Ron Amadeo























Today, HTC is taking the wraps off its newest flagship smartphone, the HTC U11. This is a proper Snapdragon 835 flagship—Qualcomm's latest chip—and it comes with two notable features: a fancy "squeeze" function that launches a configurable action and dual hotword support for both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

The HTC U11 is priced at $650/£650 and launches in the UK in June. A US launch will follow at a later date.

I was a big fan of HTC's 2016 flagship, the HTC 10, thanks mostly to its rock-solid metal body, along with the light Android skin. Starting with the earlier HTC U Ultra, HTC moved away from its best-in-class metal phones and started making glass-backed devices.

The U11 signals that glass is the future of HTC. You'll get a fragile all-glass outer casing and a super-shiny back color. Like the U Ultra, the outside colors of the phone are striking, provided you meticulously clean it—the glass back is also a fingerprint magnet.

Also like the U Ultra, there's no headphone jack, but HTC will ship a USB-C-to-3.5mm plug in the box. HTC's in-box headphones also get active noise cancelling. Because you're using USB-C and can draw power directly from the phone, HTC's headphone can do noise cancelling without needing a battery.



The flagship smartphone market has rapidly changed in the past year, and HTC's design doesn't seem to be doing a great job of keeping up. While Xiaomi, LG, and Samsung have all worked to produce gorgeous slim-bezel devices that maximize screen real estate, HTC's phone looks positively last year, with old school hardware buttons and tall top and bottom bezels. With even Apple rumored to be switching to a slim-bezel design, HTC—as usual—sees itself facing cutthroat competition from much bigger rivals.

But let's talk about what's different here. HTC's bizarre " Squeeze the Brilliant U " teaser has had the Internet scratching its collective head. The teaser shows hands squeezing a sponge, lemon, and other squeezable objects. It turns out the sides of the HTC U11 are squeezable! The left and right sides of the phone have pressure sensors that can tell when you squeeze the device. HTC calls this "Edge Sense," and it basically works like a " convenience key " that you can program for different features. A hard squeeze or short squeeze can launch different apps, like Google Assistant, flashlight, or a few other things.

A "convenience key" is really the perfect way to describe the squeezable sides. There's really no difference between the squeeze gesture and an extra physical button, and the sides are about a useful as a convenience key on any other phone. They work well and are nice to have. The pressure sensor works anywhere on the bottom half of the phone, and, since it's pressure and not capacitive, it works with gloves.

The other major addition to the U11 is a "dual wake word" system. While this won't be available at launch, HTC says you'll eventually be able to have both hotwords for the Google and Amazon voice command systems active all the time. If you want Google, just say "OK Google." if you want Alexa, just say "Alexa." Google has reportedly been aggressive toward electronics companies shipping Amazon's Alexa software, telling them they can't use Google Cast in Bluetooth speakers that contain Amazon software. How Google will feel about HTC shipping Alexa alongside Assistant on Android is not clear.

The U11 has four microphones, and, when you trigger a hotword, it will sense where you are in relation to the phone and use the microphone closest to you. HTC says this should result in a more accurate voice transcription.

Specs are about what you would expect from a flagship device. A 5.5-inch, 2560x1440 LCD; a 2.45GHz, eight-core Snapdragon 835; 4GB of RAM; 64GB of storage (plus a MicroSD card); 16MP front camera and 12MP rear camera; and a 3000mAh battery. The 64GB baseline of storage is nice, and the U11 has an IP67 water and dust resistance rating. Some versions (probably China) get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. But not the US version.

There's a bottom-firing speaker and one front-firing speaker, which doubles as an earpiece. Side-by-side, the U11 is much louder than HTC's last phone, the U Ultra. The software still looks great. HTC is still using a light skin that leaves most of the important parts of Android alone, and the company doesn't change the design too much.