Tajuk : HTC’s newest phone is gorgeous, squeezable, and will have Amazon’s Alexa assistant built in
link : HTC’s newest phone is gorgeous, squeezable, and will have Amazon’s Alexa assistant built in
HTC’s newest phone is gorgeous, squeezable, and will have Amazon’s Alexa assistant built in
Jeff Dunn/Business Insider
The HTC U 11.
HTC on Tuesday announced its latest high-end smartphone, the HTC U 11.
The newest flagship from the Taiwanese phone maker doesn’t come off like a groundbreaking upgrade from past HTC phones at first blush, but it does pack a host of little things worth noting.
I was able to spend a short time with the HTC U 11 prior to its launch on Tuesday. Here’s a rundown of my initial impressions:
• It’s gorgeous. The HTC U 11 is still a rectangle, but its all-glass back has a sheen to it that immediately catches the eye. Each finish is nice and deep — especially that dark blue — and light dances right off it.
• The way that back curves into the metal sides furthers its “object of desire” vibe. Those metal sides are sturdy, the camera bump isn’t big, and the whole thing is fairly thin. The phone has a little bit of heft to it, but again, that helps the device feel expensive.
• That said, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has made it so that any phone without a super-wide display looks dated. The U 11’s side bezels are slim enough, but there’s a good deal of “not-screen” space on the top and bottom. It’s still attractive, but mostly by yesterday’s standards.
• It’s also a fingerprint magnet. Seriously, the mere thought of touching this phone is likely to smudge it. It’s likely to be slippery, too.
• The phone is IP67 water-resistant. That’s table stakes today, but the HTC 10 didn’t have it.
• If you’re wondering about the name: HTC recently switched its top-end phones to the “U” branding — seen with this year’s HTC U Ultra, for instance — but this phone is the successor to last year’s hero device, the HTC 10. So HTC mashed the two names together: U 11.
• There’s no headphone jack, which is still annoying. The U 11 isn’t the thinnest phone around, so ditching the jack isn’t saving that much space. And keeping it wouldn’t preclude you from using Bluetooth or USB-C. The U Ultra didn’t have it either, though, so at least HTC is consistent. And there is a 3.5mm dongle in the box.
• HTC is also throwing a pair of noise-cancelling USB-C earbuds in the box. I wasn’t able to test them, but HTC says the earbuds are able to customize their sound to the shape of your ear. Whatever the case, if you’re going to push the jack away, emphasizing what its replacement does well — noise-cancelling over USB-C doesn’t require a separate battery — is a good way to go about it.
• It’ll have actual Alexa support baked in. Huawei technically added Amazon’s assistant to its Mate 9 phone earlier this year, but only through a separate app. HTC says the U 11 will work with Alexa the same way an Echo does — just say the wake word, and you can talk to it. This is kind of a big deal!
• How much Alexa can actually do on the U 11 isn’t totally clear, though. It’ll be more limited than the Echo, at least to start — HTC exec Nigel Newby-House says the company is still developing the software with Amazon, and that Alexa will be implemented into the U 11 through an update sometime in the first month after the phone comes out.
• From there, some Alexa features will be included to start, while others will not. Newby-House says the company is looking at “the most popular Alexa experiences” and working to add those to the U 11 for future updates. There will be some level of smart home control, but don’t expect the U 11 to fully replicate an Echo just yet.
• Alexa on the U 11 will be available in the US, UK, and Germany.
• The whole thing runs on the latest Android 7.1, so Google Assistant is still there as well. HTC also has its own Sense Companion helper. I think this plurality is a good thing; if you don’t want to use an assistant, just don’t call on it. But it’s also not hard to see how things could get messy in terms of app support and such.
• The other big software feature is called Edge Sense. This lets you squeeze the lower sides of the device to quickly launch various actions on the phone. You can use this to open the camera app, write a text using your voice, take a screenshot, turn on the flashlight, open Google Assistant or Alexa, activate any app on the phone, and so on, mapping whatever you want to a long press and a short press.
• Think of this like the kind of “convenience key” that’s popped up in various phones in recent months, only without the need for a physical button. HTC thinks this solution is more useful since it doesn’t ask you to reach halfway up the phone to activate it.
• The company says this’ll work with any pressure at all, so you can, say, activate it with gloves on. You can also set the level of pressure needed to start the feature.
• The trick itself worked fine the few times I tried it, but I’ll have to use it more regularly to see how comfortable it really is in day-to-day use.
