HTC U11 review: Plans | Pricing | Specs

HTC's U11 is an exceptional phone, and one of the best phones of 2017.

HTC was responsible for two of the best phones of 2016 by way of the exceptional Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL handsets. The problem for HTC was that they weren't in-house efforts, even if HTC was doing the actual legwork of producing the hardware. So expectations were high for its own in-house followup device, the HTC U Ultra.

Despite having many of the same specifications as the Pixel XL, the U Ultra was ultimately a disappointing device compared to its immediate competition, and it's a comparison that's only widened with the release of many competitor handsets through the year.

Click to order HTC U11 from Dick Smith Electronics

Offering you a stunning 3D liquid glass surface, state of the art camera and purest audio you can find with active noise cancellation the HTC U11 sets a new standard of what you can expect from a smartphone.

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As such, when the HTC U11 was announced, I was cautious but not terribly optimistic. HTC can produce great phones and has done so in the past, but it's had more misses that hits when compared against true flagships. Thankfully for HTC, the U11 marks the point where the Taiwanese manufacturer appears to have actually turned a corner, because it's a genuinely great handset in almost every respect.

Design

• Liquid design looks gorgeous
• Squeezy Edge Sense sides.
• No headphone socket.

• Read more on the HTC U11 design

  

  The one thing I loved about the HTC U Ultra was the liquid design idea. Ultimately there’s only so much you can do with a glass phone screen, and every manufacturer has pretty much settled on their design ideas, tweaking around the edges.

  The HTC U Ultra was a real looker, and the U11 continues that journey with a few new colours, including silver and bright red models. There's a definite show-off aspect to the rear part of the HTC U11's design for selected colours.

  At 153.9 x 75.9 x 7.9mm with a carrying weight of 169g, the HTC U11 is reasonable to hold in your hand even if you're not a fan of larger phones. The one caveat here is that compared to many other flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S8 or the LG G6, the HTC U11 still features noticeable bezels on the sides and especially at the top and bottom.

  The bezels lead to a slightly wider and taller handset than its 5.5-inch display might suggest. By way of comparison, you can place a Galaxy S8 handset entirely on top of the HTC U11 and still see the sides.

  Like the HTC U Ultra before it, the HTC U11 lacks a standard headphone port, with a single USB C type port at the base handling both power and audio duties. HTC provides a pair of USB C noise-cancelling headphones in the box with the HTC U11 as well as a USB C to 3.5mm adaptor, which is a nice touch. The HTC U11 is naturally Bluetooth-compatible if you prefer wireless sound.

  While it has made considerable fuss about the squeezable "Edge Sense" sides of the HTC U11, there's nothing inherent in the phone's design that makes it obvious that its lower-third portion can sense force against it. If you disabled Edge Sense and handed the HTC U11 to anyone else, they'd never notice it was there.

  The HTC U11 is IP67 rated for water resistance at a maximum depth of 1m for up to 30 minutes. That's a fresh lab water test, so don't take it scuba diving, but for brief immersion it should be OK. Water resistance is fast becoming the norm for premium handsets, and it’s included in the HTC U11 with Edge Sense enhancements that allow you to take underwater photos with it while submerged.

  The HTC U11 uses the same essential design language as the HTC U Ultra. If you opt for the silver finish it's a very showy design at the rear, with a lovely ripple effect when the light hits it just the right way.

  In Australia we'll only see the silver and black finishes made available, which is a huge pity, because the blue and red options are the most eye-catching. We tested with the far more conservative "brilliant" black version and you'd be hard-pressed to call it anything but dull, or at best a fingerprint smudge magnet. Combine that with a front design that features way more obvious bezels than its competition, and you're left with a more ordinary-looking phone.

  The included "USonic" headphones with the HTC U11 are very fine indeed for listening purposes, but there's a catch. Despite using the standard USB C connector, they only appear to work on the HTC U11 itself. Plug them into any other USB-C based phone and you'll most likely hit either silence, or your tunes broadcast to anyone within hearing range – making you unpopular on a crowded train, no matter what your musical tastes may be.

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Camera

• Good low-light performance
• Single lens only

• Read more on the HTC U11 camera

  HTC's history in the smartphone camera game is just as ripe with hits as it is with misses. 2016's HTC10 promised a lot but ultimately didn't quite live up to those promises. The Google Pixel, produced by HTC was an absolute winner. The HTC U Ultra again went on the hype bandwagon, only to come crashing off when compared to other premium handsets.

  That gives the HTC U11's 16MP f/2.0 front and rear 12MP f/1.7 cameras a lot to either live up to, or fail to achieve depending on how optimistic you are about HTC's general approach to camera technology.

  HTC points to its DxOmark of 90 as proof of its camera chops, beating out the previous frontrunner for that score, which was the HTC-produced Google Pixel itself. The HTC U11's rear camera includes HTC's "Ultrapixel" technology, which incorporates larger pixel sensor sites for greater light input and (theoretically) improved low light performance. It matches that up with optical image stabilisation and what HTC calls UltraSpeed Autofocus for a camera experience that easily sits among the very best we've ever tested.

  The key aspect of the HTC U11's camera experience is that focus and exposure are very efficiently set, and in most situations extremely well. If you're a fan of more measured shooting, the inbuilt Pro mode for its camera app gives full access to camera functions, including the ability to capture directly in RAW mode.

  Once you start pushing the HTC U11 in lower light situations it does start to struggle a little, but again that's a measure of the technology in play.

  There simply isn't (and won't be) a great low light performer for smartphone cameras until the technology radically changes, and if that's what you truly want then a DSLR is a better bet. However, the HTC U11's camera will certainly suit most folks very well.

