SMARTPHONE SPECIAL ....A great handset with exciting functionality

SMARTPHONE SPECIAL A great handset with exciting functionality





The new phone is gorgeous, squeezable, and has Amazon's Alexa assistant built in

HTC's smartphone business is struggling these days, and it's hard to say the new U 11 will turn things around. Its Alexa support sounds big, but it is expected the feature will hit more phones before long.

The HTC U 11 is a superior alternative to LG's G 6 and other devices that may appeal to Android users bored with the usual iPhones and Galaxy phones. Though that's a relatively small market, the new handset has the makings of a fast, well featured, and goodlooking phone. Check out more on the HTC U 11 before it arrives in June this year: HTC is talking up the 12-megapixel main camera. The company says it should be better in low-light settings, with faster focus and a more vibrant HDR mode as well. The 16-megapixel, wide-angle lens on the front is also unusually powerful.

The U 11 runs on the latest Snapdragon 835 chipset, with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of storage. There's an option with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage, too.There's no Bluetooth 5 a la the Galaxy S8, but this should be one of the fastest phones on the market.

T h e c o mp a ny says this will work with any pressure at all, so you can, say, activate it with gloves on. You can also set the level of pressure needed to start the feature.

Battery life will be something to watch. The 5.5-inch display pushes a 1440p resolution -it looked great, by the way -and the battery powering those pixels is 3,000mAh. HTC says it will get through a full day.

The whole thing runs on the latest Android 7.1, so Google Assistant is still there as well.HTC also has its own Sense Companion helper. This plurality is a good thing; if you don't want to use an assistant, just don't call on it.

The other big software feature is called Edge Sense. This lets you squeeze the lower sides of the device to quickly launch various actions on the phone.You can use this to open the camera app, write a text using your voice, take a screenshot, tur n on the f lash light, open Google Assistant or Alexa, activate any app on the phone, and so on, mapping whatever you want to a long press and a short press.

How much Alexa can actually do on the U 11 isn't totally clear, though. It'll be more limited than the Echo, at least to start. And Alexa will be implemented into the U 11 through an update sometime in the first month after the phone comes out .

businessinsider.in