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Hi everyone,
I'm just here to share my recent experience with my freshly bought 8X compared to my recently sold Titan.
The device is gorgeous, and it doesn't feel as thick as it actually is (I was surprised when I read that it was over a centimeter thick in the center), and compared to my Titan, even if the size are in the same categories, I really like the 16:9 aspect in the hand. Also compared to my Titan, the screen is much better. Not in term of obvious pixel density and color saturation, but in term of feel under the finger. They simply flow on the screen, and in 4 days (of pretty heavy use) I didn't really clean the screen, when with my Titan I had to use a microfiber cloth at least once every two or three days because of the fingerprints. So yeah, I really like the feel in the hand and how the phone looks. It catches the eye, and all the people I talk too are asking me what is that nice looking phone. Regarding battery life, as I said, those 4 days were pretty heavy in use and the phone did well, lasting all day long.
I love Windows Phone since the beginning. From my Omnia 7 bought the day it was available in France, I've been in love with this OS, and managed to convert my two best friends to switch (one from iOS, the other from Android). I'm waiting for them to get their WP8 devices so we can take advantages of the rooms (we share a lot of things together, but always all three of us, so it'll be pretty handy I think). But, because of HTC's way of dealing with their products and some WP8 weirdness, I really miss some features from my Titan.
The GPS app wasn't really expensive and worked well for me in France (I drive a lot), and I was also used to flip the phone to activate speakerphone... I did that a few hours ago, and felt dumb when I realized it did nothing. In the last two days, I drove about 7 hours in places I don't really know. With my Titan, I wasn't really worried, because I had the GPS app, and when it was for shorter distance and that I didn't want to bother with that heavy GPS app, I could still use Bing maps to navigate, but yesterday and today were painful because I had none of those (thankfully, the places weren't too small so it was easy to find) because HTC didn't put the Location app on the WP8 Store, and because Bing now doesn't have a turn-by-turn navigation (Why is that ? To promote Nokia phones with Nokia Drive ??) ! Also, on Bing maps, the satellite view is blurry as hell and I even have freaking clouds over my house when it's just fine on Bing's website or even on my Titan, and let's not forget the fact that the app isn't smooth, the framerate is really poor because of the vectorized text, but hell, look at Google Maps on an Android phones, it had way more data on screen and is really fluid ! Seriously, what the f- Microsoft ?
Now, since I'm driving a lot, I'm using a car mount, and I really love the vocal commands for texts... But these last two days, I haven't been able to send a single one since the 8X doesn't understand what I'm saying with my engine turned on. With my Titan, I knew that over 90/100km/h, there was too much noise in my car, and that the voice recognition sometimes messed up. But it was true for long messages, for short answer like "thanks" or else, I could easily say "Respond [...] Thanks [...] Send" and it worked like a charm. Here, with my 8x, even on a parking, without actually driving, if the engine is on, it can't recognize a single word ! Engine turned off, it works perfectly. And the phone is actually closer from me than my Titan was ! That's an other major WTF for me. How can such thing gets worse in such a scale ? I just can't use my 8X while driving (and as I said, this is one key element from me).
Finally, my last complaint would be about the front facing camera : Why is it so slow ? If I reach 10 fps in bright light it's already amazing, I wanted to compare the wide lens with a friend, he holded me his Galaxy S III, and when the wide angle is, indeed, really nice, I felt really stupid when comparing the framerate. The GS3 wasn't far from 30fps when my 8X was looking stop-motion like. How can such high-end phone feature a such poor front-facing camera experience.
So far I like the phone, but the comparison with the Titan regarding some key features and some low-FPS from time to time for me is not really flattering. I really hope I'll be able to fix those issues I have with my phone. For navigation, I'll probably by the Navigon Europe since it's probably the better you can get, but too bad it doesn't offer a trial. But for voice recognition... I'm actually pissed.
Thanks for sharing. My only complaint after the first few days is the rear speaker is intermittent. Worked for a day, then not the next, and so on. This one's going back... hope the next one is better.
warranty
I had mine already twice in warranty repair because of the same problem... at morning the phone is just dead and there is no way to charge it or turn it on.....
