HTC’s new flagship U Ultra offers ultra slick mirror finish, AI, secondary display and removes headphone jack
HTC’s eponymous HTC 10 phone last year was not only a looker, it was also quite a performer too and remains one of the few, if not the only phone that integrates optical image stabilisation for the front-facing selfie camera. This time around, HTC is offering a new spin on things with the rollout of their new HTC U Ultra that has just seen its official Malaysia launch yesterday.
The HTC U Ultra is their latest flagship phone and sports a new design language which ditches the HTC 10’s industrial looking burnished metal look and goes for a beautiful pearlescent glass finish in one of four different colours – pink, blue and black. The other interesting addition that makes the phone stand out is the addition of a secondary rectangular 2-inch, 160 x 1040 pixel screen that perches just about the 5.7-inch 1,440 x 2,560 513ppi primary display. The secondary screen displays notifications, shortcuts to contacts and the like.
One particularly interesting addition to the U Ultra is an onboard learning AI dubbed the Sense Companion that attempts to learn usage patterns while also staying constantly tuned to voice commands via four mikes spaced throughout the slim chassis that are always-on; quite an achievement seeing as it’s only 8mm thin. The AI helps to preempt you on notifications from important people in your life, reminding you the best time to give the phone a charge or offering lifestyle related stuff like giving you a heads-up if it’s going to rain later in the day. The Sense Companion is also able to take a series of voice commands too like unlocking your phone, taking or cancelling calls or sending texts.
In terms of hardware, the U Ultra comes with a very respectable flagship-class spec sheet: Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. The rear comes with a 12-MP camera with an F/1.8 aperture, optical image stabilisation, larger 1.55 micro pixels on the camera sensor as well as phase detection autofocus and the ability to capture 4K video. The front has a 16-MP selfie camera with an UltraPixel mode for low light shots. All this is powered by a non-removable 3,000mAh battery that supports Quick Charge 3.0 tech juiced by a USB Type C port.
The smaller and more affordable HTC U Play comes with a similar mirrored pearlescent finish as the U Ultra albeit in black or white and a slightly different set of hardware while retaining the front facing 16-MP F/2.0 camera with Ultrapixel mode. The rest of the hardware consists of a 5.2-inch 1080P display, a MediaTek Helio P10 octacore, 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. The rear 16-M camera has a BSI sensor, optical image stabilisation and phase detection autofocus albeit with smaller sized pixels than the flagship U Ultra with the ability to capture up to 1080P video.
Both the U Play and U Ultra lack an audio jack. Instead, it’ll come bundled with a USonic earphone that connects to the phone via the USB Type-C port. Apparently, the earphones have mikes built in that ‘listen’ for sonic pulses and which then adjust audio output to match the architecture of your inner ear for better sound. More details on how it works once we give it a field test with a production unit.
The HTC U Ultra will retail in four colour options – Brilliant Black, Cosmetic Pink and Sapphire Blue for RM2,999 while the HTC U Play will retail in Black Oil and Iceberg White for RM1,899. Both should hit stores sometime in March in Malaysia this year though online retailers have yet to be announced as yet.
Chia-Lin Chang, the President of Smartphones and Connected Devices Business of HTC at the Malaysia launch of the HTC U series phones