HTC U20 5G Review: Yes They Are Still Alive! By Sypnotix

By Sypnotix
Aug 14, 2021
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HTC U20 5G Review: Yes They Are Still Alive!

In the course of my month with the hoc u25g as my everyday phone, I came across a wide spectrum of reactions from people seeing my phone. Most people were curious as to what phone this was and were surprised that HTC still made phones, as they were only acquainted with the VR business side of things. Then a shocking group where people who had never even heard of HTC as a company, they came up to me and as someone who has long had an affinity for HTC as a brand of my touch, I was initially ecstatic to test out the current highest end phone from HTC, the u20, while that enthusiasm did eventually wane. As I got to know the u20, it still showed me enough to say: HTC should have a place in the smartphone world. It's easy to say that the HTC u25g is not a flagship phone. It's also not a unique designed phone, but there's also nothing offensive about the look of the u20 either.

This is simply a mid-range candy bar phone that is a dime a dozen in the market, a far cry from the innovative years of the 1?m line and their impressive boom sound. I will give HTC credit that for a mid-range phone I do like the quality in built material they decide to use. The back is a plastic mat material that is smooth to touch but efficient to mask fingerprints. A fingerprint scanner occupies space in the rear above the iconic HTC logo, and it works fine for what it is. The volume rocker and power buttons are nice and click to maintain a surprisingly premium vibe to the overall experience of the u20, I have the u20 in the white color, which in some positions actually gives off like a blue tint.

There honestly isn't anything intrinsically bad about the HTC u20 as a phone that other devices don't actually share. It's a bit too long to fit comfortably in a pant pocket. Thanks to that 20 by nine aspect, ratio of a display. It's a bit too slippery thanks to that width being slightly larger than what my hands could comfortably be able to wrap around, and it's a bit of a hazard device as there really isn't any case makers out there making HTC you know phone cases, I mean. Why would they all these issues are just issues shared with many other devices in the world where this candy bar shape has stalled in evolution.

The most damning thing, though, about the HTC u20, is the touchscreen we're looking at a 6.8 inch by 2400p IPS display that has 387 PPI density. That's fine and dandy, as the viewing quality is quite solid. The display is sharp from a multitude of angles and colors are well reproduced, albeit a bit colder in tone than I prefer. After all, this is an enjoyable device to watch content on, but the annoyance comes in with the actual touch screen aspect. I can't elaborate enough how frustrating it was to navigate around android 10, thanks to the sheer sensitivity that causes an abundance of ghost touches, it's eerily as if the u20 has a mind of its own and wants to steer me in another direction.

Now I'm not 100 certain. If these are true ghost touches or if the palm rejection is inadequate for a phone of this length, the u25g is just an awkward phone to swipe through and to type with frustration immediately sets in when the keyboard is out, and I'm typing only for it to lose all its progress when the OS swipes back to the home screen with the previous app. This is most likely due to my android settings of using gesture navigation instead of the traditional three button android layouts. However, I fully transitioned over to this method of navigation, since google introduced it in android uh when like 2019- and I haven't struggled like this on any other phone, I've used. So it's something here with HTC.

I'm also disappointed with the single bottom firing loudspeaker it's hollow and just downright depressing to listen to, especially when you recall HTC's, legendary reputation with mobile sound. It isn't an exaggeration to say, HTC changed the way audio quality was perceived in smartphones back in the 2010s. This is a drastic fall from grace. Phone call. Audio is also horribly bad.

The other person on the line has often complained about how bad I sounded more often than not. When I was using this phone. The best way to explain it is as if there was a flip between the earpiece and the loudspeaker, and that's what it feels like to hear me talk on this phone honestly other than that huge issue of navigating the phone around ghost touches and the lackluster palm rejection. There isn't much to dislike about this Taiwanese designed phone. The phone runs perfectly fine thanks to that Qualcomm snapdragon 765g chipset.

That gives access to 5g capabilities, although it doesn't really work here in the US, because we don't have those bands on this phone for the USA 5g network. This model has 8 gigabytes of ram and 256 gigabytes of storage. With additional storage capabilities thanks to micros access, it's all rather standard or fair here for an upper mid-tier smartphone all the games and apps I'm currently running effectively work at a reasonable rate, where I really don't miss using a phone with a snapdragon 888. It's close enough in performance for tasks that are important. The battery longevity is fantastic if you need to plug the u25g to charge that enormous 5, 000 William hour battery before the day ends you're most likely having a super long day with dramatic twists and turns because this battery does not die on a typical day.

I'd go through all the chores of collecting and questing my mobile game apps, along with that remedial task of responding to work emails and using various apps to get things done for work, and this thing occupies about like three hours of on-screen time and roughly six hours of battery life off the plug, and that only cost me about 25 of the overall battery life. Yes, we're still at 75 remaining battery with a majority of the workday already completed. This is fantastic battery life and one that should be applauded. Not that you'll ever need it, but the u25g also has 18 watt fast charging. Four camera sensors occupy a neat strip on the left side of the rear body, the right side when you're holding it facing you, you know it's the right side, opposite side, I'm right-handed.

So this irritates me every time. I need to touch something on the peripheral of the sensors, unlike some of the other companies who is a kind of stack them in like a squarish shape. HTC's decision to make it one of just, just downright stripped downwards extends the range of the sensors through the reach of the fingerprint sensor area, like I've actually smudged the cameras with my fingers almost daily. Due to this design choice in terms of image quality, the u25g would rank in the acceptable category while the cameras are like serviceable and fluid to operate to catch a quick shot, it's best utilized as a personal like Instagram shooter, where quality isn't important to a brand image or anything. I say this because there is a noticeable over processing of images in HDR that I don't see in phones like the Google Pixel 4a or like a higher rated reputational phone like the iPhone 12 lineup too often do pictures look artificial.

The surprising thing, though, that the camera does well is how great the AI determines. What actually to expose I'm I'm pretty impressed with how it handles foreground and background exposure here. Ultimately, there is just a lack of warmth and sharpness behind the photos for me to comfortably want to use this. As my main smartphone shooter, and even though HTC is long past, their heyday I've always felt that there was a place that this legacy OEM can still have if they truly invested the time to create a product that makes sense. The u25g has some of that HTC pride from yesteryear, but fails to carve out a responsible reason for its existence.

Even if this phone was readily available in the USA, it kind of is through Amazon. I still have a difficult time recommending this in the mid-level market. It just doesn't make sense to me with that said. I would love to see the u21 and then the u30 and many other HTC's down the line, because the smartphone world could certainly still keep a spot out for HTC. So the other day I went to the market and I saw a bunch of people with their iPhones just checking their grocery lists, and I told them hey.

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Source : Sypnotix

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