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Chinese smartphone manufacturer HTC introduce it's first flagship smartphone U12+. Last year HTC won back mindshare with its flagship U11 phone, the elegance and appealing imaging and video of which made it an attractive alternative to big-spending rivals. An even stronger U11+ a few months later proved that this was no one-off. But with the U12+, HTC has, like Liverpool's Loris Karius, committed two quite inexplicable unforced errors.
HTC’s new U12+ smartphone has been thoughtfully designed with features to enhance the user experience while providing a unique translucent look that’s like nothing else on the market. Unfortunately, it also has two major shortcomings. This notchless smartphone features top of the line technical specifications and feels solid in the hand, but it lacks sufficient battery power and widespread Canadian availability.
The six-inch Quad HD (2,880 x 1,440) super LCD 6 display, with 18:9 aspect ratio and with no notch, is powered by 2.8GHz Qualcomm 845 chip set with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage capacity. The hybrid-style SIM tray supports microSD card up to 2TB. The bad news is that HTC is sticking to LCD display with 537 pixels per inch density rather than the AMOLED. It runs on Android Oreo and it is upgradeable to Android P (next OS version). The phone is water and dust resistant and weighs 188 grams.
This time around, HTC is upping the ante with the second generation of Edge Sense, its squeeze-driven navigation tool. First, you set up your squeeze-force level — how hard you have to press to trigger an action — by squeezing your phone with your preferred pressure level three times. To test it, the device prompts you to squeeze to fill up a balloon, then release the pressure to launch it. You then test the double-tap feature, which pins a mini window to the bottom right or bottom left of the display for easier one-handed use.
Edge Sense's default settings are a short squeeze to launch the Camera app, a double tap on the side frame for one-handed mode and a holding gesture to keep your phone in portrait mode as you lie down to read. Most phones will automatically flip to landscape mode if you hold them sideways, but this Edge Sense gesture prevents that from happening. You can assign other actions for all but the holding gesture in Settings > Edge Sense.
Camera have four lenses
Camera-wise, the U12+’s dual front-facing shooter takes very clear selfies with a tendency toward overexposed highlights, though not to an excessive level. In the perfect lighting or in less than ideal lighting conditions, the U12+ takes detailed and clear photos. When it’s dark, however, the selfie shooter doesn’t do quite as good of a job. Due to the phone not having a front-facing flash, those pictures don’t get too bright. There’s a screen-flash feature, however, it’s not perfect and in most situations it doesn’t provide enough light. The dual rear-facing camera takes crisp, sharp, vivid and full of colour images. The pictures are more akin to the Samsung Galaxy S9 than the Google Pixel 2 XL, meaning colours are more saturated. Like the front-facing camera, the rear setup tends to overexpose rather than under, however, I haven’t found that it does this to an unbearable point. Users can also manually adapt the bokeh effect, allowing them to choose how blurry they want the background, this feature worked very well. Additionally, the camera features quick auto focus, something I enjoyed.
Battery and sound
The HTC U12+ also features 3,500mAh battery, and while the phone is a powerhouse and runs smoothly, it doesn’t last long on a single charge. Someone using it with very low usage would find that it’d get them through the day. However, with medium usage, which includes one hour of Netflix, 33 minutes of YouTube and about an hour-and-a-half of listening to music on Google Play Music, the phone lasted about 12.5 hours. The fast charger can fully charge the device within an hour-and-a-half and get it to 50 percent in a little more than thirty minutes. The phone’s speaker is very loud. While its volume is a little quieter measured with the Sound Meter app.
The U12+ also has a feature called ‘Activity Reader’ that reads out messages, calendar events and announces who’s calling when connected to a wired or wireless headset. Users can set it so the phone doesn’t do this if the display is on. The phone is good, but definitely not great. One of the biggest reasons is the price. The U12+ costs $1,099 (for the 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM) and is not available at any Canadian carrier. This doesn’t compare favourably to the OnePlus 6, which retails at $699. The unfortunate thing is the U12+ might be worth that cost if it was available at carriers on a two-year subsidy. For those who don’t mind paying full price, though, this is definitely a good choice.
- Fast battery charging: 50% in 35 min (Quick Charge 3.0)
- XviD/MP4/H.265 player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV/FLAC player
- Document editor
- Photo/video editor
Xiaomi Redmi 6, Redmi 6A launch with Face Unlock and 18:9 display
Chinise smartphone manufacturere Xiaomi held an event in China for the launch of the budget smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A. The new smartphones are the successors to the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5A entry-level smartphones. Both the Redmi 6 phones have a similar 5.45-inches display with the 18:9 aspect ratio. Both Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A will go on sale in China from June 15. There’s no word on when the new Redmi 6 will make their way to the Indian market. The new Redmi 6, Redmi 6A will be powered by MIUI 10 on Android Oreo.
Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin had earlier shared a poster for the launch event on his Weibo page, which indicated Redmi 6 series would be revealed. Xiaomi was expected to launch three Redmi 6 phones; a Redmi 6 Pro or Redmi 6 Plus was also speculated with a notch design, though that phone has not been revealed. Redmi 6 Plus or Mi A2 Lite as some reports have said, was spotted on China’s TENAA certification website.
Xiaomi Redmi 6: Full specifications
Xiaomi Redmi 6 comes with a 5.45-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone runs on MediaTek Helio P22 processor and is available in 3GB and 4GB RAM variants with 32GB and 64GB storage respectively.
The smartphone has a dual-camera setup on the back that consists of 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. It has a 5-megapixel selfie-camera. Just like the recent Redmi phones, Xiaomi Redmi 6 also comes with Artificial Intelligence (AI), mainly integrated into the camera. The smartphone also supports facial recognition for unlocking the phone. The base model of Redmi 6 is priced at CNY 799, which is Rs 8,000 approximately
Redmi 6A: Full specifications
Xiaomi Redmi 6A comes with a similar set of specifications except that it runs on MediaTek A22 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The phone comes with 16GB of built-in storage. On the back, Redmi 6A sports 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. The smartphone has a 3,000mAh battery. Xiaomi claims the MIUI onboard has been optimised for Redmi 6A, reducing system apps’ memory usage by about 30%. The base model of Redmi 6A is priced at CNY 599, which is Rs 6,300 approximately.
“Redmi 6 offers many AI-enabled functions. When you pick up the phone, the screen will automatically wake and you can unlock the phone with AI Face Unlock. By integrating with the phone’s camera, Xiaomi’s proprietary Xiao Ai voice assistant can recognize plants, vehicles, living environments, as well as items for price comparison. For certain scenarios Xiao Ai can translate English, French, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish and Hindi into Chinese. Xiao Ai can also detect SMS messages sent by fake mobile base stations set up by scammers, protecting users against possible attacks,” said Xiaomi on its website.
