REVIEW: HTC U11 Life - Android One "Squeeze" Phone By OSReviews

They'll cure OS reviews you're watching our video review of the HTC: u 11 life! This is an Android 1 smartphone that came out at the end of 2017. So it's now a couple of months old. The reason why we're taking a look at this phone now is because recently we did a review on the Xiaomi me a to light another Android 1 device that is very popular and currently sells for about a hundred and seventy bucks. I really enjoyed this phone. It was my first Android 1 device and what that means is we got a very clean, vanilla, build of Android that doesn't have any bloatware at all, and you have guaranteed updates for three years down the road, so it doesn't have any custom launcher or skin. On top of the Android experience.

So I wanted to take a look at another Android one phone and stumbled upon this. When the phone first came out, it retailed for 350 bucks, which I think is a little too expensive, especially as a mid-end device sense. HTC haven't been doing too well. Lately, I think this device needed to be priced more aggressively to have sold well design, wise though it is a very striking phone and for sure it's more interesting to look at on the back than the a to light, which has just a matte aluminum finish the finish on the? U 11 life is very similar to the U 11, which was HTC's flagship a year ago and even the new. U 12 series embodies the same finish: it's a beautiful kind of shifting effect where, as you tilt it against the light, it creates different, colors and patterns, but whereas a more premium, u 11 and u 12 use a Gorilla Glass.

The back on this is actually made out of acrylic, so it looks like glass, but it's actually just plastic, but still feels reasonably sturdy. What's interesting is by cutting a few corners in the build, such as using plastic instead of glassmaking the rim also plastic instead of aluminum HTC, were able to put more effort into other features, including the fact that this is actually waterproof. So you can submerge in water for 30 minutes, and it will survive, which is a feat I, don't think many other phones can bring at an ends price. The price point of this device has now fallen to about a hundred and fifty bucks, so you can find out on Amazon and eBay, which puts it square to square against a. A to light other unique features, including the squeeze gestures, an edge sense that was borrowed from the premium u11 are found here as well.

Essentially, you can squeeze the sides of the phone applying various amounts of pressure to launch into various different apps. We have a 16 megapixel camera on the back with Auto HDR and a single LED flash. Now it is a single camera compared to the dual lens setup of many of the newer phones now, but keep in mind that the Google Pixel phones also only have a single lens design. So dual lens isn't everything there's a lot of software algorithms that goes into making an image? Look perfect and I. Think some of Google's magic because HTC were their official partner in making the pixel devices kind of rubbed off on them, because for a few years now, HTC have stumbled on photography, but they've finally rebound their ground.

In my opinion- and this is a good example of that- because as a mid-end phone, the image quality really is super, super impressive. We also have a Snapdragon 630 chipset, which is ever so slightly more powerful than the Snapdragon 625 on a 2 light. Now, arguably, the worst feature of the 11 life is going to be the design on the front because it's utterly boring by 2018 standards. What we see here is a very traditional 16 by 9 aspect ratio display, and on top of that it has one of the largest bottom shins or bezels I had seen out of any device. Although bezel size really isn't everything I would say that by having a smaller bezel, you get a more pocketable phone so from a design perspective I'm just a little baffled.

That gen is also a little larger than on the regular u11, which has a slightly larger display as well. Otherwise, the phone itself again in terms of the software is running on android 1, which is again a huge benefit because we'll be seeing updates to Android Pi in a few weeks. In addition to whatever comes next. This is a luxury, the fact that you're guaranteed security, patches and future OS updates on a device like this, and it keeps the phone running very smooth and fast as well so on. Here we have 0 blows where nothing from HTC at all, just the standard of Google Apps, including maps YouTube, there's a Play Store at this point.

I also want to pause and inject a piece of information which is the 11. Life is the phone that was actually on T-Mobile support in the US, so there's a variant that you may find more commonly if you're buying it on eBay, for instance, but that model does not come with enjoyed one. It has the exact same specs, the exact same design, but it uses HTC Sense, which, although is one of the cleaner Android skins I, definitely prefer Android one because you'll be seeing more updates, and it's more stock. So I would personally be a bit more careful if you're picking this up in the U. S.

be sure to shop around and try to find one of the international versions or European or Asian versions that has Android one onboard otherwise, the front also houses a 16 megapixel selfie camera that also performs very well a year piece. There is a proximity and LED status, light down below on the chin. We do have a fingerprint scanner which, by the way, is very fast it's faster than the one on the a2 light in my testing so far, it also serves as a home key and has haptic vibration, but it doesn't physically press down there's also a back key and a multitasking key for switching back and forth between apps, alright, since I've raved about the camera. So much. Let's take a look at that.

First, you can double tap on the power key to instantly launch into it, so you can snap a shot even when the devices screen is turned off just instantly tapping on this twice will launch into the camera very quickly. Shutter speed is very fast, and you also have the ability to change between a few modes such as auto HDR flash settings. You can pull down here to capture a panorama. There is 4k video recording as well, which is great, but you only get stabilization when capturing in full HD and the stabilization is done through software. It's not obstacle, but it's surprisingly good.

In fact, it's almost as clean as a pixels video camera, so that is extremely impressive flowers and branches. Again, a lot of detail and very vivid and accurate, looking colors again display here is also great. It might not be. You know the most bezel-less experience, but 5.2 inches is still quite comfortable and some additional kind of photo samples here again captured using auto HDR. You can tell how well details represented the sky looks nice.

