HTC is a consumer electronics company based in Taiwan whose mobile phone division has some some trouble in recent years. While they had quite the showing in 2013 and 2014 with the One M7 and M8, they’ve had an uphill battle with their following generations of devices. The troubled One M9 and poorly-received U Ultra put a bad taste in customers’ mouths, and perhaps rightly so. But the U11 marks HTC’s departure from their dismal trend with a gorgeous design and some neat tricks. But by many standards the U11 isn’t a spring chicken: it has been 11 months since its launch. How does it hold up today?

You can find the U11 for sale online in various carrier and unlocked configurations. The U11 is offered in 64GB flavors, with a 128GB model being sold exclusively as unlocked. Find out more and buy your own here.

Specs

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (up to 2.45GHz)

Memory: 4GB, 6GB (128GB model only)

Storage: 64GB, 128GB

Expandable Storage: Yes

WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz)

Bluetooth: 4.2

NFC: Yes

Screen: 5.5 inch, Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels), Super LCD 5 with Gorilla Glass 5

Battery Size: 3000 mAh, Quick Charge 3.0

Front Camera: 16MP, ƒ/2.0 aperture

Rear Camera: 12MP, ƒ/1.7 aperture, 1.4μm pixel

Build and Design

The U11 is a gorgeous phone, in the truest sense of the word. A mirrored, shimmering material encased in curved “3D” glass creates a unique visual experience on the rear of the device. HTC’s deviation from the norm is indeed brilliant.

The main focal point of the back, beyond its reflective shimmer, is the round camera. The U11 suffers from a camera hump, like many of its generational relatives, but actually makes it work. The hump doesn’t impede the U11’s ability to lay “flat” on a table.

The aforementioned curved-glass back gently slopes into the rounded sides of the device, almost seamlessly. The border of the U11 is made from a smoothly textured aluminum colored to match the back of the device. The corners of the edge feature antenna lines which are colored slightly lighter than the rest of the aluminum. This arrangement is quite visually stimulating, but does make it easy to drop for those who are less coordinated.

The volume and power buttons are fitted to left hand side of the device, with the volume button sitting above the power button. They are both made from the same metal as the rest of the border. Thankfully, the power button is textured differently from the volume button, making it easy to locate in the dark. Both buttons have held up extremely well over the last 11 months of use, and have not become loose or squishy, a testament to HTC’s engineering.

On the subject of engineering, the guys at HTC managed to fit some pressure sensors underneath the U11’s sides. Those sensors are the core of Edge Sense: a feature made by HTC that enables you to run context-specific commands or launch apps by squeezing the sides of the phone (more on that later).

Moving to the front of the U11, the first thing you’ll notice is the 5.5-inch, QHD LCD screen using a Super LCD 5 panel. It’s protected by Gorilla Glass 5, which much like the back of the device, has rounded edges that blend into the border of the phone. Gorilla Glass 5 stands its own against the daily wear and tear of use; I’ve not used a single screen protector since I bought the phone last May and have but one very small scratch on the upper left of the screen. And even then its so small I rarely ever notice it.

Above the screen is a microphone, the front-facing camera, and a notification LED, all of which are embedded below the same slab of glass that is protecting the screen. The ear-speaker is centered squarely above the screen, and the fingerprint scanner is centered below it.

Now the a couple years ago the U11’s screen would be easy to review: it has good brightness, rich colors, a high pixel-density, and excellent viewing angles. But in a market now dominated by the Note 8, Galaxy S9, and iPhone X, the U11’s screen feels boxy. I personally don’t mind the bezels though. They feel much smaller than the bezels on my previous device, the Google Pixel.

Fortunately, the U11 sounds nearly as good as it looks. While it doesn’t hold a candle to the Boom Sound front-facing speakers of old, it easily beats out any other device on the market in terms of quality, and almost always in volume. The bass is audible, if not punchy, and the treble is clear and tonally pleasant. The midrange is merely adequate in absolute terms, but good relative to other smartphones on the market right now.

Scattered across the U11 are four high-fidelity microphones. They provide the U11 with some best-in-class performance both in recording quality and in volume sensitivity.

The bottom of the phone features the U11’s only port: USB type C on a USB 3.1 Gen 1 bus. The lack of a headphone jack is a bummer, especially for a music enthusiast like me, but I’ve adapted to using a USB-C adapter. While it can be inconvenient to forget to take the adapter with me, I’ve learned to just store it and my headphones in the same case to avoid repeating such a mistake. And by the way, the adapter HTC included in the box is still going strong with no signs of going bad any time soon.

Performance

Methodology:

The methodology is simple: each benchmark is run eight times, 30 minutes apart so as to let the device return to a cool state. The testing room is set to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The numbers presented for each benchmark are averages of those eight runs. Any outlier scores are reported, but not included in the average. All benchmarks were installed on the internal memory of the device, not a microSD card. Stock firmware was used in all cases.

These numbers, by themselves, don’t mean much. They are meant as a reference point for you to use in comparison to other devices to get a good idea at their relative performances.

AnTuTu v7.0.7:

Combined score: 205972

CPU score: 70630

GPU score: 80586

UX score: 43334

Memory score: 11422

Geekbench:

CPU single-core score: 1912

CPU multi-core score: 6340

RenderScript score: 8021

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme:

OpenGL Es 3.1 score: 3513

Vulkan: 2682

Camera

When the U11 launched, HTC was eager to share with us its DXO Mark score. After all, it had just bested all its competitors (including the Galaxy S8 and Pixel), and while its score has been beaten since then, the camera’s quality hasn’t gotten any worse. Pictures in daylight are well toned, sharp, and can even exhibit some high quality DOF affects when taking close-ups.