HTC U11 hands-on: First look

Boom Sound speakers and active noise cancellation

The HTC U 11 is loud. Like seriously - you can't have a conversation while the music is playing - loud. We are really impressed with how much audio power is crammed into the handset. In typical HTC fashion, the U 11 has a stereo setup. However, unlike some previous implementations, one of the speakers is not front-facing. Instead it resides on the bottom bezel, where it is may be easy to cover accidentally depending on your repertoire of phone-handling positions.

The second one doubles as an earpiece and what an earpiece, indeed. Quality sounded pretty crisp - mids and lows were both well reproduced. In fact, these speakers are louder and richer-sounding than the HTC 10's.

Speaking of audio, HTC's bundled headphone solution is arguably even more interesting. But first, the not so thrilling part - just like the U Ultra and U Play, the U 11 does not have a 3.5mm audio jack. HTC has adopted the modern Type-C output approach, instead. Naturally, from a user standpoint that means adopting the "dongle lifestyle". At least the little adapter is included in the box.

Unlike many competitors, however, HTC has a pretty good reason, or perhaps excuse, for ditching the tried and true analog jack. Its new USonic earbuds come with a couple of smart features that actually require the transfer of data to and from the phone. This enables these earbuds to do some active noise cancelling for you.

For one, they are fitted with sonar technology, whose sensors apparently detect how sound travels in your ears. This data is then used to create a custom sound profile. It's one of those features PR departments love. But, while it is really hard to judge on the merits of ear-canal analysis, active noise canceling is really easy to appreciate and instantly fall in love with.

Instead of doing all the heavy lifting themselves, the USonic earbuds use the U 11's array of four microphones and its processing power to generate the necessary wavelengths and drown out surrounding noise. We were quite impressed with this feature.

Performance benchmarks

The HTC U 11 scored the coveted Snapdragon 835 chipset - something lacking on the HTC U Ultra. HTC’s new darling is among the earliest offerings with Qualcomm’s top chip, though not the first. That means we have some interesting competition to test it against.

The Xiaomi Mi 6 is another S835 phone, as is the Galaxy S8+. We also tested the S8+ with Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 chipset. We also put the Mate 9 that uses Huawei’s in-house Kirin 960 chipset as a reference. The other competitors (aside from the iPhone, obviously) came out with the older generation Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon 820 or 821.

Too many chip names that mean nothing to you? Fret not, bar charts will make everything clear. AnTuTu puts the whole system to a test and here the U 11 came out the winner (well, sharing 1st place with the Mi 6, but on top nonetheless).

It edged out some best-sellers like the iPhone 7 Plus and Galaxy S8+ (both versions). This puts the HTC U Ultra and LG G6 in a tough spot - both are 2017 models that offer late 2016 performance. And we won’t even mention the HTC 10 evo.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• HTC U 11 (S835)
  177343
• Xiaomi Mi 6 (S835)
  177326
• iPhone 7 Plus (A10)
  174987
• Galaxy S8+ (Exynos)
  174070
• Galaxy S8+ (S835)
  168133
• HTC 10 (S820)
  154031
• LG G6 (S821)
  141895
• Pixel XL (S821)
  141186
• HTC U Ultra (S821)
  139750
• Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)
  122826

We tested the HTC U 11 with 4GB of RAM, though for the next benchmark the CPU is all that matters - all eight cores of it. As you can see, moving from four cores (in the Snapdragon 820/821) to eight cores (in the 835) had a noticeable impact on multi-core performance. The new cores aren’t that much faster on their own, though.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S8+ (Exynos)
  6338
• HTC U 11 (S835)
  6125
• Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)
  6112
• Galaxy S8+ (S835)
  6106
• Xperia XZ Premium (S835)
  5837
• iPhone 7 Plus (A10)
  5664
• HTC U Ultra (S821)
  4201
• Pixel XL (S821)
  4152
• LG G6 (S821)
  3648
• HTC 10 (S820)
  3621

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• iPhone 7 Plus (A10)
  3473
• HTC U 11 (S835)
  1993
• Xperia XZ Premium (S835)
  1943
• Galaxy S8+ (Exynos)
  1938
• Galaxy S8+ (S835)
  1915
• Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)
  1898
• LG G6 (S821)
  1792
• HTC 10 (S820)
  1708
• HTC U Ultra (S821)
  1647
• Pixel XL (S821)
  1507

The HTC U 11 also flaunts Qualcomm’s latest GPU, the Adreno 540. The chip maker claims a 25% boost in 3D rendering performance compared to the previous generation chipset

Basemark X supports that claim, the increase compared to HTC 10 is actually a bit over a quarter. Compared to Snapdragon 821 phones like the LG G6, the difference is smaller (~20%) but still a tangible improvement.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Galaxy S8+ (Exynos)
  43862
• Xperia XZ Premium (S835)
  38507
• HTC U 11 (S835)
  38399
• Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)
  36519
• HTC U Ultra (S821)
  35875
• Galaxy S8+ (S835)
  34951
• LG G6 (S821)
  32041
• Pixel XL (S821)
  30861
• HTC 10 (S820)
  28882

Going up to the newer graphics platform, the Mali G71 GPU (S8+/Exynos and Mate 9/Kirin) seems to have a better handle on things than the Adreno. Still, Qualcomm has delivered extra oomph for flagship games.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• iPhone 7 Plus (A10)
  1517
• Galaxy S8+ (Exynos)
  1111
• HTC U 11 (S835)
  836
• Galaxy S8+ (S835)
  817
• Huawei Mate 9 (Kirin 960)
  794
• Xperia XZ Premium (S835)
  727
• LG G6 (S821)
  647
• Pixel XL (S821)
  626
• HTC U Ultra (S821)
  582

We know there’s more to a phone than just chipset, but the HTC U 11 shows a clear superiority over the U Ultra when it comes to performance. Even outside of HTC’s stable the U 11 is a brawler - matching or beating many pretenders to the 2017 flagship throne.

Conclusion

It turns out it's the HTC U11 that's destined to be the real successor to the HTC 10 and not the U Ultra. Even though the two U phones share the extravagant colors and flamboyant design, it would be the HTC U11 that will have all eyes on itself. And deservedly so - it's got some unique hardware features such as Edge Sense and it's properly equipped with some screaming hot hardware to go with it. This phone can't come out soon enough. Good thing we already have secured a review unit. Stay tuned!