14 DAY TRIAL // HTC has just completed its BrilliantU event, during which it announced two new and exciting smartphones, the HTC U Ultra flagship and the HTC U Play mid-ranger. In terms of design, there aren’t many differences between the two phones, but the spec-sheets set these two devices apart.
HTC U Ultra is the company’s latest flagship announced during the event recently held in Taiwan. Although the phone wasn't referred to as a flagship during the presentation, it does pack specs that are best fitted in that category.
The U Ultra features a glass-metal design and comes with very powerful specs, including a 5.7-inch Super LCD 5 display with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 coating on top. One of the phone’s selling points is surely the secondary 2-inch display with a 160 x 1040 pixel resolution. The location of the secondary display is similar to that on the LG V20, while functions are almost identical as well. The display can show information like upcoming events, weather forecast or customized notifications.
Snapdragon 821 SoC and 4GB of RAM
Under its hood, the phone runs an octa-core Snapdragon 821 processor clocked at 2.15GHz and coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64 or 128GB of internal storage, which can be expanded using a microSD card.
The 12MP UltraPixel rear camera is quite similar to the one found on the HTC 10. It has 1.55-micron pixels and f/1.8 aperture, as well as PDAF, OIS, 4k video and high-resolution audio. The front camera has a 16MP capacity with UltraPixel mode and 1080p video.
During the presentation, HTC stated that the U Ultra comes with split BoomSound features, similar to what we can find on the HTC 10. The smartphone is set to draw power from a 3,000mAh non-removable battery with Quick Charge 3.0 and feature USB Type-C port and a fingerprint scanner.
HTC U Ultra will run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box with HTC Sense UI on top. HTC included a new AI virtual assistant, the HTC Sense Companion. The phone also lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, but HTC presented the bundled USonic earphones that would deliver new innovations to the market. USonic has the capacity to detect sonic pulses and adjust audio to match the user’s unique ears’ architecture.
It will be made available globally in black, blue, pink and white color variants. The phone will go on sale in Q1 2017, but the exact date wasn’t disclosed.
