HTC U11 Review

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The HTC U11: The closest I’ve come to leaving iOS

 

Update:

Due to anti-LGBTQ donations made by Cher Wang, HTC’s CEO and president, I can no longer recommend this phone.

Update 2:

This post has gotten more updates than my HTC U11, and I can no longer recommend any HTC phones for two reasons now.

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HTC was always my “what if” brand. What if I left iOS? What phone would I buy? The answer has usually been HTC’s latest flagship. I first started feeling tempted when they came out with the HTC One M7, and I was suffering on a small screen, boring iPhone 5. The M8’s duo camera was beautiful as well. I wasn’t as excited about the One M9 or M10, but they were always there as possibilities, though other Android manufacturers started to step their game up. HTC started the high-end Android phone wave, but they’re not alone anymore. Though, somehow, HTC devices still stand out.

Despite low sales, HTC’s phones are beautiful, feature-rich, use toned down customizations, have fantastic LCD screens that look great from any angle (unlike the iPhone X or Galaxy S9), great cameras, and the fastest processors. HTC’s motto for years was “Quietly Brilliant,” and it was fitting. HTC was pushing Android forward and getting none of the credit. HTC is the Apple of the Android world, and too few people have taken notice.

That brings me to HTC’s latest flagship, the HTC U11. I finally own one of HTC’s flagship phones, and it’s everything I had hoped it would be. Worst of all, it’s everything I feared it would be. It’s a phone that could pull me to the dark side.

Looks and Form Factor

The HTC U11 is the most beautiful smartphone I’ve seen, especially in solar red. It’s smooth glass back dances between golden yellow and powerfully deep red. It’s a sunrise or a sunset with a twist of your wrist. I’m glad that the first time I saw this in person was after I already owned one, otherwise I would have bought one a long time ago. It’s nearly perfect, but not without a few flaws.

The entire device is about the thickness of the iPhone X if you include the large camera bump on the iPhone X. This does make more space for a larger battery, but it also makes it thicker to hold in the hand than some other smartphones. It’s curved through, and that curve helps add to the grippiness of the phone. In the hand, it feels slim.

The other flaw is on the top and bottom of the phone. It’s a bezel. Bezels, in my 2017? HTC’s latest flagship smartphone, the HTC U11 Plus, doesn’t have bezels like this, but unfortunately, we didn’t get that in the U.S.A. Still, these bezels are hard to notice, and we know future HTC phones won’t have them.

Screen

The HTC U11 is one of the few smartphones still using an LCD display. However, this isn’t like Apple’s LCD displays on the iPhone 8 and older. It’s a much higher resolution. It’s an IPS display, which means it looks great at nearly any angle, though it does become dimmer and casted more towards a warm tint at angles. This also differentiates it from smartphones with OLED displays. At an angle, the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9 will get a more noticeable tint on their screen. The HTC U 11 doesn’t do that. The screen is bright, vibrant, and beautiful. However, there is some light bleed along the bottom of the screen, where you can see the display is a little darker along the bottom edge, but it’s hardly noticeable. I actually didn’t notice it until I read about it in another review and went to confirm it on my U11.

The screen also can be adjusted to sRGB or a vibrant setting. I prefer the more realistic, albeit less shouty, sRGB setting. At night, you can engage a night mode, which warms your screen, hopefully helping your eyes rest and tell your body it’s ok to start producing melatonin, that sweet sleep hormone my body seems to refuse to produce at night.

Rear Camera

HTC has put fantastic cameras in their phones, and has been at the forefront of camera technology on Android. It was the first mainstream manufacturer to put two cameras on the back of the phone to collect depth information and create 3D images. This was 4 years ago, in 2014. Now there’s just one camera on the back, but that doesn’t mean HTC has given up on camera quality. Just the opposite.