Ordered this for my partner and have had it a few days now. Just wanted to say how pleased I am with the purchase, considering the price (£260 with 2 years warranty).
I was half expecting it to be kinda slow and clunky, but after installing all our apps, I am happy to say it is more than nippy for its price bracket. The camera is also better than expected, but I had low expectation. the screen is decent, nice and clear with nothing obviously low budget about it.
its not silky smooth, but I would imagine this would be the step up phone for folk coming from the moto G or moto E and compared to early gen versions of those, this is a real bump up.
am on about 2h20m screen on with 60% left, thats with some gps, 40 mins of phone calls and installing and checking more apps.
also, was worried about having no LED notification, but the move to display works well, in fact my partner prefers it as shes not someone who uses her phone constantly.
quick charging is very handy, NFC is a nice touch as I have shown her the uses. gets in the car, touches the tag, it turns on "speak out text messages" from the sony conect app (which works on non sony phones, just format the NFC to xperia tags in the many free apps), turns on bluetooth to connect to the BT car phone and turns up all the volumes to max. taps when home, turns off BT, turns off text read out and sets volumes back down a tad.
so, considering the price, this is a solid 9/10 phone.
good screen, good battery, acceptable speed, nice SD card, NFC, not back photo and video and all for a pretty decent price unlocked!
DrEzkimo said:
Ordered this for my partner and have had it a few days now. Just wanted to say how pleased I am with the purchase, considering the price (£260 with 2 years warranty).
I was half expecting it to be kinda slow and clunky, but after installing all our apps, I am happy to say it is more than nippy for its price bracket. The camera is also better than expected, but I had low expectation. the screen is decent, nice and clear with nothing obviously low budget about it.
its not silky smooth, but I would imagine this would be the step up phone for folk coming from the moto G or moto E and compared to early gen versions of those, this is a real bump up.
am on about 2h20m screen on with 60% left, thats with some gps, 40 mins of phone calls and installing and checking more apps.
also, was worried about having no LED notification, but the move to display works well, in fact my partner prefers it as shes not someone who uses her phone constantly.
quick charging is very handy, NFC is a nice touch as I have shown her the uses. gets in the car, touches the tag, it turns on "speak out text messages" from the sony conect app (which works on non sony phones, just format the NFC to xperia tags in the many free apps), turns on bluetooth to connect to the BT car phone and turns up all the volumes to max. taps when home, turns off BT, turns off text read out and sets volumes back down a tad.
so, considering the price, this is a solid 9/10 phone.
good screen, good battery, acceptable speed, nice SD card, NFC, not back photo and video and all for a pretty decent price unlocked!
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:good: same feeling as you. The price of the phone makes it unbeatable
First off let me start by saying i have a MXP and i love it so i'm not dissing it.
However The Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 has a better looking screen, much better audio and it has the same performance and they £80 cheaper making it an absolute bargain.
I bought the MXP because of the bigger battery and in the vein hope of better support but i do often wonder if an extra hour of SOT a day was worth the extra £80.
Much prefer both phones over my original Nexus 5.
MrBelter said:
First off let me start by saying i have a MXP and i love it so i'm not dissing it.
However The Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 has a better looking screen, much better audio and it has the same performance and they £80 cheaper making it an absolute bargain.
I bought the MXP because of the bigger battery and in the vein hope of better support but i do often wonder if an extra hour of SOT a day was worth the extra £80.
Much prefer both phones over my original Nexus 5.
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that phone went completely under my radar! does seem very good for the price.
It's the exact same spec as far as i can gather.
The screen has shattered (18 inch to 2 foot fall in the house off a chair arm) on the wife's idol 3 though and it was only 6 weeks old but i am seeing people on here saying there screens have gone on easily on the MXP as well
Once MM is on both phones i would struggle to pick between them ill be honest
Well, mine's already shipped, so it's comforting to see some positive feedback for it.
The Alcatel seems reasonably comparable though it has a far less powerful main camera. Makes up for it in secondary camera though I guess and has a couple of bells and whistles that the play doesn't like Bluetooth 4.1, but no quick charging facility.