  Here's some sample shots taken directly from the HTC U11:

  

  

  

  

  If you opt to use Edge Sense to launch the camera, it then defaults to a short squeeze for taking shots, or a long hold to switch camera modes. The issue with squeezing the camera is that it introduces a degree of camera shudder, which is never ideal for properly-framed or focused photos.

  There's a short processing delay when you take shots this way where the camera is presumably adjusting focus to help deal with this, but that's not ideal. If it's your only option it's better than no camera at all, but I immediately switched to using the volume controls as shutter buttons instead.

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Performance

• Snapdragon 660 provides exactly the performance you'd expect
• Android One gives the HTC U11 more longevity than most mid-range handsets
• More open Edge Sense than on Google's own Pixel phones

• Read more on the HTC U11 performance

  The HTC U11 was the first phone to hit Australian shores running on Qualcomm's heavily-hyped Snapdragon 835 SoC. The Snapdragon 835 was at the heart of the international versions of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, here in Australia we scored the Exynos 8995-based variants of those handsets.

  That means that HTC was the first to line up for a head-to-head comparison. At an anecdotal level, the HTC U11 running HTC's Sense UI on top of Android 7.1.1 runs very smoothly indeed, with no noticeable lag in applications even during heavy usage. At a benchmark level this holds true as well. Here's how the HTC U11 compares against other premium 2017 handsets using Geekbench 4's CPU test:

  Handset	Geekbench 4 CPU Single Core (higher is better)	Geekbench 4 CPU Multi Core (higher is better)
  Samsung Galaxy S8+	2020	6690
  Samsung Galaxy S8	1989	6628
  Huawei P10 Plus	1863	6544
  HTC U11	1919	6362
  Huawei Mate 9	1925	6068
  Apple iPhone 7 Plus	3374	5649
  Huawei P10	1922	5633
  Apple iPhone 7	3452	5599
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	1359	5333
  Samsung Galaxy S7	1378	4718
  Oppo R9s Plus	1466	4415
  LG G6	1810	4228
  Apple iPhone SE	2449	4171
  HTC U Ultra	1648	3848
  Google Pixel XL	1629	4051

  The Galaxy S8 and Huawei P10 Plus slightly outpace the HTCU11 in that particular benchmark, but not to a level where you'd see a noticeable performance gap between them. Running the same apps side by side saw no appreciable performance difference at all.

  It's much the same story in gaming terms. Here's how the HTC U11 compares against premium handsets using 3DMark's Ice Storm Unlimited test:

  Handset	3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Result
  HTC U11	40239
  Apple iPhone 7 Plus	37956
  Apple iPhone 7	37717
  HTC U Ultra	29968
  Apple iPhone SE	29276
  Samsung Galaxy S7	28903
  Huawei P10 Plus	28491
  Google Pixel XL	28458
  Huawei Mate 9	28457
  Samsung Galaxy S8	28409
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	28402
  LG G6	28344
  Samsung Galaxy S8+	28120
  HTC 10	27392
  Huawei P10	25168

  Again, benchmarks don't tell the full story but in simple terms, if you want to push lots of pixels around for whatever reason, the HTC U11 performs well for a phone of its age.

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Battery life

• Good but not great battery life
• Quick Charge 3.0 compatible

• Read more on the HTC U11 battery life

  HTC packs the HTC U11 with a 3000mAh battery, which is essentially mid-range for a phone this size in the premium space. Combined with the high-power potential of the Snapdragon 835, the U11 could well have dropped down in battery life terms, but it didn't do that. On a day-to-day basis even the most serious users will get a full day out of it, but like any phone if you push it hard enough for long enough it will go flat.

  Geekbench 3's battery test gives a comparative score that isn't an absolute when it comes to comparing handset performance, but does give a good idea of what to expect. Here's how the HTC U11 compared against a range of premium 2017 handsets for battery life:

  Handset	Geekbench 3 Battery Test Duration	Geekbench 3 Battery Score
  Galaxy S8+	14:55:30	8955
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	11:55:00	7150
  Samsung Galaxy S8	11:47:50	7078
  HTC U11	11:42:40	7026
  Apple iPhone 7 Plus	11:11:20	6713
  Huawei P10 Plus	10:39:50	6218
  Samsung Galaxy S7	10:01:20	6013
  Huawei P10	9:31:30	5523
  Google Pixel XL	9:14:20	5543
  LG G6	9:09:30	5495
  Huawei Mate 9	9:00:30	5330
  Apple iPhone 7	7:50:10	4701
  HTC U Ultra	7:25:40	4456
  HTC 10	6:54:30	4145
  Apple iPhone SE	4:27:10	2671

  The Galaxy S8+ still wears the crown for overall battery life, but the HTC U11 impresses given it's clearly eking out every last drop of power from that 3000mAh battery pack and besting some handsets with higher capacities along the way.

  HTC does provide a couple of emergency battery-saving measures that limit performance should you find yourself going flat during the day, as well as Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0 to keep your power topped up.

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Verdict

• Like most older flagships, it's only worth it at a bargain price.

• Read our full HTC U11 verdict

  Back in 2017, the HTC U11 was a great premium smartphone option, but time moves on, and that always has an effect on the value of a given Android handset.

  The HTC U11 is still a fine phone, but it's one with features that tilt more towards the mid-range, so it's best suited if you can score one at a bargain price. Paying its full 2017 asking price now wouldn't be a smart move, because the same money can score you a considerably more advanced handset, including several from HTC itself.

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Pricing and availability

HTC U11

HTC's squeezy handset

Getting to grips with the HTC U11 opens up a whole new world of grip-related gestures. Buy one outright or on contract through Optus

• The HTC U11 originally sold in Australia outright for $999.
• The HTC U11 is also available from Optus on contract plan terms.