The camera on the back of the HTC U11 is a 12MP camera with a ƒ/1.7 aperture. It uses HTC’s “Ultrapixel” sensor, which is a unique camera sensor. Rather than race to cram more megapixels into phones, HTC went to improve each pixel. They did this by increasing the size of the sensor and increasing the size of each pixel on the sensor. This allows the camera to capture more light. Think of each pixel on a camera sensor like a bucket. Larger bucket = more light. An open ƒ/1.7 aperture and dual LED flash mean the HTC U11 performs beautifully in low light. It’s actually quite shocking, I noticed at a dimly lit bar the other night that the photos it produced were better than seeing the people around me live. Those large “ultrapixels” live up to their name. I noticed that the images were brighter and less noisy in dark settings, but didn’t have the detail that the iPhone X had. The flash is certainly brighter though, even if the light it produces doesn’t look as warm and realistic as Apple’s True Tone quad LED flash, but it helps the HTC U11 take surprisingly good photos in low light.

Detail in better light settings matches other smartphone cameras I’ve tested, including the iPhone X, and the natural bokeh is soft and pleasant, though not as pronounced as the generated bokeh in cameras like the iPhone X. I still rate the iPhone X as a better all-around camera, (DxOMark and others agree) but the HTC U11 is a very close second, in my experience, beating the iPhone in many low light conditions.

I fault the HTC in white balance, which favors blue light, making everything look far more cold and harsh. Editing can tweak this, but it’s an extra step. Also, the camera is a lone camera setup, which means it misses out on depth detection, portrait mode, and other features, until HTC can update with the Pixel camera (which, really, you could do now, if you wanted to).

DxOMark gave the HTC U11 a 90 and, at the time, the HTC U11 was the #1 smartphone camera in their rankings. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Google Pixel 2, which took its spot, was also made by HTC. That technology will be making it into a future HTC phone. Thanks to HTC’s awesome ultra pixels, HTC will be one of the top Android manufacturers for photographers for years to come.

Video

I included a separate category to talk about video for one pretty amazing reason: HTC’s 3D audio. 3D microphones allow you to record truly immersive video. Listening to something that has binaural or 3D audio makes you feel like you’re actually right there. Do you know how you can hear something behind you and look directly to the source of the sound without having to search for it? It’s like that. The HTC U11 can record video with that level of immersion.

Those of you who are really into competitive first person shooters know the importance of a feature like this in games. You’re able to hear and track your opponents before you can see them. Others may know it from surround sound movies, your work in sound engineering, or, as I suspect, many of you know it through ASMR videos. The HTC U11 is covered in microphones, four of them, in fact, which allow it to create some truly immersive 3D audio. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, because so many of the videos are unbelievably creepy, but I do listen to (non-creepy) ASMR videos, and I like to use headphones when playing Overwatch for a slight advantage. I know my way around 3D audio. Trust me when I say, the 3D audio effect of the HTC U11 is stunning. This is the best audio recording I’ve heard in a smartphone ever, by a wide margin. It’s insane to hear 3D audio close to the level of which I’ve only heard before from a 3Dio or Blue Yeti. The channel separation,being able to tell exactly where a sound is coming from, is incredible.

HTC’s 3D audio can also be used to track subjects in video. Rather than relying on facial recognition or constantly refocusing manually, the HTC U11 can track the source of an object creating sound in your scene, and keep it in focus for you. This is one of those features you might have a hard time testing or noticing, but you’ll definitely appreciate it when shooting video with your friends.

Front Camera

Like all smartphones, there’s also a camera on the front of the HTC U11. Surprisingly, it has a higher resolution than the rear camera. It’s almost as though HTC is taunting the megapixel myth, proving that more megapixels does not equate to a better camera. Still, the front facing camera is excellent. It has a wide-angle lens, allowing more subjects to fit in the frame. So, when you’re taking selfies with your friends or the guitarist from your favorite band, you can be sure everyone will fit in the picture, maybe even the whole band.

Performance

The HTC U11 is graced by the Snapdragon 835 system on a chip and 4Gb of memory. That means that, when it was released, it had the fastest smartphone chip available for Android smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S8 had it, as did many other smartphones. You’d think that means the HTC U11 has the same performance as any of those other smartphones, right?

Wrong. It’s faster.

HTC has been making great Android phones longer than anyone. When Samsung was still trying their hardest to make smartphones that looked identical to the iPhone in every way, HTC was trying to find ways to surpass the iPhone, to stand out through technical revolution. Samsung may have gotten the upper hand due to marketing, but HTC is still ahead in performance. Their version of Android is more optimized, and their processors are clocked at a faster speed, making the HTC U11 a clear winner. It even performs some actions faster than the iPhone X.

