone display isnt a big deal to you, then I think this is a great display youll be quite happy with, as in all other areas its very capable.

If on the other hand, you really value the qualities that OLED has brought to the table - and will grumble in your head every time you notice those soupy blacks - then this probably isnt going to float your boat.

Ill post the HTC U11 spec sheet below for you to have a look at and get an overview of the hardware, connectivity and so forth sequestered inside it. Then Ill give a commentary on some of the things which leap out. I won't be covering the processor and performance in this section, however, as that will get its own section later.

I cant single HTC out for doing this trick, because it seems like every other OEM also does it these days, but its bloody annoying when any of them do it and I feel it necessary to call them all out as and when, in the vain hope that eventually theyll all get the message.

As far as I can tell, the only version of the HTC U11 officially available in the UK is the 64GB storage model with 4GB of RAM, so we dont get access to the 128GB/6GB RAM edition, unless you import it at your own expense and effort.

Now, for me, 64GB of storage is more than enough, but I realise thats not the case for everybody - moreso now than ever that we find ourselves in the era of 4K multimedia and all that; file sizes are always getting bigger for everything from photos and videos, to apps and games.

Im sure a time will come when 64GB is too little storage for me also, and I suspect it wont be because my usage pattern has changed, itll be because content across the board is simply of a higher quality and therefore takes up more space.

So, in this respect its disappointing to be locked out of at least having the option to scale up to 128GB. Yes, both editions have microSD support for cards up to 256GB and this is fine if the majority of your storage gets taken up by multimedia, but if you install a lot of apps and games it can be a bit of an issue.

But I probably get more annoyed about how this locks us out of the 6GB RAM option as well. I used to run high-end gaming PCs so I know how RAM makes a difference when it comes to performance and leveraging the most out of CPUs and GPUs. Of course, the processor hardware needs to be built in such a way that it can make use of bigger quantities of RAM, otherwise theres no point.

But we know for a fact that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 can use 6GB quite happily, and it shows in benchmarking and real-world performance.

Is it a slow poke with 4GB RAM? No, not by any means, but 6GB would make things smoother and more importantly it will future proof the phone for higher-performance for longer, even as more demanding content arrives later.

Being shut out of this by virtue of geography is rather irritating to say the least. Again though, this is not uniquely HTCs offence, but it is part of the same disappointing bandwagon in this regard and I feel thats worth noting.

As weve come to expect from HTC, the audio experience is top notch. Many rival OEMs have stepped up their game quite considerably, but Im still yet to encounter a smartphone audio experience as good as HTCs and this still applies to the HTC U11 as much as any predecessor.

The BoomSound stereo speakers are simply excellent, offering crystal clear sound quality and loud volumes without distortion; there still isn't anything else out there in the smartphone market that can top this kind of audio.

On the in-ear audio side of things, this is a very different setup to whats come before. Much more advanced, though there are some changes which arent going to please everyone.

Yes, you guessed it, its the big Kahuna; the 3.5mm audio jack is gone. Its gone in favour of a set of proprietary HTC in-ear headphones which connect via the Type-C USB port.

I dont consider this to be a massive negative though, because if you have your own 3.5mm headphones already then HTC has you covered; a 3.5mm-to-Type-C USB adaptor is provided in the box, so you can still use your fancy pants kit from Bang & Olufsen, Sennheiser, Bose, JBL, and the rest.

However, there are good reasons to consider using the bundled-in headphones because they can do something pretty special; customised audio via the HTC USonic technology.

Weve seen this before on the HTC U Ultra, but obviously HTC has had time to tweak and optimise it a little more since then and it really does work like a charm. The headphones are really nicely designed, some of the most comfortable in-ear ones Ive ever worn, and they feature very effective noise-cancellation. This is useful in and of itself, but it is implemented to combine with HTC USonics ability to scan your ear canal and adapt the audio profile to its unique shape for optimum sound quality.

Best of all, HTC has taken efforts to make sure this is a quick and easy setup for users of all stripes, you just go into the relevant Settings menu and press one button. Thats it. It takes about five seconds.

The process will play you a sample audio which you can toggle your custom profile from the scan on and off to hear the difference and it is quite prominent, its almost like the difference between hearing normally and underwater; such is the clarity gained.

Its also really easy to create and switch between multiple custom audio profiles, so if you share your handset with a partner or something, theyre not locked out of the custom audio experience.

All in all, Im more impressed than ever with HTCs audio tech, and considering what came before that is saying something. There really is nothing else quite like this on the smartphone market outside of HTCs stable.

Edge Sense was teased quite a bit in HTCs promotional campaign; the technology means that the lower portion of the handset is pressure sensitive, allowing you to control certain phone features with a squeeze of the phone in your hand.

