HTC U11 preview: The phone you can SQUEEZE! By Android Central

- Is squeezing your phone the next big thing in mobile? HTC certainly thinks so. Its new flagship phone is built around this simple but convenient gesture. But this phone is much more than just a quirky, gimmicky shortcut feature. There's also a beautiful, shimmering liquid glass design encasing hardware that'll provide you all the power you crave, along with upgraded camera and audio hardware. Hit that subscribe button and get ready for a first look preview, I'm Alex with Android Central and this is the HTC U11. (upbeat music) As good as last year's HTC 10 was, one common criticism was that it was just a bit bland.

There wasn't much there beyond the core formula of metal body plus latest specs, and HTC seems to have taken that on board when designing the U11. As the name suggests, this is the direct successor to the 10, but it's also a member of the new HTC U family, which started with the U Play, and the U Ultra back in January, but honestly forget those phones. The U11 is where the HTC U brand story should have begun. The design is considerable refinement of the liquid glass aesthetic that HTC introduced earlier in the year, with no ugly protrusions or moulded plastic joins, just metal flowing into glass in a way that's a bit more organic even than Samsung's current design language. There are five gorgeous, shimmering colours here.

The blue, black and white that we know from the U Ultra, and two absolutely stunning new hues that literally change colour as you tilt them through the light. Amazing silver shifts between a sky blue and a silvery grey, and solar red, my personal favourite, flickers from a fiery blood-red to a brilliant gold. HTC has gone all out on making the U11 eye-catching and vibrant, but not obnoxiously so. And the result is a design that still pictures can't do justice to. As much as HTC is advancing its design language this year, it's also dismissing one of the major trends of smart phones in 2017.

The U11 is a traditionally shaped 16 by nine slab with a definite forehead and chin to it. This definitely has its advantages though. I can reach the top of the notification shape with ease every time on the U11, and the fingerprint scanner is right there on the front where I can touch it reliably without fumbling around. It's also just the right size, at least for me. There's a 5.5 inch screen diagonal and off-screen keys, so you don't lose any of that space to buttons. Nevertheless, when you compare it to the futuristic front face of the Galaxy S8, it looks very much like a smart phone of the present, or maybe even the past.

There's basically no difference between the front of the U11, and say, and HTC 10 or HTC Bolt from last year. Not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not the most exciting front face out there, and it is shaping up to be a very competitive year in smart phone design. So, specs, HTC has hit all the necessary points for a current high-end handset, Quad HD screen resolution from a SuperLCD five panel. Snapdragon 835, four gigs of ram, 64 gigs of storage. There's also a six plus 128 model in some regions.

That's pegged with a 3,000 milli Amp power battery, QuickCharge 3 and IP 67 water and dust resistance. Like many other recent HTC Phones, there's no headphone jack, but they will at least include a USB c to 3.5 mm dongle in the box this time. HTC's camera optics also get an upgrade, with an UltaPixel 3 sensor for faster focusing behind a brighter lens. More on that later. But let's talk about something you won't find on most spec sheets, edge sense.

This is the big marketing shtick for this phone. Its ability to sense squeezes on the metal trim, and do, well, whatever you want it to. You squeeze the sides of the phone, and it responds with a short buzz and then stuff happens. Many of HTC's own apps have edge sense options built in. In the camera app, for instance, it'll take a photo with a short squeeze or switch to selfie mode with a longer squeeze.

You can configure how edge sense works the rest of the time in the setting menu, or simply turn it off if it bugs you. The demo units I played with were set up to launch the camera with a sort squeeze, or hop into Google Assistant with a longer squeeze. For other Android apps, HTC will release an add-on tool shortly after the U11 launches that'll let you map certain functions to third party apps without the developer having to do anything to enable that. And there's this whole set up process, so you can calibrate the phone to your own squeeze level, so hopefully accidental squeezes won't be a problem. Not something I ever expected to say in a video, there.

Anyway, this is pretty neat, and it's easy to see how such a simple gesture could be useful. For example if you're wearing gloves or using the phone around water. But is it really more convenient than just another button? That's gonna take some time to judge, and it's something we'll get to in out full review. I mentioned one AI already, Google Assistant, but HTC getting ready to make the U11 a hub for personal assistants. Amazon's Alexa will come to the U11 in the UK, US, and Germany shortly after launch, and integration with more assistants is planned for later, with each one having equal access to wake up commands and edge sense.

The idea here is that different AI's are better at different things, which is all well and good, but it's also possible this could turn into a confusing mess if it's not handled right. And of course there's also HTC sense companion, which is about to get more proactive, with new skills to let you adjust alarms on holidays or when you have early meetings or optimise your app usage. Sense companion still won't do voice. Instead, HTC says it's focused on device intelligence, and sense companion was basically useless on the U Ultra, so any improvement here is welcome. The rest of the U11 software experience is basically unchanged from our last experience of HTC sense on the U Ultra.

The biggest difference here being that it's now based on the newer Android 7.1.1. Same old HTC apps. Still a little tired-looking. Blink feed over there on the left to bring you news, and the same HTC launcher phone messages and weather apps that we all know very well by now. That's perfectly fine if you like a clean, simple, stock Android aesthetic, but it is left looking a little bland next to Samsung's new, space-age UI.

On the imaging side, HTC's UltraPixel brand reaches its third generation. It's still a 12 megapixel sensor with both optical and electronic image stabilisation. The pixel size takes a step down to 1.4 microns, while the lens itself is a brighter F 1.7 aperture. On paper then it matches up with the Samsung Galaxy S8's main camera. HTC does have some unique camera tricks up its sleeve, though.

It's built out a super fast ultra speed AF feature, which can focus in as little as.3 seconds, even without laser air, and HTR boost, a new always-on lag-free HDR feature. Sounds like HTC's take on the Google Pixel's HDR plus mode. Image processing was one of the U Ultra's weaknesses, so it's great to see HTC getting properly stuck into computational photography here. That's more important than ever in a 2017 flagship. And around the front the 16 megapixel F 2.0 selfie camera from the U Ultra returns, complete with UltraPixel low light mode, for lower resolution but clearer night shots. Backed up by the Snapdragon 835's improved ISP.

We'll have to wait and see on actual image quality. I've only had very brief amount of time with the phone so far, but all the hardware and software's there, so there's a good chance the U 11 will be able to go toe to toe with the best. HTC needs eye-catching, unique stuff to drum up some excitement around its brand and its phones and its brand this year, both of which have been flagging for the past couple of release cycles. But this year it has something shiny, that dazzling liquid metal back, and something squeezy in edge sense. That's the improvement for sure.

It gives HTC's marketers something to work with, and it gives potential customers a reason to pause before automatically buying a Galaxy S8. And even if you think edge sense is a gimmick, which it may well be, the fundamentals are all there. Leading-edge specs, water resistance, potentially great camera, and upgraded audio. So it's a very promising start for HTC. Stay tuned, and look out for our full review soon.

In the meantime, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the latest Android reviews and opinions as they land. Thanks for watching, and I'll see ya next time.

Source : Android Central