The HTC U12 Plus is a abundant phone bedridden by blah software and abhorrent buttons. Here is our abounding HTC U12 Plus review.
The U12 Additional acclimated in this analysis was provided to Android Authority by HTC.
Display showdown: AMOLED vs LCD vs Retina vs Infinity Display
HTC U12 Additional vs the competition: Can HTC’s barbarian acclimatized the best of the rest?
Huawei P20 Pro review: The Galaxy S9 killer
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- Bokeh mode
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- Standard mode
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- Bokeh mode
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- Standard mode
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- When you absorb $800 on a phone, the aftermost affair you should see are ads in the software.
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- HTC Faculty Companion
The HTC U11 afraid us aftermost year with its superb camera and abrupt software, and the HTC U12 Additional continues that trend.
The company’s new 2018 flagship offers a near-complete amalgamation acceptable to affect HTC enthusiasts and skeptics alike, but I don’t apperceive if I can absolutely acclaim this phone to abounding people. Acquisition out why in our abounding HTC U12 Additional review.
2018 seems to accept become a year of iteration, and the HTC U12 Additional fits appropriate into that theme. We’re not accepting a desperate redesign from the U11 or U11 Plus, but rather a aesthetic booty on the Liquid Surface architecture alien aftermost year. Those accustomed with the U11 will acknowledge the basal bezels on the front, as able-bodied as the taller 18:9 screen. There’s no cleft on the affectation either, which is a nice abandonment from all the added phones that accommodate a cleft in 2018.
Read more: HTC U11 analysis | HTC U11 Additional review
Like its predecessors, the U12 Additional appearance an all-glass architecture and an aluminum frame. It’s heavy, belief in at 188 grams, and feels like a absolutely high-quality allotment of tech. That’s par for the advance for an HTC phone, though.
Another affair to apprehend aback you buy HTC is superb design, and the U12 Additional is no exception. This is one of the coolest attractive phones I’ve anytime seen. I don’t anticipate it’s as affected as the Galaxy S9 or as basal as the Essential Phone, but there’s article about the way HTC designs phones that makes them angle out. I’ve absolutely bent myself staring at the aback of this phone for no accurate reason.
It comes in three blush options — clear-cut blue, blaze red, and bowl (or titanium) black. They all attending great, admitting the dejected advantage will apparently be the best popular.
A brace addendum on some of the architecture elements: the bowl atramentous archetypal is aloof a blush name — it’s not absolutely fabricated of ceramic. All three blush variants are covered in a custom band of Gorilla Bottle on the advanced and aback that’s afterpiece to Gorilla Bottle 3 than the newer Gorilla Bottle 5. HTC said it acclimated this blazon of bottle because it provides able blast and blemish resistance, while still acceptance the aggregation to dispense it at acute angles so the phone is adequate to hold.
Like added bottle phones, the U12 Additional is slippery. You’ll appetite to bandy a case on it to abstain adventitious drops.
HTC has some of the best phone designers in the business, which is why it’s abominable that the ancillary buttons on this phone are so bad. The ability and aggregate keys aren’t absolutely buttons, they’re pressure-sensitive areas on the ancillary that actuate aback apprenticed down. Anticipate of them like a assiduity of Bend Sense, but for alone buttons.
This is by far the affliction allotment of this phone. Back you don’t get that concrete bang out of the ancillary buttons — alone a bit of haptic acknowledgment — there’s some apparent lag aback axis on the awning or adjusting the volume. Aggravating to bang any of the ancillary buttons in accelerated assumption is abuse abreast impossible, which makes it difficult to do simple things like about-face bottomward the aggregate or double-tap the ability key to barrage the camera. They additionally crave a harder columnist than you’d commonly accept to administer to any added phone’s buttons.
Whenever I use this phone, I absolutely try to abstain application the ancillary buttons. They’re that frustrating.
To end on a absolute note, the abridgement of ancillary buttons accustomed HTC to added calmly add an IP68 baptize attrition appraisement to the phone. That’s abundant account for anyone who’s anytime agitated a alcohol on their phone or alone it in the toilet.
Despite breadth the bazaar is headed, HTC is still invested in LCD displays. The HTC U12 Additional comes with a 6.0-inch Cool LCD 6 awning with an 18:9 aspect arrangement and a Quad HD+ resolution. It’s bright, crisp, and offers abundant examination angles. Plus, it gets dim abundant for caliginosity use and ablaze abundant for alfresco use, so it looks like HTC absolutely bigger its affectation tech this time around.
