HTC just sold a huge chunk of its mobile arm to Google, the team that’s responsible for last year’s Pixel phones and the upcoming Pixel 2 model. However, that doesn’t mean HTC has given up on making HTC-branded smartphones, and a new flagship is just around the corner.
This phone is apparently an iPhone X and Galaxy Note 8 rival and appears to be even more exciting than the Pixel 2 that HTC Is making for Google. It’s also the kind of Pixel 2 XL phone HTC could have built.
The HTC U11 Plus is, as the name suggests, a variation of the HTC U11 flagship phone that was launched a few months ago. It’s a bigger version of the phone, that’s what the Plus moniker denotes. But it’s also an all-screen phone that HTC has never made. And French-language site FrAndroid has more details on it.
The Pixel is, like it or not, an iPhone clone. And HTC’s Pixel 2 will be a Pixel clone. That is, you shouldn’t expect an all-screen design from the smaller Google phone this year. That’s a design reserved for the Pixel 2 XL that LG is making. Truth be told, the move isn’t necessarily surprising. After all, Apple used the same iPhone design for four generations in a row. But this year, Apple will have two similarly sized iPhones sporting 2013 and 2017 designs — that’s the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
Moving on to the HTC U11 Plus, you should know the phone is expected to pack a 5.99-inch LCD display with 2880 x 1440 resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. That means the phone will compete directly against the iPhone X, Galaxy S8, Galaxy Note 8, LG G6, and any other all-screen smartphone coming out this year.
Other specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of storage, 12-megapixel single-lens camera, and 8-megapixel selfie camera. The phone is IP68 certified and features an Edge Sense squeezable frame and USB Type-C support.
The phone should be unveiled in China on November 11th, more than a month after the Pixel 2 launches, and a few days after the iPhone X hits stores and should cost around €759 in Europe. In other words, don’t be surprised if you won’t remember the HTC U11 Plus as we get closer to the holiday season. It may be HTC’s best phone this year, but one that will be killed in stores by the new phones from Apple, Google, and Samsung.
