HTC U11+ announced - Android Oreo, 3930mAh battery, 18:9 6" QHD display

[D13H4RD]

HTC's U11 was one of the better Android handsets launched earlier this year. While it wasn't flawless, it deliver excellent performance, clean and mean software and a camera that can rightfully compete with top-tier offerings from Samsung and Apple.

 

For the 2nd half, HTC is launching an upgraded version of the U11, called the U11+, which keeps the high points of the U11 while also improving on its flaws.

 

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2017 has been the year of the 18:9 smartphone. Increasingly, Android phones with "traditional" widescreen displays have started to look seriously old-hat. One notable victim of 16:9 ennui this past year was the HTC U11 — a high-end device that did almost everything really well, but which, from the front, looked remarkably dated next to the latest creations from Samsung. The technology and feature set was all there, but the GS8-like excitement was lacking.

So in a somewhat surprising move, HTC kicks off November with a new flagship phone launch. It's the Taiwanese company's biggest smartphone screen to date, in that trendy 18:9 aspect ratio, paired with its biggest battery to date, encased in hardware that finally feels as polished and modern as the One M7 and M8 did back in the glory days.

And yet, being an HTC phone with no current U.S. launch plans and a scaled-back UK presence involving zero British carriers, it's unclear whether the U11+ will be able to move the needle much, if at all

Source: https://www.androidcentral.com/htc-u11-plus

 

The U11+ features upgrades over the U11, including a new 18:9 2880x1440 Super LCD display, a larger 3930mAh battery, and IP68 certifications, plus a new translucent finish which showcases the phone's interior.

 

The U11+ runs Android Oreo with a slight twinge of HTC Sense that's mostly out of the way, delivering a near-stock experience. Edge Sense has also gotten some upgrades.

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On the software front, both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are supported, and both can be triggered by using HTC’s Edge Sense squeezing action. You can assign one to activate on a light squeeze of the U11 Plus and the other on a stronger squeeze. HTC explained the presence of the two voice assistants as just giving people flexibility: some might like to have Alexa at home and Google while out on the move, and I can’t argue with that logic. Edge Sense has been upgraded to serve as a remappable button in any app of your choosing, and it can do cool things like zoom in on Google Maps or send you straight to your subscription feed when you’ve got YouTube open.

 

One last tidbit that HTC has added is a new radial menu that can be triggered with a squeeze: it’s a rotatable wheel that serves as a sort of app palette under your thumb, and it reminds me of previous efforts at such designs from the likes of the First Else. It might be cool, it might not; it will take some time getting used to it to see if it actually speeds up use of the phone. But it’s certainly a refreshing and intriguing idea.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/2/16589218/htc-u11-plus-announced-specs-release-date-price-android-oreo

 

The U11+ has no official US launch date yet but the phone will have a 4GB/64GB flavor and a 6GB/128GB flavor. The latter is coming to the UK November 20th for £699 with a European price of €799.

 

 

 

[Rune]

Oh cool I've been waiting for a phone to truly replace my one m7 for

21 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

The U11+ has no official US launch date yet

 

Edit:

plus a new translucent finish which showcases the phone's interior.

Wait, what?

[Mooshi]

I want oreooooooooooo

[D13H4RD]

5 minutes ago, Rune said:

Oh cool I've been waiting for a phone to truly replace my one m7 for

Yeah, sucks that there isn't a concrete plan to launch this in the US.

[Rune]

Just now, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Yeah, sucks that there isn't a concert plan to launch this in the US.

Just found out it has no headphone jack so that ruled it out anyway.

Sigh. Back to waiting.

[D13H4RD]

Just now, Rune said:

Just found out it has no headphone jack so that ruled it out anyway.

Sigh. Back to waiting.

Yeah, that sucks though at least the supplied buds aren't bad at all.

 

Also, yep. Translucent finish. You can see the insides of the phone partially.

[Joveice]

Eh, My U11 keeps crashing all the time at random moments (even without using it). I would like to see them fixed

[dizmo]

This I like. Though I wish it had dual cameras with a wide angle lens. So close, yet so far.

14 minutes ago, Rune said:

Just found out it has no headphone jack so that ruled it out anyway.

Sigh. Back to waiting.

