Hands On with HTC U Ultra and U Play

How much smarter can a smartphone get? The most potentially innovative thing most HTC'south new HTC U Play and U Ultra phones is in the software, a personal banana that tin "propose yous dress warm and leave for piece of work earlier on a snowy 24-hour interval" or remind you to recharge your phone mid-day if you've been using information technology heavily. "AI plus you will be invincible," HTC Head of Global Marketing, Darren Sng, said. "We are just in the initial phase of AI."

Across the assistant software, HTC's new smartphones are remixes of features we've seen all over the place. Sprinkle Samsung's adaptive sound over HTC's ain powerful BoomSound speakers; pop LG's secondary display on top of HTC's well-loved Sense UI. We got some time with the U Ultra and U Play in advance of the phones' launch this night, and they look good. Only will they exist good plenty?

Introducing HTC U Lineup

The HTC U Ultra is "part of the flagship range" for the new year, according to Sng. HTC always uses attractive materials and this year it'south moved on from the M serial' stainless steel to a sort of luminous, shimmery colored drinking glass. Information technology comes in blackness, pink and white, merely the best color is dark blue and it has a existent automotive-paint shimmer.

HTC U

The smartphone has a 5.7in, 2,560-past-one,440 screen with a 2in, 160x1040 'secondary display' tacked on at the top. The secondary brandish works a lot like the one on the LG V20: it pops up notifications and favorite contacts, and plain, with time, it learns which notifications and people you consider 'of import' and only bothers yous with those.

"You have the big screen for all of your regular stuff that you do, and the little screen for but the almost important stuff in your life, and that's powered by AI," Sng added.

HTC U Ultra

The HTC U Ultra runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, with 64GB or 128GB of storage and 4GB RAM, plus a memory carte slot. It is also rated at Cat 11 LTE, significant beingness able to punch out download speeds of up to 600Mbps. This is as fast every bit whatsoever current flagship smartphone.

Also, the "HTC U Ultra has a iii,000mAh battery and HTC's AI assistant will tell yous when to charge," Sng shared.

"We know your calendar events. Nosotros know whether you're going to make it to the end of the 24-hour interval ... most power-saving modes will prompt you at near 10- to xv%, at the time it'southward actually too late to do anything," he said.

HTC also revealed how the HTC U Ultra will be available for pre-sale, unlocked, starting today. Oddly, it didn't requite a price. The HTC U Play will be available in "select global markets", though HTC didn't share the details like where or when.

Frequency bands on the spec sheets requite some clues, though. The HTC U Ultra is properly banded for AT&T and T-Mobile, but lacking the CDMA radio for Sprint and Verizon.

HTC U Play

The HTC U Play, meanwhile (higher up), has a more than mundane, five.2in 1080p screen and no secondary brandish. The smartphones are unibody, but non waterproof. It runs a MediaTek Helio P10, 32GB or 64GB of storage and 3GB or 4GB RAM. In that location's a retentivity card slot, but the HTC U Play is not banded to work well in North America, missing several of our disquisitional LTE bands. Then it may not come up out hither.

Cameras and Multimedia

HTC thinks it can square the circle past providing both Megapixels and 'Ultrapixels', bigger pixels designed for low light. Both the HTC U Ultra and U Play have 16MP front cameras with a lower-res, low-light mode available. The HTC U Ultra also has a 12MP master photographic camera with big 'Ultrapixels' for depression low-cal operation; the HTC U Play has a more standard 16MP camera.

Sng said "in 2022, y'all'll see u.s.a. do something really different for the camera," but didn't requite more details.

HTC U Play

Personally, I'yard more than excited about HTC's adaptive sound, a feature that information technology introduced on the HTC Bolt which significantly advances an older Samsung characteristic I used to dear. Kickoff of all, yes, at that place's no headphone jack on either of these phones; they'll come with USB Type-C headphones.

The 'USonic' headphones browse your ears using 'sonar-like reflection' to determine how your hearing is crappy, enhancing sound in those parts of the spectrum. I tried it and it made a real deviation—everything sounded richer. Of class, information technology only works with HTC'southward own earbuds for now.

Both phones have the latest version of HTC BoomSound, hence there are separated drivers for the tweeter and woofer speakers on the front.

There's one big, buzzy feature lacking from the HTC U series: VR. Since the phones don't use an OLED display, they aren't Google Daydream compatible, Sng revealed.

HTC besides said that video images of an 'HTC Vive' branded smartphones are only concepts.

Easily-On Impressions

HTC makes really nice phones. The HTC 10 is the all-time telephone for music listeners last yr and the same could exist true of the HTC U Ultra, if it isn't for the lack of a headphone jack. There only aren't high-end headphones designed for USB Type-C yet, then yous'll have to use a dongle. I am, however, very impressed with HTC'south adaptive audio and I hope the characteristic will be compatible with more than sets of headphones in the future.

HTC U Ultra

Otherwise, a lot of the HTC U Ultra'due south uniqueness is riding on the artificial intelligence feature and that makes me nervous. Tin the smartphone really tell what notifications are important to me, in a trustworthy way? Will information technology be able to tell me what to clothing when I leave the house in the forenoon? I didn't run into any testify of this on the demo devices.

As for the shimmery drinking glass bodies, they're gorgeous. If you remember the LG G Flex series at all, they're a bit like those, but considerably more premium feeling as they're glass rather than plastic. Fifty-fifty and then, Samsung is too doing beautifully with the color-under-drinking glass on its Samsung Galaxy S7.

Will it Sell?

Hither's HTC'due south problem: its flagship smartphones are never bad. Yet they can't sell whatsoever. HTC is stuck in a very difficult center spot in the mobilephone market, where its phones are priced like Samsung and Apple but those companies' massive marketing budgets suck all of the air out of the room.

HTC needs to differentiate itself with its assistant software. So far, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana have been more vox search engines than annihilation else. They don't do much of a proactive job of pushing content you'd similar to see before you inquire for information technology, the fashion Honor'south Magic intends to do in China.

Tin HTC make a smartphone that really feels like it's for 'U'? We're looking frontward to fully reviewing these in the future.