HTC U12+ smartphone Specs, Design and features

HTC U12+

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.

Network	Technology	GSM / HSPA / LTE
	2G bands	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 (dual-SIM model only)
	3G bands	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100
	4G bands	LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 13(700), 17(700), 20(800), 28(700), 32(1500), 38(2600), 39(1900), 49, 41(2500), 66(1700/2100)
	Speed	HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps, LTE-A (5CA) Cat18 1200/150 Mbps
	GPRS	Yes
	EDGE	Yes

Launch	Announced	2018, May
	Status	Coming soon. Exp. release 2018, June 18th

Body	Dimensions	156.6 x 73.9 x 8.7 mm (6.17 x 2.91 x 0.34 in)
	Weight	188 g (6.63 oz)
	Build	Front/back glass & aluminum frame
	SIM	Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
		- IP68 certified - dust/water proof (up to 1.5m for 30 mins) - Pressure-sensitive buttons

Display	Type	Super LCD6 capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	6.0 inches, 92.9 cm2 (~80.3% screen-to-body ratio)
	Resolution	1440 x 2880 pixels, 18:9 ratio (~537 ppi density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass 5
		- HTC Sense UI - DCI-P3 & HDR10 compliant

Platform	OS	Android 8.0 (Oreo), planned upgrade to Android 9.0 (P)
	Chipset	Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845
	CPU	Octa-core (4x2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver)
	GPU	Adreno 630

Memory	Card slot	microSD, up to 400 GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
	Internal	64/128 GB, 6 GB RAM

Camera	Primary	Dual: 12 MP (f/1.8, 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF) + 16 MP (f/2.6, 1.0µm), phase detection & laser autofocus, OIS, gyro-EIS, 2x optical zoom, dual-LED dual-tone flash
	Features	Geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 8MP image recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, HDR (photo/panorama)
	Video	2160p@60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, HDR, 24-bit/96kHz stereo sound rec.
	Secondary	Dual: 8 MP (f/2.0, 1.12µm), 1080p, HDR, panorama

Sound	Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes, with stereo speakers
	3.5mm jack	No
		- 32-bit/384kHz audio - Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

Comms	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot
	Bluetooth	5.0, A2DP, aptX HD, LE
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
	NFC	Yes
	Radio	No
	USB	3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector

Features	Sensors	Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email
	Browser	HTML5
		- 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

Battery		Non-removable Li-Ion 3500 mAh battery
	Talk time	Up to 24 h (3G)

Misc	Colors	Translucent Blue, Ceramic Black, Flame Red
	Price	About 800 EUR (Approx Rs. 57800)