The absence DCI-P3 blush contour is a bit to saturated for my liking, but it’s accessible abundant to abuse in the settings menu.
While the big, alpine affectation is nice, HTC doesn’t acquiesce you to bash bottomward on the fingerprint sensor to cull bottomward the notification shade. This is a affection I use consistently on my Pixel 2 XL, and I absolutely ambition it was on the U12 Plus. You can bash bottomward from anywhere on the home awning to see your notification shade, but it’s not as acceptable as application the fingerprint sensor.
HTC included an always-on affectation this time around, too. Called Acute Display, you can set this ambient awning to arise alone aback you deathwatch your phone, or accept it on at all times. Back the U12 Additional has an LCD display, this affection ability use up a little added array if you accumulate it on.
Outside of a Pixel or OnePlus phone, this is one of the smoothest Android adventures you’ll find. This shouldn’t arise as a surprise, as the U11 and U11 Additional were two of the speediest Android phones of 2017.
The HTC U12 Additional sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC clocked at 2.8GHz, backed by 6GB of RAM. No bulk what you bandy at this phone — multitasking, abundant gameplay, or aloof scrolling about the UI — the U12 Additional will handle it with ease.
Further reading: Best Android phones you can buy appropriate now
I alone ran into one absolute achievement affair throughout the analysis period. I had to restart the phone afterwards it froze on me, but I’m absolutely animated that happened — it gave me the befalling to analysis out whether or not the ability button still works afterwards the phone freezes. It does, which is actual acceptable news.
If you’re into criterion scores, we ran the U12 Additional through Geekbench 4, AnTuTu, and 3D Mark. You can see all the after-effects below:
Geekbench 4 gave the HTC U12 Additional a single-core account of 2,362. In comparison, the OnePlus 6 denticulate 2,454, while the Galaxy S9 denticulate 2,144. The U12 Additional accomplished a multi-core account of 8,910, while the OnePlus 6 denticulate 8,967, and the Galaxy S9 denticulate 8,116.
AnTuTu gave the U12 Additional a account of 267,560, compared to the OnePlus 6’s 262,614 and the S9’s 266,559.
Finally, the HTC U12 Additional denticulate 4,537 in 3D Mark, while the OnePlus 6 and Galaxy S9 denticulate 4,680 and 4,672, respectively.
The abject archetypal HTC U12 Additional comes with 64GB of storage, and you can grab the 128GB archetypal for aloof $50 more. It additionally has microSD amplification up to 2TB if you allegation alike added room.
HTC was one of the aboriginal articles to to canal the headphone jack, so it’s no abruptness that the U12 Additional doesn’t arise with one either. This time around, HTC’s not accouterment a USB Type-C to headphone jack adapter in the box. You’ll accept to buy one from the company’s website if you appetite to use your alive headphones. That’s appealing annoying.
It comes with a chargeless brace of HTC’s admirable USonic earbuds, aloof like aftermost year. These are absolutely absolutely nice earphones — they can assay and tune audio accurately for your ear, and they affection alive babble cancelation.
BoomSound speakers accomplish their acknowledgment on the U12 Plus, and they’re great. They get cool loud — about too loud sometimes — and complete affection is appealing clear. If you’re into alert via wireless audio, the U12 Additional supports Qualcomm aptX HD and Sony LDAC codecs for high-res 24-bit audio.
Let’s allocution biometrics. The U12 Plus’ rear-facing fingerprint sensor is one of the fastest I’ve anytime used. It’s abundant quicker to alleviate than the Pixel 2. I’d say it’s appropriate up there with the acceleration of the OnePlus 6 or any contempo Huawei phone.
It’s 2018, so it’s no abruptness to see HTC apparatus its own face alleviate feature. It is actual fast. Like, already you glance at the lock screen, it’ll alleviate about instantly. There’s alike a “low light” approach to advice the phone admit your face at night, but that requires authoritative the affectation abundantly ablaze — not article abounding bodies will like aback lying in bed.
And no, I haven’t been able to fool the face alleviate affection with a photo of myself.
The phone’s 3,500mAh corpuscle should action added than abundant ability for a abounding day’s use, but abominably that’s not the case. Best canicule I alone get about three hours of screen-on time with a distinct charge, sometimes up to four hours. A brace hours of alive podcasts or a few account of scrolling through Instagram drains array abundant quicker than it should.
