HTC announces two new smartphones the HTC U Ultra/ HTC U Play

Today HTC at the Taiwan HQ has announced two new smartphones for 2017, the HTC U Ultra and the HTC U Play.

Start with the HTC U Play measure 145.99 x 72.9 x 7.99mm and weighing 145g. The layout is conventional HTC. There’s a fingerprint scanner to the front, also acting as the home button and there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket.

The HTC U Play uses a MediaTek processor and in some cases 3GB RAM/ 32GB storage and 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage variants. It sports a 5.2-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) Super LCD display with Gorilla Glass. It is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 SoC. The rear 16-megapixel camera comes with a BSI sensor, optical image stabilisation, PDAF, an f/2.0 aperture, and dual-tone LED flash.

The front camera sports a 16-megapixel sensor with an UltraPixel mode, a BSI sensor, an f/2.0 aperture with a 28mm focal length.

With the HTC U Play has a 5.2-inch display, with a Full HD resolution. The 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, 423ppi, display looks nice enough. With the HTC U Play should be available in mid March but no pricing just yet.

The HTC U Ultra is the higher end of the two considering its name, with a 5.7-inch QHD display to the HTC U Play’s 5.2-inch 1080p, but the Ultra also has something else: a secondary display at the top of the phone giving you a little extra real estate. Its 2-inch size and off-center placement is nearly identical to the LG V20, and its function is similar as well. It can show glanceable information like upcoming appointments or even configured to show notifications, frequently used apps and more.

With the HTC U Play’s inbuilt storage is expandable via microSD card (up to 2TB). Connectivity options include 4G LTE with VoLTE, GPS/ A-GPS, Bluetooth v4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, DLNA, Miracast, HTC Connect, and USB 2.0 Type-C.

The smartphone sports an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, digital compass, and gyroscope, weighs in at 145 grams, and measures 145.99×72.9×7.99mm. It bears a fingerprint sensor on the Home Button. It is powered by a 2500mAh battery with fast charging support (5V/2A) that’s rated to deliver up to 15.21 hours of talk-time and up to 427.54 hours of standby time.

With the HTC U Ultra the primary 5.7-inch Super LCD display bears a QHD (1440×2560 pixels) resolution, while the secondary 2-inch display bears a 1040×160 pixels resolution (seen below). The smartphone will be made available in two inbuilt storage variants – 64GB and 128GB, with the former sporting Gorilla Glass 5 protection and the latter sporting sapphire glass protection.

The HTC U Ultra is powered by a 2.15GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC with 4GB of RAM. It bears a 12-UltraPixel rear camera with 1.55-micron pixels, a BSI sensor, laser + phase detection autofocus, optical image stabilisation, an f/2.8 aperture, and dual-tone LED flash. At the front, it bears a 16-megapixel camera with an UltraPixel mode, and a BSI sensor.

HTC U Ultra include either 64GB or 128GB of inbuilt storage that is expandable via microSD card (up to 2TB); 4G LTE with VoLTE, GPS/ A-GPS, Bluetooth v4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, DLNA, Miracast, HTC Connect, and USB 3.1 Type-C connectivity options. The smartphone sports an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, digital compass, and gyroscope, weighs in at 170 grams, and measures 162.41×79.79×7.9mm.

It bears a fingerprint sensor on the Home Button, HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi edition stereo speakers, Hi-Res Audio support, as well as 3D Audio recording support with 4 microphones. It is powered by a 3000mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0. It’s rated to deliver up to 26 hours of talk-time and up to 13 days of standby time.

With the HTC U Ultra should be available in mid March but no pricing just yet.