HTC U23 Pro review

Design

Let's not beat about the bush here. The HTC U23 Pro looks like a mid-range device through and through. Not only is it entirely made of plastic, but the size of its display bezels is so substantial that it kind of rivals some modern budget devices.

The front of the phone is almost entirely flat. It is a large slab of Gorilla Glass Victus, which we can't complain about. As we said, the bezel situation is less than ideal, and it's not like HTC is making the most out of the extra space here, with nothing particularly special occupying the areas like a stereo speaker setup. The U23 Pro just has a singular bottom-firing speaker. There are a couple of sensors near the top of the phone on the front as well as the earpiece, both very subtly hidden away, which is nice to see.

The phone's backside feels plastic, though we can't find any official info on the material. It features a very subtle, soft, smooth, almost velvet-like finish, which is nice to the touch but does seem to gather quite a bit of dirt and grease.

The back panel is nicely curved around the edges, which makes for a very comfortable in-hard feel. Measuring 166.6 x 77.1 x 8.9 mm and weighing in at 205 grams, the U23 Pro is not unwieldy in any way. Quite the opposite, it is easy to handle and weight distribution is excellent.

While there is some hollowness to the rear panel, the phone as a whole feels pretty sturdy with practically no flex. It's surprising, given that the middle frame also seems to be made of plastic.

We really enjoy at least a couple of subtle design details, like the embossed HTC logo on the back side and the glass-like camera island. The latter protrudes quite a bit, making the phone wobble while sitting on a flat surface, but we like how it looks. Plus, this is a minor issue that does not affect ergonomics and basically, any phone case will quickly take care of.

The HTC U23 Pro can be had in either Snow White or Coffee Black color options. These only seem to affect the back side of the phone. The front bezels remain black in both cases. Both color options are very subdued and stealthy. The U23 Pro feels right at home in every environment, even a boardroom.

Build quality

As we mentioned, despite being mostly made of plastic, the HTC U23 Pro feels sturdy and well put together. There is practically no flex to speak of. We have praised plastic as a building material in the past and will continue to do so. It does not scratch or dent quite like metal and does not shatter like glass. It is quite sturdy and structurally sound while remaining relatively lighter than the alternative materials. Sure, it doesn't feel or look quite as premium, but does that really matter if you are going to slap a case on anyway? That's a discussion for another day, though.

Beyond its plastic sides and most likely back side, the U23 Pro actually has some excellent other standout points in its build. For one, the front is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Sure, that's not Corning's latest and greatest material, but is still an excellent and confidence-inspiring choice.

Probably most impressively, though, the U23 Pro has an IP67 ingress protection rating. That means that it should survive a dip in up to a meter of fresh water for up to 30 minutes. If your unit gets particularly grimy, you could confidently, though still carefully, wash it down with, say, a water and soap solution.

Controls

The HTC U23 Pro has a rather interesting control set, mainly due to the inclusion of a side-mounted fingerprint reader. You don't see that often, particularly on a modern phone with an OLED display. Most manufacturers tend to now go for an in-display reader on their OLED devices.

The fingerprint reader left us a bit wanting in terms of accuracy. The situation did improve slightly after re-registering the print, but it is still not the most reliable reader, which is odd given the maturity of the capacitive technology behind this sort of reader. Speed was fairly decent on the reader, but HTC includes a pretty sluggish unlock animation, which makes the perceived speed of operation quite slow.

The actual button part of the fingerprint reader/power button combo works well enough. It has nice tactile feedback when pressed. It is also good to see that you can choose whether you want the fingerprint reader always on or triggered once you press the button.

The volume buttons above the power button are well-positioned and also offer decent tactile feedback. They are a bit on the smaller side, but we don't really mind that since that makes accidentally pressing them harder.

The left side frame of the U23 Pro is entirely empty and uninterrupted, with no controls in sight.

The phone's top side houses a 3.5mm audio jack - an increasingly rare addition at almost every price point. There is a secondary mic on here as well.

The bottom side of the U23 Pro is pretty busy. The main microphone is here, and so is the sole bottom-firing speaker. The USB Type-C port and the SIM card tray are here, too. It is a hybrid design that can either take two nano-SIM cards or one nano-SIM and a microSD card for storage expansion. We would have preferred a dedicated microSD card slot, but this is better than no expandable storage.

Curiously enough, the U23 Pro has an RGB notification LED, which is not something you often see. It is positioned in the top right corner on the front of the device above the display.

Connectivity

The U23 Pro has a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset onboard. It is a 5G chip with both SA and NSA Sub-6 support on both SIM slots. The phone has GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BDS support for positioning. Local connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (ax) as well as Bluetooth 5.2 with LE support. There is NFC on board, too, but no FM radio receiver.

The USB port on the U23 Pro is actually quite capable. Expectedly, it supports USB Host/OTG functionality. Not only that, but it does so at USB 3.0 speeds, which is to say USB 3.1 Gen 1, using newer naming or, USB 3.2 Gen 1, using newer still naming, or USB SuperSpeed, if you prefer that terminology. USB naming foolery aside, it can transfer data at up to 5 Gbps. Beyond that, however, the Type-C port also supports video output, which you don't see often.

The U23 Pro has a pretty good set of sensors on board. There is a TDK-Invensense icm4x607 gyroscope and accelerometer combo, a sensortek stk_stk3a5x hardware proximity and light sensor and a Voltafield AF6133E magnetometer and compass combo. The only major omission from the list is a barometer.