That’s appealing awful by 2018 standards. Considering accessories like the P20 Pro and Mate 10 Pro can accomplish about seven or eight hours of screen-on time on a charge, HTC’s numbers aren’t annihilation to address home about.
In agreement of contempo HTC devices, the U12 Plus’ array is appropriate in the middle. The U11 alone came with a 3,000mAh unit, while the U11 Plus, admitting its agnate admeasurement to the U12 Plus, came with a 3,930mAh battery.
The U12 Additional supports Qualcomm’s Quick Allegation 4.0, admitting the included charger alone supports Quick Allegation 3.0. There’s additionally abutment for USB Ability Delivery (PD).
Despite its bottle exterior, the HTC U12 Additional does not abutment wireless charging. Bummer.
The U11 and U11 Additional were two of 2017’s best camera phones, and the U12 Additional ability be a adversary for 2018. It doesn’t battling the Pixel 2’s camera — basically the accepted criterion for smartphone photography — but it gets absolutely close.
This time around, HTC included two rear-facing cameras — a primary 12MP wide-angle sensor with an ƒ/1.75 breach and a 16MP telephoto lens with an ƒ/2.6 aperture. Both cameras accept both OIS and EIS.
The cameras can booty alarming shots in ablaze areas, and actual acceptable shots in low-light settings. Low-light achievement isn’t as acceptable as the P20 Pro, but it is a footfall up from the U11. And that’s adage something!
Note: The camera samples in this analysis are cropped. You can see all the full-res images at this Google Drive link.
The rear cameras on the U12 Additional accommodate affluent colors and bags of detail in best shots. If you’re affairs this phone for the camera, you won’t be disappointed.
Let’s do a quick allegory with the U12 Plus, Pixel 2, and Galaxy S9. In the angel below, you can see the Pixel 2’s photo on the larboard is a bit added saturated than the one from the U12 Plus. The U12 Additional took a abundant image, but the grass is a little greener, and the sidewalk in the aback is darker and added accurate to action in the Pixel 2’s photo.
The Galaxy S9’s photo on the larboard (below) is alike brighter than the U12 Plus. Samsung’s camera brought out added of the highlights than both added phones. However, there doesn’t arise to be as abounding differences amid these two photos as with the Pixel 2 allegory above.
HTC is boring but absolutely but absolutely abacus added appearance to its camera app. There’s still a pro approach if you appetite added ascendancy over your photos, as able-bodied as panorama, hyperlapse, and apathetic motion video modes.
The camera app itself is a bit laggier than the Galaxy S9 and Pixel 2, but alone by milliseconds — it’s about account advertence here.
I ran into a awe-inspiring achievement affair absolutely frequently breadth the U12 Additional acutely changes the acknowledgment akin aback absorption on a subject. If the sensors aces up too abundant light, the camera app will beam and drove all the blacks about immediately. There’s no bland alteration amid a ablaze ambience and a low-light setting. I’m acquisitive this affair can be anchored with a software update, because it’s acutely annoying.
Check out the video beneath to see it in action:
For what it’s worth, I couldn’t carbon the affair on any added phone.
The dual-camera bureaucracy allows the U12 Additional to booty account shots with a bokeh effect, aloof like best added phones. There are two altered agency to booty bokeh shots: automatically or manually. Automatic bokeh shots breeze a photo and accept HTC’s camera app adjudge how abundant to becloud the background, while chiral bokeh approach lets you acclimatize a slider afore you booty the photo. You can additionally adapt the bulk of becloud afterwards the photo has been taken, too.
Bokeh shots about-face out accept for the best part, but alone if there’s affluence of ablaze surrounding your subject. The phone has bend apprehension issues aloof like best added devices, but I haven’t run into as abounding problems as I would accept expected. Photos taken with account approach additionally abridgement blush — added so than any added phone I’ve used.
On the video front, the U12 Additional can shoot in 4K at up to 60fps, and shoot apathetic motion video in 1080p at 240fps. No, the U12 Additional doesn’t action college anatomy ante in apathetic motion like the Galaxy S9, but 1080p at 240fps should be accomplished for best people.
Also authoritative its acknowledgment is Sonic Zoom (formerly accepted as Acoustic Focus), which lets you zoom in on a accountable while cutting video to amplify the subject’s sound. It works absolutely well, and HTC says it’s 60 percent louder and 33 percent added focused this time around.
The U12 Additional has two 8MP front-facing camera sensors, anniversary with an breach of ƒ/2.0 and an 84-degree acreage of view. There’s no OIS with the advanced cameras though, so you’ll acquaintance some all-a-quiver video if you tend to vlog with your phone.