Still comfortable with my purchase thankfully.
Chaotic-Entropy said:
Well, mine's already shipped, so it's comforting to see some positive feedback for it.
The Alcatel seems reasonably comparable though it has a far less powerful main camera. Makes up for it in secondary camera though I guess and has a couple of bells and whistles that the play doesn't like Bluetooth 4.1, but no quick charging facility.
Still comfortable with my purchase thankfully.
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Just refuse the package they will refund you
Chaotic-Entropy said:
Well, mine's already shipped, so it's comforting to see some positive feedback for it.
The Alcatel seems reasonably comparable though it has a far less powerful main camera. Makes up for it in secondary camera though I guess and has a couple of bells and whistles that the play doesn't like Bluetooth 4.1, but no quick charging facility.
Still comfortable with my purchase thankfully.
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Dont be fooled by the pixel count, the camera on the Idol 3 is very capable.
fingerprinted said:
Just refuse the package they will refund you
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MrBelter said:
Dont be fooled by the pixel count, the camera on the Idol 3 is very capable.
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Errr... that's okay, I'm happy with my purchase. It's all good.
I must add that the Moto X Play has a superb build quality. I was hoping it would have a good one because my Moto X 2013 was great, too. My LG G3's build quality was a joke compared to this.
I got mine for £100 second hand and really like it, no major weakness in any department
masm64 said:
I must add that the Moto X Play has a superb build quality. I was hoping it would have a good one because my Moto X 2013 was great, too. My LG G3's build quality was a joke compared to this.
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I was about to post the very same, decided to read the previous posts and see this.
But somehow the Camera on my old LG G3 was brilliant, especially when it came to Macro Shots and moving objects in the background.
yekollu said:
I was about to post the very same, decided to read the previous posts and see this.
But somehow the Camera on my old LG G3 was brilliant, especially when it came to Macro Shots and moving objects in the background.
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I must agree, the G3's camera was superior compared to the Play's.
I was expecting a lot worse of an experience.. I was really hesitant to buy the phone but now that I have it I like it a lotttt. Still going to get my Nexus 6P though
I have used this device for the last week in place of my usual device, which is a Samsung Galaxy S7. Throughout the review I will compare the Nomu S20 to the S7, and other devices which I have owned in the past. It is important to note that, of course – the S7 is a far more expensive device and this will be reflected in my review.
The review will be split into the following sections:-
Initial Impressions
Build Quality and Ruggedness
Display
Day to Day Performance and Software
Benchmarks
Sound and Call Quality
Battery Life
Camera
Conclusion
Initial Impressions
The item comes in a rather plain brown box with the Nomu logo on the top. It contains a Charger, Cable and SIM tool. On first removing the phone from its protective bag, the first thing to strike you is how tough it looks and feel. The rubberised back looks very high end and gives a wonderful level of grip. This is the first way that you are reminded that this is no ordinary Smartphone, but one that has been designed to withstand more than your average level of knocks and bumps. There are a large number of videos you can find online of this phone having being pushed to its physical limitations and boy can it take a kicking. It is quite a weighty beast, but this really does give you confidence that it can handle being dropped or knocked and take it all in its stride. In short – it is built like a tank, but don’t let that lead you into thinking I am talking about an ugly device. It has an industrial beauty that wouldn’t look out place on the set of Blade Runner.
Build Quality and Ruggedness
With the Nomu S20 focussed very much in the “rugged” device space, you would expect it to be built exceedingly well, and that it is. With metal reinforced edges and a textured rubber back it feels to me very much like a premium device, more so than some flagship phones from large manufacturers that I have owned, for example the LG G3. There are removable flaps covering all the phones ports (SIM/SD, Charger, Headphone Jack) in order to ensure the phone is water and dust proof. I don’t have access to a lot of dust, but I have had the phone in the shower and left it dunked in the sink to test its waterproofing and can report that the device coped with it just as expected. Believe me this is no Sony Xperia Z, where the manufacturer tells you the device is waterproof but recommends you don’t actually use it in the water. My descriptions will not really do it justice though, I suggest you have a look at the following videos!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTnUpgfkOMg – Mentos and Cola!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOE1kvKe6ic – Smash it on a desk!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nom2agkfxjM – Try to destroy by any means necessary!
