HTC launches U flagship with AI, two screens, but missing headphone jack

This glossy touch might, however, make the phone slippery.

HTC made two of the best smartphones money can buy, but the company can’t talk about them.

One such company is HTC, which has delivered some of the finest devices with its main focus on stylish designs blended with innovative technology. As for Justin’s current device rotation, he carries around the Google Pixel and Nexus 9.

Extensively leaked throughout the week, HTC has officially announced its U line of devices. People have been whishing HTC will revamp the design of its products for quite some time and now the moment we all been waiting for has finally come.

Disappointingly, the U Play comes with Android 6.0, but the flagship U Ultra at least ships with Android 7.0 out of the box.

Moving away from its signature aluminium unibody design, both handsets sport a glossy, all-glass body which HTC built using an innovative approach it calls Liquid Surface construction, created to give the phones a fabulous reflective look. Instead, you’ll have to connect the packaged headphones through the USB Type-C connection, or use an adapter. That’s right: you don’t even need to lift a finger to turn your morning alarm off.

One of the major highlights of the device is its “artificial intelligence” which basically learns from your habits and serves you with your choice of music, tell you to carry a power bank if you’ve a long trip planned, recommend a restaurant when you’re outside as well as book tables for you.

Two storage variants-64GB (with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 Protection) and 128GB with Sapphire display. The HTC U Play is fueled by the Helio P10 processor by MediaTek, a mid-range chip. The camera arrangement features a 12-megapixel UltraPixel shooter with OIS, laser autofocus, an aperture of f/1.8 and a 16MP front camera. There’s a 16MP front camera with UltraPixel mode, BSI sensor and f/2.0 aperture. The model uses USB 2.0 Type-C port and uses the same Android Nougat version with Sense UI.

The phone-maker has also introduced its new Sense Companion which is HTC’s own take on the digital assistant. There’s a 3000mAh battery, and the phone runs Android v7. The smartphone has a 3,000 mAh battery. Both smartphones will be available in single-SIM and dual-SIM (Nano-SIM) variants, depending on the region.

The U Ultra model has got a bigger display of 5.7-inch Super LCD with QHD resolution of 2,560 x 1440. HTC U Play comes with a 5.2 -inch 1080 x 1920 pixels display. Under the hood, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset can be found with 4GB of RAM. There is a microSD card slot as well, allowing users to expand the storage further by up to 2TB. It also has a Fingerprint sensor located on the back side and a massive 4000mAh battery. However, the rear panel uses a gloss finish metal with colour options apparently confirmed as black, white, gold, or blue.