HTC U Ultra & HTC U Play – Official with Full Glass, Dual-Display, No Audio Jack

HTC has announced the new series of smartphones HTC U starting with a flagship HTC U Ultra and an affordable phone called HTC U Play.

Leaving the aluminium build behind, HTC now moves on with the glass body on these smartphones as both feature all-glass build on front and back. HTC describes it with Liquid Surface construction that is designed to give beautiful reflections out of it. “Hold it up and you’ll appreciate the phone’s symmetrical construction, and the way it transforms light as you turn it.”

HTC has developed this construction of glass with a new process where colors bond to the glass in multiple layers and reflect light impressively with the depth from all angles. The glass is molded evenly around the sides and edges of the phone’s metal frame. Additionally, an exclusive limited edition of U Ultra will also feature Sapphire Glass.

Both the new smartphones feature HTC’s own digital assistant called Sense Companion that learns and adapts according to the usage. Just like as other’s digital assistants have grown, HTC’s one also evolves and get to know you better over time.

Targeting at two different market types, HTC U Ultra comes with high-end specs with Qualcomm processor while the HTC U Play is powered by MediaTek system-on-chip.

HTC U Ultra

While the HTC U Ultra comes with 5.7″ screen with QHD resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, the phone features dual display with additional 2.05″ screen with 160×1040 pixels resolution. The Ultra smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 821 quad-core CPU clocked at 2.15 GHz along side 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage with microSD card slot. The premium model of U Ultra features sapphire glass along with added internal storage of 128GB on board.

12 megapixels rear camera has HTC’s Ultrapixel 2 image sensor with pixel size of 1.55µm that receive four times more light. The lens has f/1.8 large aperture and also features optical image stabilization (OIS). The front camera boasts 16 megapixel resolution.

With all that stuff and a fingerprint scanner embedded in the home button below the main screen, the phone still runs with a 3000mAh battery. Power is supplied via USB Type-C port which serves all kind of connectivity including audio interface – means no 3.5mm audio jack is available on the phone.

Sense Companion deals pretty nicely with the dual-display of HTC U Ultra as it doesn’t need to wake up the primary display for many tasks which can be performed on secondary display via voice interactions.

Running Android 7.0 Nougat, HTC U Ultra will be available globally during first quarter of 2017 and price will be $749 in the US (or PKR ~80,000/- in Pakistan). Pre-orders have started now and the availability will start in March.

HTC U Play

On the other hand, HTC’s affordable model is the HTC U Play which comes with 5.2″ screen with full HD resolution of 1920×1080 pixels but doesn’t feature any additional secondary display. The U Play smartphone is powered by an old MediaTek Helio P10 octa-core processor clocked at 2 GHz. The phone will be available in two variants – with 3GB RAM / 32GB internal storage and 4GB RAM / 64GB internal storage. Extended memory supported via microSD card slot.

16 megapixels rear camera has HTC’s Ultrapixel image sensor with pixel size of 1µm to capture better light. The lens has f/2.0 aperture and also features optical image stabilization (OIS). The front camera also boasts 16 megapixel resolution like the one in U Ultra with UltraPixel.

HTC U Play will be running Android 6 Marshmallow but is referenced with possible software update with Android 7. The phone is backed up by a 2500mAh battery.

HTC U Play is set for availability in early 2017 but HTC has not disclosed any price for U Play. However chances are that the phone will be around $450 which makes around PKR 45,000 in Pakistan after currency conversion.