We can see some details of the clouds, but all the textures and shadows of things up close are still captured, really well. Here's an example of the hyperlapse, so you can actually use software to edit it afterwards, including changing the speed-up, so we can have six times or twelve times speed up, but you can tell how, even though I'm capturing this with my hands, it looks very stable and here's just some video captured while sitting in a car moving up and down in caning I'm, actually trying to shake a little. But you can tell how the image is again, just very, very smooth, so it seems like you're using a gimbals or something, and as long as there is still a little of light outside, it can still do quite well. If you hold still, as you can see here in this night, shot is using the auto HDR boosting to still do a nice job. The people are starting to blur a little as they walk, but the landscape, as well as the buildings are still very well captured in terms of their detail.

Colors also look very natural, so I can squeeze once, for instance, to launch into the camera. I have that set up in the settings, but you can tweak that if you want to go into a different application, I've also got it set up. So I can squeeze very gently to take an image just like that, and you can also long squeeze for a few seconds to flip over to the front-facing camera there. So again, a lot of interesting tricks that you can so a thousand you track their takeaway is that the audio quality is decent. Now, it's not going to give you boom sound speakers a little unfortunate, because HTC used to do that, even on their cheaper desire line of phones, but you only get one single firing speaker on the bottom, but at least it does get plenty loud.

However, one saving grace is bundled with this phone, at least, if you buy new, is HTC's. You sonic headphones, they're, Type, C, digital headphones, that offer active noise cancellation and the selling point here is it's gonna, be custom, mapped to your sound profile. You've got a prompt that says HTC, you sonic with active noise cancellation. Furthermore, you tap on this, and it takes about 30 seconds to initiate initialize, and then it will try and map out your sound profile. So whether you want the volume to be a little higher a little lower, whether you know your environment is really loud or if it's quiet, it's gonna, remember those and save it as your profile, and it really does work next.

Let's take a quick look at the web browsing experience. So as aforementioned the Snapdragon 630 chipset performs actually very well because the 625 is already a processor that I think will exceed many people's expectations of mid-end smartphones. So the 630 is even a step above that not quite at the same level of the 636, which was released a few months afterwards. Nor is it as fast as the snapdragon 660, but it still delivers very smooth scrolling even on complex sites like the New York Times. Let's try another complex site such as C net and load up the full desktop site.

We can tell that it loads up very quickly. So that's one of the benefits of having a mostly plastic phone is the reception. Quality is excellent. So let's talk a little more about that edge sense, which makes the HTC u series so interesting. Now some people think it's a gimmick but apparently Google liked it so much.

They implemented it on the pixel too, and the upcoming pixel 3 is rumored to have that feature retained. So under edge sense settings you can actually customize the app that you want. For instance, a short squeeze right now is the camera. I can also have a long squeeze, which is for the assistant, so I can long squeeze right now, like that, and it's gonna pop up, Google Assistant and I can also adjust the squeeze force level. So this is a calibration measure when you first get the phone in the form of a threshold that you have to pass in order for the phone to recognize it as that proper squeeze.

The good thing is, if you have a soft carrying case, which, by the way HD also includes in the box, you can still access the squeeze features, because it's soft enough for the pressure to still be applied without any issues there, because it is running on stock, android.8.0 again, we do have all the nice additions of Oreo, such as the swipe up gesture to pull up the drawer, which is very sleek, and we have contextual menus. So I can long hold on certain apps to take a look at their settings, such as Gmail here to compose an email instantly, so shortcuts can also be appeared by long-pressing call quality on the HTC. You 11 life is also great because again, reception quality is super strong, there's, multiple microphones for noise cancellation. So your voice comes across loud and clear, so there's really no complaints there when it comes to making phone calls really well. The only side downside of this particular phone is probably gonna, be the battery life.

We've got a 2600 William hour capacity pack underneath, so that sounds again quite small by 2018 standards. It does have a smaller screen, though, and it has again a very energy-efficient, Snapdragon 630 processor, which certainly helps you know in standby mode. With the phone's display turn off. It can last a surprisingly long time over five days and my testing, but if you're using it regularly or heavily, it's going to die within a day and a half, so you have to charge it fairly, frequently not quite as long-lasting as Heaney a to light, which has that crazy 4000 million power packs, but it's also a lot of lighter and the type-c port ensures pretty fast top-up speeds when you do need to charge it up again. I didn't encounter any crashes or delays really in my testing period with this particular handset and ran management also seems to be quite good, even though we have a quite a few open right now.

In the background, it supports, split screen view and all those other extras the Oreo brings as well. So that's pretty much it as far as our revisited kind of review of the HTC. U 11 life here at the end of 2018, even though this phone is only a few months old. Many people have already forgotten that it existed, which is sad because HTC used to be a dominant force in this mobile industry, but they've been staggering over the past few years, but the u11 life I think is a device that's worth remembering in the collection of Android one phones, because at 150 bucks street price. Now it is a definite deal.

HTC were able to squeeze in more features that I think many consumers would actually prefer, including full waterproofing NFC, a type C port that supports quick charging as well as excellent audio quality. So there's a lot of interesting elements to this phone, including that squeeze, which again just makes it different from other mid-end handsets on the market. So you can check out more details in the links down below, but I pretty much would spin our video thanks for watching care, OS reviews that spin, our video review of the HTC. U 11 life, the Android one Edition smartphone from HTC.

Source : OSReviews