The setup is easy enough, and by default it will set up to open the phones camera app even from a sleep state, while a second squeeze will capture the image; quite handy for capturing a snap at a moments notice. I found that you can set it up so the squeeze is quite hard, so theres really little concern of it activating in your pocket or bag.

The functionality is quite expandable; toggling advanced mode allows you to have the phone respond to both a short squeeze and a squeeze-and-hold control to perform different functions.

I was fully expecting the squeeze to capture to add a bit of wobble and blur to the image, as you do need to give it a bit of welly, but I was pleasantly surprised so it seems the OIS is really doing its job here.

You can also assign these controls to do other things like launching Google Voice Assistant, launching a specified app, taking screenshots, toggling the phones flashlight, recording voice, launching HTC Sense Companion, and toggling Wi-Fi Hotspot on or off. The camera and Google Voice Assistant also have several layers of extra control for short or longer squeezes once the app is opened.

I guess this is a neat trick, and perhaps more useful for some people than others, or in certain circumstances. I do think things like the camera for taking quick photos, the flashlight, and perhaps the Wi-Fi HotSpot could all be quite useful. Likewise if you make a lot of voice memos the voice recording could be a boon.

But with all of that said I cant say I felt the feature really improved my phone experience massively, and I wouldnt really miss it if it werent there. Definitely kind of cool though, so kudos to HTC for trying something new and quirky.

This is a hot topic. Cameras seem to be a very competetive battleground for lead flagships at the moment, and HTC has made a lot of noise about the capabilities of the hardware aboard the HTC U11.

To recap, here is the spec for the HTC U11 camera:

On paper HTC is certainly hitting a lot of the right notes. The firm points out that it has achieved the highest rating in smartphone camera history by independent imaging body DxOMark.

It also notes the camera is equipped with a "multi-axis optical and electronic stabilisation system", "super-fast autofocus in all lighting conditions", "more dynamic exposure range with HDR Boost", and improvements to white balance and noise reduction.

Having tested the phone I can say that none of this appears to be mere bluster.

As Samsung's recent camera offerings have proven with their dual-pixel phase-detection autofocus, autofocus speed is an incredibly important variable when it comes to fully leveraging a lot of the other camera specs - stuff like wide aperture sizes, large sensor sizes, and large pixel sizes - to get the best images.

These things make it easier for the camera to take in tons of light and detail, which will make better pictures, provided the shutter isn't open too long; which means the camera has to be able to focus, open the shutter and then close it again really, really quickly. Usually it's the focus speed that is the stumbling block.

HTC appears to have been taking notes, because addressing that is very much a key part of the HTC U11's setup.

"HTC U11 incorporates the same full sensor auto-focus technology that's found in top DSLR cameras. Typically, only a few sensors are used for focusing, but with our new UltraSpeed Autofocus, all of the pixels are used for phased detection autofocus."

And it really is fast, lightning snappy, in fact, which together with the intuitive UI makes capturing great shots really quick and easy.

Here's a couple of examples of the same shot with different focal points:

And here's the HTC U11 compared to a subsequent shot of the same flower under the same conditions by the Samsung Galaxy S8+:

As you can see, in terms of clarity, contrast and most other key variables, they are on pretty much the same level. The images are packed with detail and are rich and vibrant. A noticable difference occurs with the colour, however, with the HTC U11 being a little softer, less saturated, and more natural looking, while the Galaxy S8 goes for Samsung's typical punchy saturation and slightly more dramatic contrast.

This is really a matter of personal preference, although I'd argue it's easier to get the "Samsung look" on an HTC-captured image with post-capture editing quite quickly and effortlessly, rather than trying to tone down an image captured on the Galaxy S8+. Simply whack up the contrast and saturation and you're good to go.

Now, I've previously made it no secret that I'm a massive fan of Samsung's imaging setup. I consider the camera aboard the Galaxy S8 series (and, in the context of their then-contemporaries, the previous Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S6 series') to be one of the very best on the market. It's not just a question of image capture quality either, although it helps that it is so very high, but it's that combined with the ease of use.

There are many smartphone cameras available which can deliver as good or sometimes slightly better results, but in order to get them to deliver you have to really learn a few tricks and get to grips with fiddly elements of the controls.

You have to know a thing or two about photography, essentially.

One of the things I loved about Samsung's setup is that this simply wasn't the case - point, shoot, done; excellent quality photos and video with no fuss whatsoever. Anyone can do it.

And it's not necessarily the verybestquality, but it's so damn good that anyone but the most finicky of photography aficionados cannot complain.

Link:
HTC U11 Review: AMAZING Camera, AWFUL Design - Android Oreo Update Officially Confirmed - Know Your Mobile