It is a little heavy for my tastes, however it needs to be in order to be able to take everything that is thrown at it in those videos, it is quite thick too – but considering you probably won’t need to bother with a case then it is pretty much the same as any other device once you include a decent protective casing.
Display
Impressive, very clear and very bright! 720p on a 5 inch screen is perfectly good enough resolution for watching TV and Movies on the go. The screen is very responsive to touch considering it appears to have a built in screen protector on it. I was tempted to remove it but I usually regret this type of thing as soon as I have done it as in my experience no matter what kind of glass is used on a display it eventually gets scratched. All in all I think the screen protector is a nice touch because they can be difficult to fit and for some phones difficult to find, so with the Nomu S20 you can be sure that your screen will be kept immaculate underneath
Day to Day Performance and Software
The MediaTek MT6737T SoC with 4 cores clocked at 1.5 Ghz is more than enough to handle everyday tasks at speed, I experienced little to no lag at any time when browsing even the most complex and advertising heavy websites or scrolling up and down my social media feeds. YouTube videos played promptly and I was easily able to throw these at my Smart TV. Sky Go was fine too and videos that were on my SD card played again without any hitches. I do not play games and did not attempt to use the Nomu but I don’t imagine it would struggle with Angry Birds, 3D games might be a bit of a stretch though.
It held a wireless connection as well as any other phone that I have owned and produced some good results on 4G speed tests, marginally slower and I mean very marginally slower than my S7 in the same places inside and outside the house.
The operating system seems very close to Vanilla Marshmallow and there is no bloat, not one item of bloatware and you cannot say fairer than that. There does seem to be some messaging customisation that I was prompted to try but it seem to be a direct translation from the Chinese language and I was not really sure what it was asking me, but it was easy enough to decline. The only bug I was able to find was with the battery monitor, with the graph not always displaying when you open this options through settings. Hopefully that will be resolve with an update.
Benchmarks
Antutu 38451
Geekbench Single Core 633
Geekbench Multi Core 1748
These scores are in line with the Samsung Galaxy S5 or the HTC One (M8) so flagship devices 2 or 3 years ago – pretty impressive for a ruggedised device that you can pick up for £120!
Sound and Call Quality
Call quality was no different to the S7 or any other device I have been happy with, I could hear the caller clearly using the handset speaker, loud speaker and my Bluetooth headset. I cannot imagine that there will be any problems in this area. Probably a good time to mention that the Nomu S20 supports all UK LTE bands which is not always the case with devices from new manufacturer.
The speaker. I haven’t mention it yet at all because if there was one thing on this device that really stood out it was the speaker. Waterproof and works underwater and boy, this thing is loud – really loud. I owned the HTC One (M7) with Boomsound and the Nomu S20 is much, much louder – very clear too. The speaker is rear facing rather than front facing but it makes little difference when it has this much oomph! I had to keep the volume down just a couple of clicks above mute during day to day use otherwise you ran the risk of making yourself jump with every notification. It truly is amazing.
Battery
A 3000 mAh battery + a 720p 5 inch screen = awesome battery life. Again very impressive for a device in this class, 22% battery left after 36 hours with 5 hours screen on time. This was with Bluetooth and GPS on, auto brightness with dynamic contrast turned on. I sync my emails and other messages all day long. Browsing, social media and phone calls all going on too – so there is no danger and I mean no danger of this phone letting you down during the day. Ideal for people who are working outdoors.
Camera
The camera is functional, good enough for a few quick pics for social media. I think I have been spoiled with recent devices so I wasn’t able to reproduce the quality of low light shot that I get with the S7 but that is to be expected on a device in this price range. To pack all this performance into such a tough device there was always going to need to be a little compromise somewhere and the camera might be that area.