Battery Life and Charging

Having a phone that can last all day is extremely important. I usually get to the office and throw my iPhone X on my wireless charging stand right away, before I even unpack my bag or get another cup of coffee. When I got in the first day I had my HTC U11, I was shocked to find out that it didn’t begin charging when I put it down on my charging stand. The HTC U11 does not have wireless charging. After using the iPhone X for so long, this was the biggest step backwards for the HTC U11.

However, the HTC U11 also represented a step forward here. Battery life is phenomenal. For this review, I was using my HTC phone for everything but text messages, which I was still using my iPhone X for. The battery not only lasted me through my commute and work day without charging, it also lasted me through a night out with coworkers. I found that a battery saver mode gets turned on around 10% battery life, and you can manually turn on an emergency extreme low power mode. It’s an easy to use feature that limits the phone’s functionality to save battery life. I didn’t have to use it, but the battery life was close to dead, having lasted with normal use over a 14 hour day.

When you eventually do go to charge it, the HTC U11 supports Qualcomm’s 3.0 charging standard. That means super fast charging with 10w of electricity. With the included 3.0 quick charger, you can have your HTC U11 up to full battery life from almost nothing in less than an hour.

Leaving wireless charging off a phone like this in 2017 was an awful mistake (one HTC corrected in the U11 Plus). This is likely the primary reason many Android users didn’t consider the U11 when picking their next phone. That, along with a second problem: the HTC U11 doesn’t have a headphone jack. Without a headphone jack and without wireless charging, the HTC U11 can’t charge while you’re listening to music without a special dongle, the same flaw the iPhone 7 faced. Of course, once upon a time, Android users claimed they wouldn’t purchase a smartphone without a removable battery. Now, they don’t seem to care.

Headphones

No headphone jack. Apple’s attack on this ancient but useful, universal, and easy to use port has spread to the Android world. It’s a shame. It makes a device unnecessarily difficult to use. However, to HTC’s credit, they negated this problem better than Apple’s iPhone 7 did, although, without wireless charging, it is a worse solution than that of the iPhone 8/X. Phone manufacturers are dead set on killing the headphone jack, but the least they could have done is provide us with a viable solution to replace it. HTC’s included dongle sounds fine, and it holds on to your headphones well. It’s not large, fits conveniently on your headphones, but you can’t charge while using it. It’s so frustrating. Good thing the battery life is fantastic, right?

Fortunately, HTC included some USB-C headphones with the HTC U11, and they’re surprisingly good. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. They’re fantastic. When Apple released the iPhone 7 without a headphone jack, they claimed that headphone manufacturers could now improve their headphones, adding better sound and even active noise canceling. Then they released their own Lightning headphones, the Lightning EarPods, which were just as awful as anything else they’ve tried to jam into your ears. They didn’t even add these features to the AirPods!

But HTC did.

The headphones included with the HTC U11 have active noise canceling. I never had headphones with this feature before. Usually, I go for passive noise canceling, that is, I turn up my music and use in-ear monitors. My Audio Technica headphones sound great. But, I’ll admit, I sometimes used HTC’s headphones instead while I was testing, because they’re easier to get in my ears, and sound surprisingly good. Unless you’re really specific about your audio quality, these could be the only headphones you use. Well, at least for your HTC U11. Because they’re USB-C and the noise canceling requires the HTC U11, they wouldn’t sound as good with any other device.

The noise canceling isn’t bad. I’ve read reviews and talked to friends about headphones that have better noise canceling, and these aren’t up to those standards. I definitely notice that the outside world is quieter with the feature on (you can easily toggle it), but it’s not a dramatic difference. It’s an exciting HTC-specific addition, but not enough to compete with other headphone manufacturers like Bose. Still, what other smartphone manufacturers are doing anything like this?

Speakers

The HTC One m7 came with the first generation of what HTC would call “BoomSound” speakers. These were stereo speakers placed on the top and bottom of their devices. In their ads, they made fun of the fact that the iPhone was “sitting on” it’s speaker (there was just one speaker then, on the bottom). I went to a store in the mall to check it out, and was shocked at how clear and loud the HTC One was. Each generation of HTC phone since then improved on the formula slightly. However, I’m not sure if HTC is still doing the right thing here.