Selfies taken with the U12 Additional are about good, admitting it can be adamantine to abduction a ablaze photo if you’re not absolutely still.
There’s additionally a adorableness approach congenital into the camera app that lets you acclimatize your face for smoothness, brightness, eye size, and face structure. This approach is way too intense, alike at the everyman setting. You’re bigger off aloof axis this off altogether.
I ran into a few added inconsistencies with the account approach on the front-facing camera. The phone struggles to acquaint beard and the accomplishments afar abundant added generally than with the rear-facing camera. You’ll aloof accept to accomplish abiding you’re in a ablaze breadth if you appetite account approach to attending good.
Oh, and there are new AR stickers congenital into the camera app, which can be acclimated with the advanced or rear cameras. There are some fun ones like dogs, pandas, or cats, but additionally some ambiguous ones.
Feel chargeless to examination the camera samples below, or appearance the abounding versions on Google Drive.
HTC U12 Additional camera samples
If you’ve acclimated HTC Faculty in the accomplished few years, you’ll already be accustomed with the U12 Plus’ software experience. That would commonly be a acceptable affair — accouterment a constant user acquaintance over a ambit of accessories for years on end — but I anticipate Faculty needs to change. It feels aloof like the software on the One M8, M9, 10, and U11.
Plus, HTC doesn’t arise to accept adapted any of its own apps for years. The HTC Weather, Dialer, Messages, and Clock apps are all about banausic from the versions that launched on the HTC 10 two years ago. The home awning is a bit different, but you still accept the near-pointless BlinkFeed on the larboard that still alone supports a scattering of amusing media integrations. There’s additionally the HTC Faculty Companion app, which attempts to accord you restaurant recommendations, acclimate details, and a few added alone suggestions based on breadth you are and what you’re doing. Faculty Companion doesn’t appearance up all that often. Aback it does, it either recommends restaurants I’ve already been to, or it shows up at contrary times.
The accessory runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, not the newer Android 8.1, which has already been out for about six months. We’re not abiding why the aggregation isn’t ablution its phone with the latest adaptation of Android, but it doesn’t accord us aplomb that Android P will access in a appropriate manner.
The big new software affection on the U12 Additional is Bend Faculty 2, an adapted adaptation of that “squeeze thing” that launched on the U11. This is one of the best genitalia of the phone.
There are three new additions to Bend Faculty this time around: acute rotate, acute dim, and a new double-tap gesture. Acute circle will arise in accessible aback you’re lying in bed attractive at your phone. Aback the U12 Additional senses you’re captivation it in account mode, a slight tip of the accessory will no best accidentally activate auto-rotate. This absolutely comes in accessible absolutely often.
Smart dim is one of those set-it-and-forget-it features. Aback you’re captivation the U12 Plus, the awning won’t dim alike if the awning abeyance is up.
Finally, you can now double-tap either ancillary of the phone to accomplish a specific action. By default, a double-tap will activate one-handed mode, which shrinks the awning to a abundant added acquiescent size. You can set the double-tap action to appealing abundant anything, admitting — it can barrage your admired apps, go back, barrage a amphibian aeronautics bar, or activate your absence articulation assistant.
Double-tapping the ancillary of the phone is nice and all, but I don’t anticipate it’s a affection abounding bodies will use in the continued run. Back this phone is glass, slippery, and will apparently able if you bead it, you’ll allegation to buy a case for your U12 Plus. You won’t be able to use the double-tap action if you get a case that protects all edges of this phone.
Of course, all the added admirable squeezy appearance accept returned. A abbreviate or long-squeeze can barrage any app of your choice, ascendancy music playback, barrage the Bend Launcher, aggrandize or collapse your notification shade, and more. I set my abbreviate clasp to barrage Google Abettor (I got acclimated to it on my Pixel 2), and a long-squeeze launches the camera app (since it’s too adamantine to double-tap the ability button). Amazon Alexa affiliation is actuality too, for those who aren’t admirers of Google Assistant.
We’d additionally acclaim downloading the Bend Faculty Additional app for alike added customization.
The HTC U12 Additional is accessible for pre-order at HTC.com and Amazon for $799 and $849 for the 64 and 128GB models, respectively. Pre-orders will address out ancient in June. HTC additionally offers costs options on its website if you don’t appetite to carapace out $800 all at once.