Conclusion
The Nomu S20 would be a great choice as a daily driver for a builder or anyone else who works outside and needs something that is going to withstand a few knocks. Although the focus is on the rugged nature of the device it does not compromise in any area other than the camera as far as I am concerned. With its all day battery, shock proofing, dust and waterproofing it is going to survive under the harshest of circumstances and the industrial look ensures that it really plays the part. No bloatware and the ultra-powerful speaker are genuine highlights for me, the speaker would not be out of place on a phone at £400 and I know that vanilla Android is always welcome for a lot of users.
I only have one active SIM so I was not able to test the dual SIM functionality. The SD card I used in the device was 32GB and supported without issue but I cannot comment on whether it is able to support larger SD cards.
You can buy it from those lovely people at Gearbest http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_490186.html?wid=11
Hi! Anyone here yet? Your phone still works fine? Did you have any problem with screen brightness in sunlight at the middle of summer?
Hi there, I owe MTT ideal (nomu s20 branded for MTT french company) and I can post some of my experiances here.
Lots words have beed saind about its features (notification LED for example ). I must add one annoying missing feateur: NFC. Yes, it misses it, so it's even worse than notificatoin LED absence.
Also I suffer from its rubber shield which is getting off the phone in its bottom left corner - that is REALLY annoying thing.
The third but not so serious problem is not so powerful battery as it might be expected - I must charge it every day and I am not using my phone really heavily.
That's all for the cons.
Phone supports 128GB SD card - I use it for music and works very well.
I also want to give a piece of advice for the other MTT ideal owners - phone can be rooted and TWRPed according to this post: [url]https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/general/nomu-s20-rom-root-solution-twrp-t3487307?nocache=1[/URL]
I think that MTT ideal ROM will work on s20 since those are the same devices. If someone is interested I may download ROM from my MTT and put it somewhere - there is no bloatware in it.
Preface: I am posting this here because I think it will be buried otherwise, and I want it to reach as many people as possible, since personally I wish I knew all of this before buying it.
…And kind reminder: If you feel you are an HTC combatant, please click the Back button and save yourself, and probably myself, from getting aggravated.
This review was prompted because I feel like swimming in a sea of superficial “reviews” online, which are mostly advertisements rather than real reviews, and a lot of peculiarities are unearthed only after the device is used for a sufficiently lengthy period of time.
The HTC U Ultra, in my humble opinion, is a double-edged sword (one of the edges is pointed towards the owner, sadly).
The screen is spacious at 5.7” and even though the phone is very large it can be managed in one hand, if you make a concerted effort. The overall size is exacerbated by the 2nd screen on top, which is reasonably useful, i.e. not utterly pointless.
The screen is a very good IPS-variety screen, with moderate brightness (visible enough in bright daylight). Note that the Oreo update, I believe, did considerably increase the maximum brightness, which could be very useful when the need comes, but absolutely not recommended for long-term use because of the borderline insufficient battery capacity. At least, the option to blast out the brightness in a pinch is there.
Performance is overall very good to great, games play well, day-to-day internetting, newsfeeding, facebooking, vibering (or whatever messaging app floats your boat) is great, and so is the multitasking.
The sound from the bundled headphones is outstanding (in combination with the proprietary HTC USonic EQ shenanigans), provided you like deep sub-bass and high brilliance without muffling the vocals (as I do). The sound is definitely V-shaped. The downsides of the headphones are that (a) they don’t have volume buttons, which, given the size of the phone and the inherent difficulty related to getting it out of the pocket to increase or decrease the volume, is moderately frustrating, (b) they are of the USB-C variety, which means you can’t simply plug them into most other phones or HiFi devices, and means that (c) you can’t charge your phone and use the headphones simultaneously, which, however, I wouldn’t do, since I would like the battery to have as longer life as possible, given the difficulty of replacing it (1 – the phone is a glass sandwich which means I can’t just pull the battery out and slap a new one in; 2 – HTC service centers, at least where I live, are few and far between, and 3 – the availability of spare batteries and the costs related to replacing the battery leave a lot to be desired). A negative too is that there is no USB-C to mini-jack adapter in the box, which means you have to buy one, which is easier said than done - a lot of those being sold do not work with the HTC U Ultra (unless you use apps such as Sound About or tinker with the OS) and the original HTC adapter is very hard to buy anyway, most places listing it as out-of-stock. Let’s not forget that routinely plugging cables into the USB-C connector on the phone (one for charging, another for USB-C headphones) will surely shorten the already-not-that-great durability of the said USB-C connector on the phone (and again the glass sandwich which makes it hard to replace said USB-C connector comes to mind). Also, here in Bulgaria people are not buying phones every year and the probability of me being at a place where someone could lend me their USB-C charger to top up my battery midday or mid-party are close to nil, so I have to carry my USB-C cable too.