Make no mistake, the latest generation of BoomSound speakers on the HTC U11 sound great. The earpiece and speaker on the bottom of the phone (something HTC mocked Apple for) do sound great. However, they’re not stereo anymore. Instead, the top speaker is a tweeter, and the lower is a subwoofer. I found I can hold the phone wrong and block the lows easily with my finger.

There’s a strange relationship here. It almost sounds like the music coming from the HTC U11 is too separated. The highs are crystal clear, the bass thumping, but somewhere in the middle, there’s a gap. It’s a little strange if you’re more accustomed to a more balanced equalizer. Make no mistake, the speakers on the HTC U11 are fantastic, but, for the first time ever, I can say the iPhone X has better speakers than an HTC device. Speakers are never the primary focus for smartphone consumers, so it’s likely HTC won’t improve upon this formula very much, though the next HTC device will likely have a more level equalizer setting.

Software and OS

HTC’s Sense was once far more distinct than it is now. HTC, like all Android manufacturers, dialed back on the customizations to go with a more uniform Android experience, closer to what is often called “stock” Android. As I use a third party launcher (Nova Prime) I often don’t notice many customizations. Still, I was happy to find HTC’s classic time and weather widget, which sits on my home screen as it should. As an iOS user, I was always jealous of that cool widget. Hell, I’ve been envious of every widget Android users get to use to customize and improve their devices.

HTC does have a few customizations and additions that are unique to HTC’s version of Android. Alexa support, the HTC Sense companion—an automated tool to help you figure out your new device, HTC’s audio customizations, and a few other things. But, beyond that, HTC didn’t do much to drastically differentiate their version of Android from others, and that’s a good thing. A uniform and clean Android experience that’s free of clutter is a good one. I even liked having the assistant in the beginning, because the tips really helped me get to know my new phone better.

HTC has a close partnership with Google now as well. They made Google’s Pixel phones, which have been, by far, Google’s best first party phones. The new Pixel 2 XL is one of the best Android phones you can buy. As a result, HTC is also quick to update their operating systems. My HTC U11 is on Android Oreo 8.0, and it was pretty quick to update to it as well, though I am still waiting on 8.1. If you’re worried about not getting security and feature updates on your Android phone, you’re a wise user, but you don’t have to worry about it as much with an HTC phone.

Security Features

I remember that, once upon a time, you could just press a finger somewhere on your device and it would unlock. The HTC UI11 reminded me that, after the Face ID magic had worn off, fingerprint sensors are definitely the way to go. Especially with the HTC U11. It’s so fast you don’t even get a chance to look at your lock screen for even a millisecond. Pick up your phone and press the home button, and you’re on your home screen. It rarely fails. I’ll admit, I preferred the circular shape of the iPhone 8’s Touch ID sensor, but this smaller oval is just as good, and it seems faster than I remember the iPhone’s being. The HTC U11 made me realize that Face ID is seriously lacking. Often, when I need to do something quick, I find myself reaching for my U11 instead of my iPhone X because it’s just so much easier and faster to unlock, and I can unlock it without holding it a specific way or looking at it, very useful while walking or working. This is the way smartphone security should be. Easy and seamless, it just works. Apple, take note.

Odds and Ends

The HTC U11 can’t be discussed without talking about its most defining hardware and software feature: Edge Sense. The Pixel 2 took this feature from HTC, but it’s far more limited on Google’s phone. Give the phone a squeeze, and you can launch apps or perform other actions on the device. The Pixel 2 will launch Google’s Assistant, and that’s it. However, on the HTC U11, you can use the Google Assistant, Alexa, launch the camera, an app, or perform other useful functions. It’s very customizable. This is what Android should be, customizable. Each feature should enable new levels of personalization. Instead, companies like Google and Samsung lock down their special features, with the “Bixby button” on new Samsung devices and Google’s strict limitation placed on Edge Sense. Once again, HTC is doing Android right.

The HTC U11 comes in two models, 64Gb and 128GB. Unlike Apple, it’s about more than storage for HTC. Since you can easily add an SD card to the U11, storage wouldn’t be worth paying more for. Instead, HTC adds an extra 2GB of memory to the 128GB model. I’ve got a 64GB model, though I don’t find the 4GB limiting. Of course, no one ever says no to better specs.

