Taiwanese smartphone giant, HTC today announced the HTC U12+ flagship smartphone, as the successor to last year's HTC U11+. As expected from a flagship smartphone in 2018, the U12+ sports an 18:9 Quad HD+ display, Snapdragon 845 processor, dual cameras on both the front and back, beefy battery and of course, it runs the latest Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. HTC did not launch any smaller variant such as HTC U12 and also confirmed that as of now, it doesn't have any intentions of introducing one. The HTC U12+ goes head on head with the OnePlus 6, Samsung Galaxy S9+ and LG G7 ThinQ smartphones. Sadly, there are no details regarding the Indian launch of the smartphone though.
HTC U12+ Specifications and Features
HTC is not yet looking at OLED panels as the U12+ still comes with a Super LCD 6 panel of 6-inches. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 technology and has support for DCI-P3, HDR10. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC and has 6GB of RAM. Internal storage inside the device depends on the region, but the maxed out version comes with 128GB of storage. Most likely, HTC will launch the premium variant in India.
The phone has a 3500mAh battery and it's Quick Charge 4.0 compatible. There are only a few smartphones in the market right now with QC 4.0 support. The U12+ lacks the 3.5mm headphone jack, and one has to rely on the USB Type-C audio. HTC still packs the BoomSound speaker setup in-line with LG. The highlight feature of the U12+ is not it specifications because the smartphone doesn't feature any physical buttons for volume rockers and power button.
Instead, HTC has opted for Apple's Force Touch like technology. The buttons are non-movable. They detect the pressure applied to them and clicks back at you. HTC is calling the technology as Edge Sense 2.0, a step up from the Edge Sense technology it introduced with the HTC U11.
The U12+ boots Android 8.0 Oreo-based Edge Sense 2 with several new features on board. It is the first HTC smartphone with dual rear cameras along with two front-facing cameras. A 12MP UltraPixel 4 sensor with f/1.75 aperture is paired to a 16MP telephoto sensor with f/2.0 aperture. HTC says the device offers 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom. The usage of the secondary camera allowed HTC to add Portrait mode feature, which has become a norm these days, but what makes the U12+ is the ability to change the focus from one object to other after capturing the picture. Rest all are pretty much HTC specs- there's OIS and EIS support for stabilisation. HTC has added two 8MP sensors on the front. The device achieved a score of 103 in DxOMark.
The HTC U12+ will be available in three colour options- Translucent Blue, Ceramic Black and Flame Red. The 64GB version costs $799.99 (approx. Rs 53,500) in the United States. It's expected to launch in India early next month.
