The industry has been calling for a design revamp from HTC for a while now, and the Taiwanese OEM is finally listening. HTC pulled kind of a fast one last year, with heavy chamfers on its flagships, but largely the same old design. That’s not the case with the new U series though. Not only is HTC dropping the One monicker, it’s refreshing it’s entire design language. The U Ultra and U Play do not look like any HTC phone we’ve seen before, but whether they look “good” is a highly subjective question.
The U Ultra and U Play have glass backs, somewhat similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S7, but even more glossy and reflective. The phones are made to change colours based on the light and angle they’re being held. This works primarily on the U Ultra, the higher end of the two phones. On the U Play the effect is less emphatic, especially on the white version of the device.
They’re also distinctly iPhone-like in some ways. The U Ultra is almost as tall, while the U Play feels distinctly like the smaller iPhone, thanks to its rounded metal frames. To be clear, we’re not saying this is a negative for the two devices. If anything, the HTC U Play feels as ergonomic as the Google Pixel, which is saying something.
But therein lies the issue. HTC wants to to pay at least Rs. 59,990 and Rs. 39,990 for the U Ultra and U Play, respectively, For the life of me, I do not know why that is so. This is the MOP for the devices, meaning the final MRP may be still higher. It’s especially counterproductive for the U Play, which runs on a Helio P10. The U Ultra runs on the Snapdragon 821, meaning it belongs in the flagship range, at least as far as specifications are concerned.
On first impressions, the HTC U Ultra is a distinct anomaly in the smartphone market. It looks absolutely unlike anything you can buy today. In dim lights it’s hard to tell where the back ends and the front begins, and it moves from a dark-ish blue to a kind of, sparkling neon blue from certain angles. I spent the most time today with the blue unit, but the same happens with the other colours as well.
On the other hand, it’s as expensive as the Pixel or iPhone and hence one expects the same level of performance and camera features. Speaking of which, HTC is using the Sony IMX378 sensor on this device, which is the sensor on Google’s excellent Pixel cameras this year. This is combined with OIS and Laser AF, and HTC’s ultrapixel tech. On first impressions, the Ultra’s 12MP ultrapixel camera shoots much brighter photos than the 16MP sensor on the U Play, but it’s too early to comment on camera quality.
What I can tell, though, is that the cameras are quite fast, zipping through the app launch to the image being processed. It all happens in just about a second. It’s definitely amongst the fastest cameras I’ve seen and on the few photos I clicked at the launch event, I saw no blurs caused from lack of focusing.
Between the two phones, the U Ultra is easier to justify, but I daresay HTC has problems on hand with the U Play. MediaTek’s Helio P10 hasn’t proven to be very fast in other phones, even when combined with 4GB of RAM. The U Play also has 32GB of storage, against a plethora of phones that have at least 64GB ROM and cost less than Rs. 40,000. Adding to the woes, even Samsung has a 64GB device on the market, that’s cheaper than the U Play.
To be clear, the HTC U Play felt really smooth on first impressions, and though I wouldn’t bet on the camera being better than the Moto Z and OnePlus 3, it doesn’t lie far behind either. It’s quite compact too, as I’ve already mentioned. The only nagging issue is that there are many phones that do all this and sell at half the price. HTC fans may still plan to spend on both of these smartphones, but I’m not sure they’re the ones that’ll bring the ailing Taiwanese giant back in play.