• The rest of HTC’s software skin is virtually unchanged. It’s not as clean as Google’s default Android, but it’s fine. Since it’s not made by Google, it’ll mean the usual delays in software and security updates.
• Battery life will be something to watch. The 5.5-inch display pushes a 1440p resolution — it looked great, by the way — and the battery powering those pixels is 3,000mAh. HTC says it’ll get through a full day, but I’d expect it to be fairly average. The phone does support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging standard, at least.
• HTC is talking up the 12-megapixel main camera. The company says it should be a little bit better in low-light settings, with faster focus and a more vibrant HDR mode as well. At its best, the HTC 10’s camera was great, so there’s reason to be hopeful here.
• The 16-megapixel, wide-angle lens on the front seems unusually powerful.
• The speakers seem really loud. There are four microphones onboard, too, which should help with the various digital helpers on the phone.
• The U 11 runs on the latest Snapdragon 835 chipset, with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. There’s an option with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, too. There’s no Bluetooth 5 a la the Galaxy S8, but this should be one of the fastest phones on the market at launch.
• Here’s the rub: To start, the U 11 will be exclusive to Sprint, whose network isn’t exactly robust next to the other three carriers in the US. There, it’ll cost $696 and be available on June 9.
• If you don’t use Sprint, I’d recommend the unlocked model. That costs $649, is available to pre-order on Tuesday, and will be available in June as well. That’ll also support AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
HTC’s phone business is struggling these days, and it’s hard for me to say the U 11 will turn things around. Directly competing with Apple and Samsung is just incredibly tough in the West, and there’s little in the U 11 that really reaches out and grabs you. The Alexa support sounds big, but I’d expect that feature to hit more phones before long.
The company isn’t oblivious to this. Newby-House pitches the U 11 as a superior alternative to LG’s G6 and other devices that may appeal to Android users bored with the usual iPhones and Galaxy phones. But that’s a relatively small market. HTC has fallen to its current point by following the same strategy it seems to be doing now.
Still, the U 11 has the makings of a fast, featured, and good-looking phone. For a consumer, there’s always room for that.
We’ll have more on the HTC U 11 before it arrives in June.
Read more stories on Business Insider, Malaysian edition of the world’s fastest-growing business and technology news website.
✍ Sumber Pautan : ☕ Business InsiderBusiness Insider
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Jeff Dunn/Business Insider
The HTC U 11.
HTC on Tuesday announced its latest high-end smartphone, the HTC U 11.
The newest flagship from the Taiwanese phone maker doesn’t come off like a groundbreaking upgrade from past HTC phones at first blush, but it does pack a host of little things worth noting.
I was able to spend a short time with the HTC U 11 prior to its launch on Tuesday. Here’s a rundown of my initial impressions:
• It’s gorgeous. The HTC U 11 is still a rectangle, but its all-glass back has a sheen to it that immediately catches the eye. Each finish is nice and deep — especially that dark blue — and light dances right off it.
• The way that back curves into the metal sides furthers its “object of desire” vibe. Those metal sides are sturdy, the camera bump isn’t big, and the whole thing is fairly thin. The phone has a little bit of heft to it, but again, that helps the device feel expensive.
• That said, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has made it so that any phone without a super-wide display looks dated. The U 11’s side bezels are slim enough, but there’s a good deal of “not-screen” space on the top and bottom. It’s still attractive, but mostly by yesterday’s standards.
• It’s also a fingerprint magnet. Seriously, the mere thought of touching this phone is likely to smudge it. It’s likely to be slippery, too.
• The phone is IP67 water-resistant. That’s table stakes today, but the HTC 10 didn’t have it.
• If you’re wondering about the name: HTC recently switched its top-end phones to the “U” branding — seen with this year’s HTC U Ultra, for instance — but this phone is the successor to last year’s hero device, the HTC 10. So HTC mashed the two names together: U 11.
• There’s no headphone jack, which is still annoying. The U 11 isn’t the thinnest phone around, so ditching the jack isn’t saving that much space. And keeping it wouldn’t preclude you from using Bluetooth or USB-C. The U Ultra didn’t have it either, though, so at least HTC is consistent. And there is a 3.5mm dongle in the box.
• HTC is also throwing a pair of noise-cancelling USB-C earbuds in the box. I wasn’t able to test them, but HTC says the earbuds are able to customize their sound to the shape of your ear. Whatever the case, if you’re going to push the jack away, emphasizing what its replacement does well — noise-cancelling over USB-C doesn’t require a separate battery — is a good way to go about it.