You might be waiting a real long time

[D13H4RD]

11 minutes ago, dizmo said:

This I like. Though I wish it had dual cameras with a wide angle lens. So close, yet so far.

You might be waiting a real long time

I’m actually very tempted to try this.

I don’t like having no jack, but nearly everything else about this is an A+ to me.

 

Big ass battery, clean build of Android, launches with Oreo, great camera, etc.

[FloRolf]

Can we please stop with the ridiculous pricing of phones? 

Like I bought my 3T for 450€ and it does pretty much everything it needs to. Good phones for that money are getting rare though. 

[D13H4RD]

9 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Can we please stop with the ridiculous pricing of phones? 

Like I bought my 3T for 450€ and it does pretty much everything it needs to. Good phones for that money are getting rare though. 

Even OnePlus phones are getting more expensive 

[Senzelian]

25 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Can we please stop with the ridiculous pricing of phones? 

Like I bought my 3T for 450€ and it does pretty much everything it needs to. Good phones for that money are getting rare though. 

Phones are often not priced high enough like many products. Our price perception is incredibly flawed by cheap Chinese knock-offs and thanks to large retailers like Amazon. 

 

These prices can only be achieved by mass production and underpaying workers. Especially miners for rare materials that are needed for phone production are barely kept alive - literally. 

 

At least be aware of that instead of asking for even lower prices. 

 

I guess if we were to pay everyone properly a high end phone would cost near the 2000€ mark. 

[FloRolf]

1 hour ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Even OnePlus phones are getting more expensive 

Yeah ikr, when it also goes over 600€ now for the 5T I'll not be getting another OP. 

 

1 hour ago, Senzelian said:

Phones are often not priced high enough like many products. Our price perception is incredibly flawed by cheap Chinese knock-offs and thanks to large retailers like Amazon. 

 

These prices can only be achieved by mass production and underpaying workers. Especially miners for rare materials that are needed for phone production are barely kept alive - literally. 

 

At least be aware of that instead of asking for even lower prices. 

 

I guess if we were to pay everyone properly a high end phone would cost near the 2000€ mark. 

Considering the production cost is approx. 250€ for a 700€ phone, I'm pretty sure there are better ways to make circumstances in production better. 

When you make it 500€ production cost and still sell for 700€ the company still makes a ton of money but people get a better life and I'd much rather pay 700€ when I know it doesn't all go into Samsungs/apples/whatever wallet. 

 

I'm well aware that the phones would be incredibly expensive when someone from EU or US made them. You also have to bear in mind that other countries life cheaper. With my salary some Chinese rice field worker could probably retire after a month while I will be able to just pay my rent and some buy food. 

[Senzelian]

59 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Yeah ikr, when it also goes over 600€ now for the 5T I'll not be getting another OP. 

 

Considering the production cost is approx. 250€ for a 700€ phone, I'm pretty sure there are better ways to make circumstances in production better. 

When you make it 500€ production cost and still sell for 700€ the company still makes a ton of money but people get a better life and I'd much rather pay 700€ when I know it doesn't all go into Samsungs/apples/whatever wallet. 

 

I'm well aware that the phones would be incredibly expensive when someone from EU or US made them. You also have to bear in mind that other countries life cheaper. With my salary some Chinese rice field worker could probably retire after a month while I will be able to just pay my rent and some buy food. 

They live cheaper? Are you kidding me? 

 

You are saying this as if the same quality products you buy in the west simply cost less in that country. 

 

Their quality standard is incredibly low and that is the reason why the production cost is so low.

 

Samsung, Apple and Co. are only making such a high profits because we are stupid enough to buy their products. So either we pay more and make sure that the money goes to the people that need it to equalize our life standards or we simply don't buy any products anymore to send the large companies a message to increase production cost like you said. 

 

I don't see anything like that happening, as we are all blind egoistic sheeps and as long as we don't acknowledge that we will keep driving this planet and our species into pure chaos nothing will change. 

 

Maybe artificial intelligence is going to safe us as robots are hopefully smarter than us.

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, Senzelian said:

They live cheaper? Are you kidding me? 

 

You are saying this as if the same quality products you buy in the west simply cost less in that country. 

Their cost of living and purchasing power is lower. 

 

Huawei devices cost less to buy in China and it's the same devices.

