HTC has taken the veils off its new flagship phone of the year, the U12+. And the device does make a strong case for itself in a world of flagship me-toos where almost all have identical specs and to some extent, even looks.
So its really refreshing to see the new U12 to not have a notch of its own. Instead, the design can be considered quite conventional, with its slim bezels along the sides while the same along the top and bottom is reduced to just the bare minimum. Also, its an all-glass design with the rear featuring, in HTC-speak, cold polished 3D glass. That makes the rear to have a super polished surface, and it looks really cool.
The rear panel edges are curved too, which together with the polished surface makes the device quite a looker. The sides meanwhile also comply with Edge Sense technology which allows the sides to be squeezed to serve different functionalities. In fact, it’s Edge Sense 2 that the phone supports so that one has the option to tap, squeeze or hold on to the sides to make the phone act accordingly. Those, in turn, can be to launch an app, the digital assistant and so on which otherwise would have required navigating via the display.
Another likeable aspect with the touch sensitive sides on the U12 is that it can make out if the user is onto reading something. In that case, it will lock the screen orientation and will prevent the display to get into landscape mode even if the device is moved a bit.
Coming to the specs, that again is in line with what is expected of a 2018 flagship phone. That includes a Snapdragon 845 chipset at the core duly complemented by an Adreno 630 GPU. Then there also is a 6 GB RAM along with storage configuration of 64 GB and 128 GB, with the option to another 2 TB via microSD cards.
The U12+ also boasts of twin front and rear cameras. The front setup comprises of 8 MP sensors of ƒ/2.0 aperture havng an 84-degree wide field of view. The rear does with a 12 MP wide-angle sensor of the ƒ/1.75 aperture along with another 16 MP telephoto sensor of the ƒ/2.6 aperture. There is a dual LED flash as well while the rear camera also benefits from OIS, HDR Boost 2, phase detection and laser autofocus technologies.
The U12 also comes with an IP68 rating for dust and water ingress and runs Android 8.0 Oreo. Further, a 3500mAh battery lights things up though there is no wireless charging support. Up front, it is a 6.0-inch Super LCD 6 display having an aspect ratio of 18:9 and is lit up by 2,880 x 1,140 pixels.
Then there is the BoomSound support as well for superior quality audio, something that makes every HTC flagship so special. Available color options include titanium black, flame red, and translucent blue, with the last offering a sneak peek of sorts into the interior of the device.
The U12 can already be pre-ordered right away and is priced $799 and $849 for the 64 GB and 128 GB versions of the phone respectively.
