14 DAY TRIAL // HTC announced its latest premium smartphone today, the HTC U Ultra. But the event in Taiwan was also a good opportunity for the company to present another phone in the HTC U series, the mid-ranger U Play.
HTC’s U Play has some similar features to the high-end U Ultra. The phone comes with the same glass-metal frame as seen on the U Ultra. It has a new Liquid design, with the glass panel on the back sporting a design that resembles liquid. The reflective metallic design is similar to the one found on Samsung’s Galaxy S7.
The U Play comes with a 5.2-inch 1080p Super LCD display and lacks the 2.0-inch secondary display found on the HTC U Ultra. Nonetheless, the mid-ranger in the series has an octa-core 64-bit Mediatek Helio P10 processor, coupled with 3 GB or 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory, which can be expanded to 2TB using a microSD card.
Sense Companion AI and no 3.5mm headphone jack
Battery capacity appears to reach 2,500mAh, smaller than the 3,000mAh found on the U Ultra. The phone comes with a 16MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and phase-detection autofocus. The front camera has the same capacity and aperture, but it can snap wide panorama selfies and conduct video calls.
The phone will incorporate HTC’s Sense Companion, the AI virtual assistant that’s similar to Siri or Google Assistants. The AI assistant will allow users to interact with the phone using their voices and get various useful information in an instant.
Moreover, the U Play will feature USB Type-C port and will be bundled with a rebranded version of the ear-phones found on HTC Bolt and 10 Evo. The U Play has four always-on microphones for unlocking the device using the user’s voice. The reason HTC included new ear-phones is because the company has decided to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack on the U Play as well.
The U Play will be made available in blue, black, pink and white color variants, but pricing and availability for the new phone are unknown. Still, we believe this smartphone will hit stores later this spring.