 

China can produce both crap and high quality products. Depends on how much you want to pay for production and how high you want to set the bar.

 

I'm just gonna ignore the rest.

[michaelocarroll007]

5 hours ago, FloRolf said:

Can we please stop with the ridiculous pricing of phones? 

Like I bought my 3T for 450€ and it does pretty much everything it needs to. Good phones for that money are getting rare though. 

Yeah Prices of good phones were going down in a way that middle gap of 250-500 USD was getting a bunch of great phones Axon 7 and One plus mainly as the leaders. with very little if any compromises. Now that phones are geting to the $850-$1000 mark S8+ Note Iphone X this middle tier seems to be diapering aswell.  im sort of in the market and the Note 8 is on sale at Tmobile at $620 Plus fees and taxes and its the better of the deals ive found for a flagship type phone. really wish the pixel 2xl or lg v30 were closer to $600  but  just a few years ago you could get new Samsung phones and Apple for $550-650 launch day. 

[Ekst4zy]

8 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

translucent finish

Damn, I kinda want one just because if this   That coil looks kinda sick lol.

[Senzelian]

5 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Their cost of living and purchasing power is lower. 

 

Huawei devices cost less to buy in China and it's the same devices.

 

China can produce both crap and high quality products. Depends on how much you want to pay for production and how high you want to set the bar.

 

I'm just gonna ignore the rest.

I guess you didn't know that the average wage in China is 5x lower than what it is for example in Germany and as you can hopefully guess, a Huawei phone is not 5x cheaper in China than here.

Nice try to justify our blind post-industrial society tho! 

 

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

What a naive opinion

You need to spend a month in one of Apple or Samsung's factories in China. How do you think the slave lords treat their workers when they are not of the same race? 

You think that the cheap production of those devices only affects the people that are hired directly by those companys?

That is naive!

[ashypanda]

it probably isn't getting launched in the US thanks to the google HTC partnership, as not to take sales from one another, and is probably why it's on any UK networks, but if anyone in the US wants it they can just import it from europe

[TVwazhere]

AS an original owner of the M7 and M9, I was looking for the U11 to blow me away. Got the S8+ when I found it's screen, camera and lack of features wasnt to my liking. Now I see this? *buyers remorse intensifies*

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I'll still bemoan the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack

*brushes hands* Well, glad that feel trip is over.

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, Senzelian said:

I guess you didn't know that the average wage in China is 5x lower than what it is for example in Germany and as you can hopefully guess, a Huawei phone is not 5x cheaper in China than here.

Nice try to justify our blind post-industrial society tho! 

 

You think that the cheap production of those devices only affects the people that are hired directly by those companys?

That is naive!

Now you're just embarrassing yourself.

 

Obviously they're not gonna put a price tag that's below their BoM costs.

 

I won't feed the troll and his agenda any further. Good luck though.

[Senzelian]

10 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Now you're just embarrassing yourself.

 

Obviously they're not gonna put a price tag that's below their BoM costs.

 

I won't feed the troll and his agenda any further. Good luck though.

Typical comment of a braindead blind zombie...

Sad when you run out of arguments.

Btw, nice try feeling superior by clicking that "funny"-response

[Suika]

Oh boy, a phone without a US launch date. Once it finally launches the hype'll be dead and I'll have something else anyway LOL. 

 

Wonder when HTC will kick the can?

[dizmo]

14 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I’m actually very tempted to try this.

I don’t like having no jack, but nearly everything else about this is an A+ to me.

 

Big ass battery, clean build of Android, launches with Oreo, great camera, etc.

Yeah, their camera is pretty solid. Kind of wish they'd made it a dual camera set up but I imagine that's something we'll see with their next phone, provided they continue to make them. I love the translucent look but wish it was a little less tinted. If you're going to make it translucent let us see more!

[D13H4RD]

FUN FACT: Apparently, this was the original Pixel 2 XL as reported by The Verge

 

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The Verge has confirmed with a source familiar with HTC and Google’s tumultuous recent history that the U11 Plus, the device freshly announced this morning, is indeed the muskie handset that Google rejected in favor of the LG alternative. Not in its original Google-approved form, of course, but the core design and engineering that we see presented under the HTC brand today was essentially done to build the next Google Pixel XL.