New year brings us new things. And if you are a gadget enthusiast, 2018 is already turning out to be great. Just two days after the international consumer electronics show (CES) came to a close, HTC grabbed headlines with a special launch in its home-country Taiwan and China.
On Monday, HTC finally launched the U11 EYEs. The new smartphone will be available for purchase during its first sale on January 25 at 10 am. In China, the selfie-centric camera phone is priced at ¥3,299 (about Rs 32,500) and comes in black, blue silver, and red colours.
HTC's attempt to grab the attention of selfie lovers is in line with the popular trend that most OEMs are currently following. HTC U11 EYEs comes with a dual selfie camera setup, comprising of two 5MP sensors with HDR enhancement, f/2.2 aperture, Bokeh effect and a beautification mode. This is a huge selling point for HTC's U11 EYEs.
On the rear, the U11 EYEs comes with a 12MP sensor with UltraPixel 3 technology, enhanced HDR, optical and electronic anti-shake feature, and UltraSpeed AR. The sensor is equipped with PDAF, OIS, f/1.7 aperture and dual-tone LED flash.
Beyond the camera, HTC U11 EYEs features a flagship design complete with translucent and highly reflective body colour. There's a massive 6-inch Super LCD3 display with Full HD+ resolution, but the 18:9 aspect ratio makes it handy. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Interestingly, there are two features – Edge Sense and Side frame start – that lets users access popular applications or launch any app with a squeeze on both sides or a press on one side.
Under the hood, the U11 EYEs features a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chipset, which is paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB built-in storage. There's a microSD card slot supporting up to 2TB of external storage via microSD cards.
HTC U11 EYEs also features the company's proprietary USonic audio technology with active noise reduction. There's a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, but users can also take advantage of the facial recognition software to unlock the device in case the positioning of the fingerprint sensor isn't favourable.
HTC U11 EYEs is also durable. The phone comes with IP67 water and dust-proof certification. HTC U11 EYEs features a 3,930mAh battery, which is the biggest battery HTC has packed in any of its phones yet. There's Quick Charge 3.0 support for fast charging.
Other features of the U11 EYEs include dual-SIM support, 4G VoLTE, USB Type-C charging and data transfer, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and Android 7.1 Nougat-based Sense UI.
HTC's plans to launch the U11 EYEs in India are still unknown. But when it arrives, it'll be competing against the likes of OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, LG and Samsung.
