Android_Advisor_Issue_39_2017

ANDROID ADVISOR
ReVIew
It’s definitely different enough to stand out, and
we truly wanted to love this phone. In everyday use it
does make a half decent argument for itself, but given
its obvious flaws, it’s impossible for me to say outright
that you should buy it. It simply isn’t good enough.
Design
HTC considers itself ‘the master of metal’ but the
design mantra of the U series phones is ‘Liquid
Surface’, achieved with glass. Liquid surface doesn’t
really mean anything, but refers to the attractive depth
effect the glass takes on, as opposed to Samsung’s
method of placing colour sheets under a piece of
glass that gives a flatter, 2D effect.
Before you even turn it on, it’s a beautiful device.
With this break from metal phones, HTC has at
least made the U Ultra to the highest build quality
standards. But it’s just too big. Absolutely huge, in
fact. Now, we’re sure that many people out there
still prefer the presence of a bit of bezel. Bezelfree
devices may be the latest trend, but they are
debatably harder to hold (the Xiaomi Mi Mix in
particular is all screen and hard to grip without
registering erroneous touches on the display).
The U Ultra has a big old bezel at the chin, and
what appears like a bigger one at the forehead. The
chin houses a responsive fingerprint sensor and
capacitive Android navigation buttons that look
oddly too small for the design.
It appears HTC has copied this set up from
the HTC 10, but because the U Ultra is so much
bigger, there’s tons of unused space and the design
36 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 39