One of my greatest annoyances with the HTC U11 on the first few days of owning it was the location of the lock screen/power button. Both it and the volume buttons are on the right side of the phone. On top of that, the power button is below the volume buttons. This is actually a great location for it, but it took some time to not mistake it for the volume buttons. If only because I take screenshots so frequently, I would have preferred the volume buttons to be on the left side of the phone, as they are on the iPhone and many other Android phones. I could always use an Edge Sense gesture to take a screenshot though, which is a great workaround.

My time with the iPhone has me used to force touch. I often forget I don’t have it on other devices, even my iPad. However, there’s only one place I really wanted it on the HTC U11, the home button. Sometimes, I’d just want to authenticate, like to see notifications on the lock screen, or in an app, and I’d end up “pressing” the home button. Of course, the button is actually just a capacitive surface, sensitive to touch, but because of its shape, it feels like it should behave like a button. This is an Apple feature I certainly miss.

The HTC U11 comes with a case, which is a good thing, because this phone is prone to fingerprints. Also, cases for the HTC U11 are slightly difficult to come across. I am using (and will review) a Spigen case for the U11, but I was a bit disappointed to see that there are fewer case options for the U11. It’s not just the fact that it’s an Android phone, which have more limited options to begin with, since no single Android model has the same sales numbers as a particular iPhone model, it’s also because it’s not one of the “popular” Android phones. Before I had this phone, I had never seen someone else with it in public. It’s a real shame too, this is a truly fantastic phone.

Value

The HTC U11 is a premium smartphone with a glass back, aluminum frame, incredible looks, amazing performance, and fantastic cameras. The base model has 64Gb of storage, and accepts up to 2TB of storage from an SD card. It comes with great headphones, and even a plastic case to protect your investment. Is the HTC U11 a good value? No, it’s an amazing value.

Summary

The HTC U11 was HTC’s flagship smartphone for 2017. They also released the U11+ internationally, a phone that fixes two of my biggest gripes about the HTC U11: the size of the bezels and the lack of wireless charging. This year, they’re expected to release the HTC U12 Plus worldwide, with the features of the U11 Plus and then more. It’ll be a polished form of perfection. The HTC U11 proved to me that HTC is still doing what it always has: pushing Android forward. HTC is certainly quietly brilliant. Lately, its brilliance has been ignored. The HTC U11 should have brought HTC back into the pockets and purses of most Android users. Perhaps the U12 Plus will do that, but without a strong marketing campaign, the company may have difficulty reaching enough users like that again. The HTC U12 Plus will likely be revealed in a few months, and released this summer. If you’re the type to wait for the latest and greatest smartphone, you should probably just get that as soon as HTC lets you. If this phone has told me anything, it’s that the U12 Plus will likely be the best phone of 2018.

HTC U11: Phone of the Year?

This is the best Android phone I’ve owned. It’s nearly tied for the #1 spot with my iPhone X, though I often wish it was my primary phone instead of the iPhone X. In my review of the iPhone X, I mention how the operating system is holding it back. The HTC U11 might not be perfect. The bezels on the top and bottom are too large, the screen could have been bigger, there’s no wireless charging, and it doesn’t have a headphone jack. However, Android Oreo frees the device. Apple’s hardware game has been strong, but they have to catch up with their software.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for third party apps, iMessage, and AirDrop, I’d leave iOS for this phone in a heartbeat. I feel like I’m trapped in a bad relationship with my iPhone X now. The HTC U11 and Android remove so many of the frustrations I have over iOS 11 and the iPhone X. iOS’s lack of customization, the slow speed of Face ID and it’s requirement that your whole face be in view of it in portrait orientation, and the iPhone’s bland, boring feeling has become so much more noticeable that it’s problematic. iOS 12 will mostly bring bug fixes. It won’t be until iOS 13 that we see more real changes in iOS. That may be too long for me, I may switch before then.

I won two HTC U11s from Android Central a few weeks ago. I sold (at a low price, I’m not the worst person ever) my other HTC U11 to a close friend of mine. After playing with it for two days, he ditched his iPhone 8 Plus for the HTC U11. I, a person who has been reading and writing Apple-focused blogs for over a decade now, helped a guy switch from iOS to Android.

For the HTC U11, I’m pleased with myself over that.