It’s been a rough couple of years for HTC, but that won’t stop the company from releasing new flagship smartphones. This time, the company has come up with an HTC U12 Plus. And unlike their previous failed attempts, it looks like the company is ready to bounce back.
The HTC U12 Plus inherits several characteristics of the HTC U11 Plus. The company clearly did a lot of refinements, which made the innovations they introduced on the predecessor actually more useful.
For starters, HTC U12 Plus has an identical design to its ancestor. The back panel still has this shiny material, but the front bezels are now much thinner. I would also like to give props to HTC for dismissing the use of the display notch which is a rare sight these days.
Speaking of the screen, what we are dealing here is a 6-inch Super LCD6 display, with a sharp resolution of 2280 x 1440 pixels, and HDR10 and DCI-P3 coverage. It’s pretty much all the bells and whistles that you might expect from a flagship smartphone.
Other than the display, it also comes with one of the best mobile processors out today. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of RAM, and it’s available in 64GB or 128GB storage variants.
Unlike most smartphones today, the HTC U12 Plus has a quad-camera system. The Huawei P20 Pro does have four cameras, but not this kind of setup.
The HTC U12 Plus has two 8-megapixel selfie cameras for the portrait mode. On the back, there’s a 12-megapixel with a wide-angle lens and a 16-megapixel sensor with a standard field-of-view. It has slow-motion video mode but is only capped at 240fps and not as crazy as the 960fps shooting capabilities in other flagship devices.
HTC added some improvements to their Squeeze feature. It does a specific task when you literally squeeze the device — which you can customize in the settings menu. What’s new here is it now allows you to double tap the edge of the device to do a customizable task — something that isn’t possible in the old implementation.
Lastly, the HTC U12+ uses pressure-sensitive buttons. Both the volume controls and lock/power switch are now pressure-sensitive keys. They removed that tactile feeling — more like what Apple did with the iPhone’s home button.
HTC U12 Plus Specs
- Android 8.0 Oreo (Incoming Android P update), HTC Sense UI
- Single/Dual SIM (Hybrid, dual-standby)
- 6-inch Super LCD6 QHD+ display, 2880 x 1440 resolution, ~537ppi
- 18:9 aspect ratio, Corning Gorilla Glass 5
- HDR10, DCI-P3
- 2.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor
- 6GB RAM
- Adreno 630 GPU
- 64GB/128GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 400GB
- 8-megapixel + 8-megapixel dual front camera, f/2.0
- 12-megapixel (wide-angle, f/1.7) + 16-megapixel (telephoto, f/2.6) dual rear camera, PDAF, OIS, 2x optical zoom, dual-tone flash
- Fingerprint scanner
- Stereo speakers
- IP68 water and dustproof
- HSPA+, 4G LTE
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
- Bluetooth 5.0
- GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
- NFC
- USB Type-C 3.1
- Dimensions: 156.6 x 73.9 x 8.7mm
- Weight: 188g
- Colors: Ceramic Black, Flame Red, Translucent Blue
- 3,500mAh battery, Quick Charge 3.0
The HTC U12 Plus Translucent Blue will be available for a price USD799 (~Php42,000) for the 64GB and 128GB for USD848 (~Php44,500). The Ceramic Black variant is only available in 64GB. Meanwhile, the Solar Red will come later. It is now available for pre-order in the United States right now. As for official pricing and availability in the Philippines, we currently have no information as of the moment.