GLAMMED UP
With fancy new features, HTC U Ultra aims to enter the big league dominated by Google’s Pixel and Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus.
HTC has a knack for designing good looking smartphones ( remember HTC One?). With the U Ultra, it has tried to innovate yet again by introducing a ‘liquid’ design – blending polished metal and glass beautifully. While this renders a soft, glossy finish to the rear, it ends up becoming a fingerprint magnet. The rear is so glossy that it could double up as a mirror!
My review unit in sapphire blue did not look impressive but the 5.7- inch quad- HD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 in deep black looked stunning. Watching videos and playing games were a delight on this vibrant display. HTC has added a secondary display on the top right corner. This can be used for accessing notifications, music player controls, weather forecast, apps shortcuts, favourite contacts, and even setting up personal reminders. An option in the settings lets you choose if you want to keep the secondary display on when the main screen is not, which is a handy feature, but not necessary. Just below the display is the home button with fingerprint scanner that does a good job at unlocking the device.
This flagship smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip paired with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of onboard storage. While setting up the device, an option allows you to select third- party apps such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp from the PlayStore that get installed as the set-up is complete.
HTC smartphones come with a customised Sense UI. A BlinkFeed, essentially a content feed and aggregation suite, appears when swiped right from the home screen. HTC’s Sense Companion, similar to Google Assistant, will be available sometime later. It also supports voice recognition for unlocking the phone and making calls when the phone is asleep. Overall, the device doesn’t show any signs of lag and handles heavy graphic games and apps easily.
Another highlight of this phone is its camera. It packs in a 12- MP ‘UltraPixel’ camera at the rear and a 16- MP ‘UltraPixel’ camera at the front. Both are capable of capturing some spectacular shots in well-lit surroundings and decent images in low light. HTC has discarded the 3.5-mm jack. Its USonic headphones can be connected using the Type- C port. USonic, the company claims, can customise the sound output to suit one’s ears. A big flaw is the inability of its 3,000-mAh battery to last a day. ~