HTC U11: Just buy it, OK? By ModernDad

- So the HTC U11 is legit. I know this because I've said so. But here's the thing: that wasn't always a given, right. The last couple years have been kind of tough on HTC. The M10 just-- It was kind of a non-starter. The M9? That camera was not good.

And now we have a new phone and a new, weird name. This is the HTC U11 and this is why you're going to want it. (upbeat music) So, first, ignore anything you've read or heard about being squeeze this phone to do things. Yes, you can, and yes it will, but you don't have to. Yeah, it's a gimmick, but for me, it doesn't change a single thing about why this phone is so good.

You can use it if you want to launch different actions, and that's fine and you can and I'm not. No, start in the back, and just how gorgeous this thing is. Look at the mirror finish. It's beautiful no matter which color you end up getting. You know, the mirror finish is so good I don't even care about the fingerprints and tiny little scratches that have shown up on this one.

It looks beautiful. For the front, yeah, it's a big black slab of a smart phone. Nothing we haven't seen before. So the front's also where I run into really my biggest complaint about this phone, and that's the polarization of the screen. If you're wearing polarized sunglasses and you're outside in the bright sunlight, you turn it horizontally to take pictures, you're not going to be able to see a thing on the screen.

I hate that. I makes it nearly worthless outside for me. But down on the bottom on the front side we have the fingerprint censor. HTC has done these really well for awhile now, and it continues here. It's both a fingerprint censor and a home button, and it's got a-- It has a back button and recent apps on either side.

Totally the way to do it if you're going to put the fingerprint censor on the front. Works really well and HTC's nailed it here. So HTC also is back to having strong dual speakers on this phone. Now, they're maybe not as good as the early days, the M7 and the M8, but they're very good just the same. They work really well with this new-fangled 3-D spatial-audio thing when you're shooting video.

Now there is no headphone jack this time, though, and that's one of those things that doesn't bother me until it does. Now, you can either use Bluetooth headphones or HTC is including some USBC headphones in the box. That's smart; good job. Now HTC continues to do a really good job with the software. Now there's still a lot on here that I don't really like, that I won't use.

Bloatware apps, whatever. But the good news is none of it gets in the way, none of it slows the phone down in the slightest and none of it breaks anything. And I can't say that about other phones that have been released this year. Beyond all that, it's just fast, so I can continue to use things the way I want to use them without any problems whatsoever. Now the camera.

HTC has done really, really well with this over the past year or so. We've got a 12 megapixel shooter on the back, 16 on the front. Yes, that almost sounds backwards, but it's not because it has a larger sensor for the rear camera. They still have this ultrapixel thing going on, where the pixels themselves are larger, let in more light. And the software pushing all that has gotten really good as well.

End of the day, you're going to have great pictures out of this thing, either from the front camera of yourself or from the back camera. And I really enjoyed using it. HTC's camera app is really good as well. Finally, there's battery life. It's absolutely better than the 3000 milli Amp hour capacity would lead you to expect, but then again HTC's gotten their software optimization really good the past couple of years.

So for me, I've easily been going from sunrise to bedtime getting through just about an entire day with this without having to charge it. So here's the thing about the U11, silly name aside. It's one of those phones where we're going to talk about the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. The hardware itself is really good. The software: really fast, really good battery life.

Are there some gimmicks? Yeah, the squeezy squeezability thing. The mirror finish looks great, but it doesn't really do anything. It's lacking dual cameras of, say, the G6 or the iPhone 7 Plus. It just doesn't have that whizzbang screen that the Galaxy S8 has. But what you get is a kind of expensive but really good Android smart phone and a really good camera, as well.

For me it's been about fewer annoyances and just a really good overall experience, and, damn, that just looks nice. If you want more on other smartphones I've looked at this year, go hit up that playlist right there. I've got the G6, got the GS8, got some other stuff. Don't forget to subscribe, sign up for the newsletter. That's it; we'll see you later.

(upbeat music) Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the prettiest photographer of them all? It's Greg. I'm a (beep) mulberry.

Source : ModernDad