It’s not accessible through any carrier partners, and no retailers are accustomed it in the U.S. That agency you can’t buy this phone in brick-and-mortar stores. That’s a abashment for consumers, and will aftereffect in bags of absent sales for HTC.
$800 is a lot of money for any phone — abnormally this one. It’s $150 added than the U11 was at launch. I don’t anticipate it absolutely offers abundant for that increase. It’s additionally added big-ticket than the Google Pixel 2, and not too far off from the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.
Of course, there are affluence of affidavit to buy it. At its core, this is a solid high-end smartphone. It’s fast and powerful, has a abundant screen, an absorbing camera, and HTC is absolutely aggravating to innovate with Bend Sense. It’s additionally one of the alone high-end phones after a notch, if you affliction about that array of thing. If you’re an HTC fan, you’ll adulation the U12 Plus.
The botheration is, this phone doesn’t beat the antagonism in any area. What the U12 Additional gets right, its antagonism additionally gets right. There’s aloof no standout acumen to buy this phone over the Pixel 2 XL, Galaxy S9 Plus, or even the LG G7 ThinQ.
This is a acceptable phone bedridden by a blah software experience, abhorrent buttons, beneath boilerplate array life, and a amount tag that’s too high. If you can get accomplished those things, buy it. I don’t anticipate you’ll affliction it. For best people, I’d say it’s safe to canyon on the U12 Plus.
What are your thoughts on the HTC U12 Plus? Accept you ordered one? Let us apperceive your thoughts in the comments.
Next: LG G7 ThinQ review: Bright, loud, and smart
Design
Display
Performance
Hardware
Battery
Camera
Software
Specs
Gallery
Pricing, availability, and final thoughts
This is one of the best ablaze smartphones on the bazaar appropriate now.
The new buttons are by far the affliction allotment of this phone.
This is a abundant phone for audiophiles, admitting the abridgement of a headphone jack.
Yet again, HTC fabricated one of the best camera phones on the market.
HTC Faculty isn't bad, it's aloof stale.
The U12 Additional is a abundant phone that doesn't beat the antagonism in any allusive ways.
Google Pixel 2
HTC U12 Plus
Samsung Galaxy S9
HTC U12 Plus
| HTC U12 Plus | |
|---|---|
| Display | 6.0-inch Cool LCD 6 2,880 x 1,140 resolution 537ppi 18:9 aspect ratio DCI-P3, sRGB |
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform 2.8GHz, 64-bit octa-core |
| GPU | Adreno 630 |
| RAM | 6GB |
| Storage | 64/128GB MicroSD amplification up to 2TB with Flex Storage |
| Cameras | Rear cameras Primary: 12MP wide-angle HTC UltraPixel 4 sensor, ƒ/1.75 aperture, 1.4μm pixels Telephoto: 16MP sensor, ƒ/2.6 aperture, 1.0μm pixels Phase apprehension and laser autofocus, OIS, HDR Boost 2, dual-LED flash Front cameras Dual 8MP sensors, ƒ/2.0 aperture, 1.12μm pixels, wide-angle with 84-degree acreage of view |
| Audio | HTC USonic with Alive Babble Cancellation HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi edition Hi-Res audio recording Hi-Res audio certified Qualcomm aptX HD, LDAC up to 32-bit high-resolution wireless audio via Bluetooth |
| Battery | 3,500mAh Non-removable Qualcomm Quick Allegation 3.0 |
| IP rating | IP68 |
| Sensors | Edge Ambient light Proximity Motion G-sensor Compass Gyro Magnetic Fingerprint Sensor hub for action tracking GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou |
| Network | 2G/2.5G GSM/GPRS/EDGE - 850/900/1800/1900MHz 3G UMTS - AWS/850/900/1900/2100MHz - HSDPA 42, HSUPA 5.76 4G LTE - FDD: Bands 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 28, 32, 66 - TDD: Bands 38, 39, 40, 41 - Abutment Cat 18 Gigabit LTE: downloads up to 1.2Gbps, uploads up to 150Mbps, up to 5CA and 4x4 MIMO (where supported - VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling (where supported) |
| Connectivity | USB 3.1, Type-C Bluetooth 5.0 Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5GHz) with MU-MIMO NFC DisplayPort over USB Type-C HTC Connect AirPlay, Chromecast, DNLA, and Miracast |
| Software | Android 8.0 Oreo |
| Dimensions and weight | 156.6 x 73.9 x 8.7-9.7mm 188g |
| Colors | titanium atramentous (ceramic atramentous in some regions), blaze red, clear-cut blue |
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