Hello dear readers
Just wanted to create a thread to know about your experience with the new HTC U11+
Please do not forget to mention the following things:
-Where did you buy your phone from?
-Which color were you lucky enough to get.
-What accessories are you using with your device?
-What do you like about the device?
-Whats you favorite feature/s?
-What do you have installed on your phone?
-Approx. how many hours a day do you use your phone?
-And last but not the least, if you have any advice or suggestions for other (or potential) HTC U11+ owners.
Looking forward to you guys' sharing your experience.:fingers-crossed:
I got my device off a Taiwan-based retailer on eBay. I opted for the translucent black one because I thought it looked less gaudy than the others. I use my bluetooth headphones a few times daily to stream music on Spotify, Google Play Music, YouTube Music and YouTube. I can count the number of times I have used the 3.5mm adapter. That is not to say I don't miss the headphone jack. There have been a few times when I needed to connect my wired earbuds for phone calls (because my wireless pair act up sometimes with phone calls) and was momentarily disappointed. A minor inconvenience but an inconvenience still. I have a few bank apps, WhatsApp, Telegram, an email app, 4 light games, a dictionary, the eBay and Amazon apps and Netflix. I actively use Spotify, YouTube, YouTube Music, Google Play Music and Chrome on a daily basis. I actually spend more time on Chrome than on anything else, save for Spotify that stays minimized most times so I can easily resume playing tunes when I slap on my headphones or jump in the car. I probably use my phone for 3hrs each day on average.
These are the things I like about the device:
- The 6-inch display. After using a Xiaomi Mi Max for 6 months, I fell in love with big displays. Although, this screen size is a sizeable downgrade, the taller aspect ratio seemed attractive.
- The speakers. This phone is undoubtebly louder than my previous phones, whether via the speakers or connected headsets. I am not an audiophile by any means but I can tell this phone has a superior DAC compared to my previous phones.
- The 3930mAh battery. To be honest, this is the one thing about the phone that got me interested. I had owned a HTC One M8 in the past. While a good phone during its time, I wasn't entirely sold on the camera front. I am not a huge camera user but it sure is a nice feature to have. Also, if I am going to spend a huge sum on a phone, it better be great at everything. My previous device was a Samsung Galaxy S8+. An excellent device it was but the 3500mAh left quite a lot to be desired. The fingerprint scanner seemed ancient as well given its size, shape and reliability. The U11+ is no slouch when it comes to longevity. With my usage, I can get close to 10hrs SOT with almost 2 days of standby.
- The fingerprint scanner. It is the right size, shape and in the right location. Did I mention that it is fast? Yeah, my S8+ sucked in this regard. It had a success rate of 60%. The iris scanner wasn't much help as I could only use it in certain situations.
- ActiveEdge. This isn't a feature I use a lot. It is actually disabled as I write this. It is nice to have but I sometimes forget to use it even after assigning shortcuts to it. Sometimes I don't even realise it's there until I accidentally squeeze the frame and get the visual notification.
These things I don't like about the phone:
- Notification LED. At this price point, one would expect a RGB one. I like being able to tell what kind of notification I have so as to help me decide if it's an urgent one or not. Samsung has had this for as long as I can remember. I don't understand why some other OEMs don't use them.
- No audio EQ. I like having the ability to adjust EQ settings to suit my taste. I was hoping this phone would at least have Dolby ATMOS like the M9. I tried a few apps on the Play Store. They weren't quite up to snuff. Tried the one that was ported from an Axon device. No luck with that either. I'm not too fussed as one of my headphones has a few EQ settings to choose from.
- LCD panel. I have been spoiled by Samsung's SuperAMOLED QHD displays. Them being oversaturated doesn't bother me as much as this one being LCD does. Once you go AMOLED, LCD just seems so ancient. Also, the max brightness of this panel is nothing to write home about. This is something reviewers talked about but I imagined I wouldn't need to use my device in direct sunlight often. Well, I imagined wrong. Sunlight visibility is poor.
- No headphone jack. While not a deal-breaker, this is still an inconvenience that could have been avoided. I won't be settling for anything without one in the future.
- Stale software. Sense has been praised for being not as heavily skinned or resource-heavy like the then Samsung TouchWiz. I liked it back when the M8 got the update. Now, I feel like it has become old and outdated. HTC built-in apps look like we are still in 2013. The dialer app was my first frustration. It was such an eyesore. I immediately replaced it with Drupe but did away with that later as it was too convoluted and unintuitive. Now, I am using the Google Dialer which has been good so far.
Security Updates. I don't know about devices from other regions but I haven't gotten an update since I acquired this device. It is still on the December security patch. This is definitely worse than what I experienced with my S8+.
- Bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth performance has been less than pleasant. Sometimes, devices disconnect a second after being connected to my phone. Other times, the phone doesn't automatically connect to the last used device. Also, you can't have more than 1 Bluetooth device connected to the device using the same profile. What I mean is I can't have my headphones and portable Bluetooth speaker connected at the same time. By comparison, my Galaxy S8+ would stay connected to my 2 Bluetooth headphones and smartwatch. And I could easily choose which one could be active. There's also dual audio - streaming audio to 2 Bluetooth devices at the same time.
- Audio player. I use a variety of music-streaming services and one thing I have noticed is that when a track is being streamed, the total track time is not displayed. I have tried changing the codec in use without much luck. The most recent development is that track ID sometimes only displays on my head unit. Dunno if it's the Spotify app that is playing up.
- Gesture-based shortcut for screenshot-taking. Why is this still an issue in 2018? Gestures are a lot faster than swiping and then tapping or performing hand acrobatics in order to get a screenshot. Samsung does this right. So does OnePlus. Dunno about other OEMs.
These are the pros and cons I can think of right now. If there are others, they are probably too minor to rant about.
For would-be buyers, think long and hard before you decide if this device is right for you. As always, weigh the pros vs the cons. Also note that some of the cons outlined here are as a result of my personal preferences. I was aware of a few of the cons before I took the plunge. But I bought it anyway because I was seduced by the battery capacity. Now that the novelty has worn off, I am most likely going to offload the device in the coming weeks and go for a Xiaomi Mi Max 3... or the Samsung Galaxy Note9, depending on the state of my wallet at the time.
Hope this helps.
