HTC U12+ : Review

The rear side of the HTC U12+, particularly the translucent Blue colored one, are pretty techie and hip! Seems like a Robot staring at you and is gonna convert into one of the Transformers anytime. Dual Cameras form the eyes of the Robotic face and dual-LED Flash resembles the nose and the Finger Print Sensor resembles the mouth.

Enter HTC U12+, the Only flagship launched in 2018 which does not have a notch design and it definitely has the “Live on the Edge” build. The phone highlights include – Pressure Sensitive Buttons, 4 Cameras, Ede Sense 2, UltraSpeed Autofocus 2, USonic earbuds, etc.

BODY: The dimensions of 156.6 x 73.9 x 8.7 mm put it right next to the OnePlus 6 and it weights approx 11 grams more at 188 grams. The phone has both front and rear Gorilla Glass 5 protection and has an Aluminium Frame. And is IP68 certified for both Dust and Water resistance upto 1.5 meters for upto 30 minutes.

HTC U12+ represents a total rethink of what’s possible to achieve in Smartphone design. The Pressure Sensitive Buttons show that phone can be built with no physical buttons at all. Also the Edge Sense 2.0 adds functionality to phone edges. The actions performed on the edges are customizable – Shot Squeeze, Long Squeeze, Double Tap on each side, etc. When the phone is held in right hand, a Double Tap on right edge will turn on Single Hand operation mode wherein the screen display shortens in width and height and orients to right side so that the whole screen is within reachable distance of the right thumb and vice versa. Quite a thoughtful feature, yet it is not very accurate in action and may get corrected with software updates.

As there are No real physical buttons anywhere on the phone body, the protruding surface looks like Power button and Volume Up / Down buttons. These are pressure sensitive surfaces on the right side of the phone. These pressure sensitive buttons give out vibrations feedback when pressed.

One gets to admire HTC U12+’s inner and outer beauty with the Translucent Blue color option. It gives out an intimate glimpse of the phone’s circuitry while the Blue color adds Mod Touch to the phone. And at the front one notices thinnest of side Bezels.

DISPLAY: The HTC U12+ has a 6.0 inch Super LCD6 capacitive touchscreen lashing out 1440 x 2880 pixels resolution. Resolution is better than OnePlus 6 and similar to the Galaxy S9. Screen is secured by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 tech which protects the screen from scratches and provides fall resistance to a certain extent. As this is a Notch-less phone, it has ~80.3% screen-to-body ratio.

Also worth noticing is that the Top Bezel is fully packed with: earpiece, Dual 8MP Selfie Camera, and Sensors. The display is Quad HD+ with aspect ratio of 18:9. With a pixel density of Pixel density at 537 ppi, the display is HDR 10 compatible.

UNDER THE HOOD: The HTC U12+ runs on Octa-core (4×2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4×1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver), exactly the same performance monster as the Galaxy S9 available in USA and China as well as the OnePlus 6. The processor is fitted on a Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845 chipset with Adreno 630 GPU, again a spec by spec similarity to OnePlus 6 and Samsung Galaxy S9. This combination is completely in sync with all components and delivers fastest of performances. The phone comes with factory installed Android 8 (Oreo) and is upgradable to Android 9 (P).

CAMERA: The HTC U12+ camera ticks almost all checkboxes to deliver a best in class quality camera. What’s more is that it is the highest rated camera in its category with DxOMark Mobile score of 103.

The phone has a Dual 12 MP (f/1.8, aperture with Dual Pixel PDAF) + 16 MP (f/2.6, aperture) camera. It also has phase detection & laser autofocus and one of the rear cameras has Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). Functions like gyro-EIS, 2x optical zoom and dual-LED dual-tone flash.

Dual cameras with varying aperture sizes ensure image depth, clarity and detailing. The Laser Focus helps concentrate on the subjects in low light situations. With 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom allow you to focus on the action and details like a pro. HDR Boost allows to capture smooth, crispy and detailed images with least noise.

The Camera App features AR Stickers wherein users can add funny effects and Augmented Reality items in real-time while shooting on their phone.

Capturing Videos on the HTC U12+ is also a delight with features like Sonic Zoom (Selective Audio enhancement at source), Auto Zoom and 4k capture @ 60 fps.

There is no wide angle selfie camera, it has Dual 8 MP (f/2.0, aperture) cameras. Both being of similar focal length, deliver decent depth to images. Camera App provides for Blurr control on the shot images and the Beauty Mode helps enhance Face shots.

BATTERY: The HTC U12+ does not come with wireless charging. The Non-removable Li-Ion 3500 mAh battery lasts upto a day barely. Usage consisted of : Office and personal Mails, WhatsApp, Facebook, 1 hr talktime, 1.5 hrs HD video playback on LTE network.

SOUND: HTC phones have always delivered the best sound experiences. U12+ is no different in terms of high quality sound delivery both through the HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi edition speaker system and through HTC USonic earbuds.

The BoomSound feature through the Dual Speakers allows for the loudest, clearest and best HTC sound to date. The subtle woofer and tweeter separation design produces unparalleled audio clarity. Moreover, the HTC USonic earbuds (included in the Box) have Active Noise Cancellation which monitors the ambient noises and automatically compensates for the disturbances.

The phone comes in three colors: Translucent Blue, Ceramic Black and Flame Red.

The HTC U12+ does not have the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The unique body design especially the Translucent Blue, 4 Cameras and best speaker system add punch to this latest HTC offering. The Sense UI built over Android 8 (Oreo) delivers a delightful experience.