• It’ll have actual Alexa support baked in. Huawei technically added Amazon’s assistant to its Mate 9 phone earlier this year, but only through a separate app. HTC says the U 11 will work with Alexa the same way an Echo does — just say the wake word, and you can talk to it. This is kind of a big deal!
• How much Alexa can actually do on the U 11 isn’t totally clear, though. It’ll be more limited than the Echo, at least to start — HTC exec Nigel Newby-House says the company is still developing the software with Amazon, and that Alexa will be implemented into the U 11 through an update sometime in the first month after the phone comes out.
• From there, some Alexa features will be included to start, while others will not. Newby-House says the company is looking at “the most popular Alexa experiences” and working to add those to the U 11 for future updates. There will be some level of smart home control, but don’t expect the U 11 to fully replicate an Echo just yet.
• Alexa on the U 11 will be available in the US, UK, and Germany.
• The whole thing runs on the latest Android 7.1, so Google Assistant is still there as well. HTC also has its own Sense Companion helper. I think this plurality is a good thing; if you don’t want to use an assistant, just don’t call
• The other big software feature is called Edge Sense. This lets you squeeze the lower sides of the device to quickly launch various actions on the phone. You can use this to open the camera app, write a text using your voice, take a screenshot, turn on the flashlight, open Google Assistant or Alexa, activate any app on the phone, and so on, mapping whatever you want to a long press and a short press.
• Think of this like the kind of “convenience key” that’s popped up in various phones in recent months, only without the need for a physical button. HTC thinks this solution is more useful since it doesn’t ask you to reach halfway up the phone to activate it.
• The company says this’ll work with any pressure at all, so you can, say, activate it with gloves on. You can also set the level of pressure needed to start the feature.
• The trick itself worked fine the few times I tried it, but I’ll have to use it more regularly to see how comfortable it really is in day-to-day use.
• The rest of HTC’s software skin is virtually unchanged. It’s not as clean as Google’s default Android, but it’s fine. Since it’s not made by Google, it’ll mean the usual delays in software and security updates.
• Battery life will be something to watch. The 5.5-inch display pushes a 1440p resolution — it looked great, by the way — and the battery powering those pixels is 3,000mAh. HTC says it’ll get through a full day, but I’d expect it to be fairly average. The phone does support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging standard, at least.
• HTC is talking up the 12-megapixel main camera. The company says it should be a little bit better in low-light settings, with faster focus and a more vibrant HDR mode as well. At its best, the HTC 10’s camera was great, so there’s reason to be hopeful here.
• The 16-megapixel, wide-angle lens on the front seems unusually powerful.
• The speakers seem really loud. There are four microphones onboard, too, which should help with the various digital helpers on the phone.
• The U 11 runs on the latest Snapdragon 835 chipset, with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. There’s an option with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, too. There’s no Bluetooth 5 a la the Galaxy S8, but this should be one of the fastest phones on the market at launch.
• Here’s the rub: To start, the U 11 will be exclusive to Sprint, whose network isn’t exactly robust next to the other three carriers in the US. There, it’ll cost $696 and be available on June 9.
• If you don’t use Sprint, I’d recommend the unlocked model. That costs $649, is available to pre-order on Tuesday, and will be available in June as well. That’ll also support AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
HTC’s phone business is struggling these days, and it’s hard for me to say the U 11 will turn things around. Directly competing with Apple and Samsung is just incredibly tough in the West, and there’s little in the U 11 that really reaches out and grabs you. The Alexa support sounds big, but I’d expect that feature to hit more phones before long.
The company isn’t oblivious to this. Newby-House pitches the U 11 as a superior alternative to LG’s G6 and other devices that may appeal to Android users bored with the usual iPhones and Galaxy phones. But that’s a relatively small market. HTC has fallen to its current point by following the same strategy it seems to be doing now.
Still, the U 11 has the makings of a fast, featured, and good-looking phone. For a consumer, there’s always room for that.
We’ll have more on the HTC U 11 before it arrives in June.
Read more stories on Business Insider, Malaysian edition of the world’s fastest-growing business and technology news website.
✍ Sumber Pautan : ☕ Business InsiderBusiness Insider
Kredit kepada pemilik laman asal dan sekira berminat untuk meneruskan bacaan sila klik link atau copy paste ke web server : http://ift.tt/2raZy7A
(✿◠‿◠)✌ Mukah Pages : Pautan Viral Media Sensasi Tanpa Henti. Memuat-naik beraneka jenis artikel menarik setiap detik tanpa henti dari pelbagai sumber. Selamat membaca dan jangan lupa untuk 👍 Like & 💕 Share di media sosial anda!
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