The battery is not for power users. At 3000 mAh it is not well-suited to the power requirements of that huge and very high resolution screen (2560x1440 + 160x1040, that’s a lot of pixels). Overall, I get 3.5-4.5 hours of screen-on time from a full charge over one day, with some gaming and camera use. If you don’t use the stock camera (the phone automatically maxes out the screen brightness in the stock camera app, and you cannot turn it down, very dumb idea), don’t play games, and use the phone only on WiFi and not on 3G/4G, probably 5 to maximum 6 hours of screen-on time would be possible.
The digitizer of the phone uses snap-to-grid which cannot be switched off which is in effect when the finger is moving slowly. I tried very very hard to figure out the purpose of this seemingly dumb idea, and couldn’t find any sensible reasons for it, and also could not find any other phone with that function. I wonder why... The result is that some games, which require very precise finger movement, are much harder to play on the HTC U Ultra than on any other phone I have tried (granted I have not tried any other HTC phone).
The body of the phone is pointless, a.k.a. pretty. (To me it’s not even that pretty, apart from the logo-less fully black front glass, which I adore. But I digress.) That possibly resulted in the less-than-needed battery capacity and the fact that the phone seems extremely fragile. There is no wireless charging (which I personally don’t need) as an excuse for the glass back. HTC couldn’t even manage to make the sandwich seamless, you can definitely feel ridges where the glass meets the metal, and this even makes the phone uncomfortable to hold for prolonged periods of time. The saving grace (ironic as it may be) is that the hard-plastic case provided in the box makes the phone much more comfortable to hold and much less slippery, whilst also possibly protecting the glass back from shattering when dinged. This hard-plastic case almost entirely defeats any and all prettiness goals there may have been, so why not just make it out of that material, at that increased thickness, and then you could even cram in that much-needed larger battery… Oh, right, every other maker’s phones are made of glass too; prettiness above utility (certainly not my thing).
The second screen has some useful perks, such as having a “widget” of most used contacts or most used apps (then why have a dock too, hmm…), you can pick up the phone and the second screen will activate so you can glance at the time, battery charge, etc., you can activate the flashlight or control your music app from it. Also, and something that I particularly like, incoming notifications pop up on it, which means they don’t pop up over what you are currently doing. Yay!
There are problems with the fingerprint scanner (On Nougat, at least, have not used it since the Oreo update). Sometimes it just refuses to do any scanning but still activates the screen when touched. You are then required to enter your PIN to unlock the phone and then the scanner would work again as if nothing ever happened.
The vibration motor does not vibrate, it buzzes instead. I’m not attempting a pun or a joke, it is indeed a buzz. This feels super cheap, even compared to my 5 year old LG Optimus G Pro (great haptic feedback!). I thought it was a fault of my unit initially. Then I spoke to other owners of Ultras. Thankfully, I got used to it. That does not mean I don’t dislike it anymore.
The screen is not calibrated to sRGB standard but something much wider in terms of color gamut (allegedly DCI-P3, I don’t have instruments to test, or maybe and most probably they just wanted it to be “like Samsung”…). This cannot be corrected anywhere in the OS (you can correct the white point, though, which is good). If you like eye-popping colors you’re in luck, and conversely, if you like more natural colors – you’re certainly out of luck. The reds, especially, are rather eye-watering. On the other hand, the screen has very high clarity with no appreciable over-sharpening, rather high brightness (after Oreo update), low minimum brightness thus can easily be used in pitch black environments, and very little color inversion when viewed at angles (e.g. when showing your friends your awesome photos and videos). Of course, as any IPS screen, it is the brightness which rapidly drops when the phone is tilted, but the picture does not become yellowish or purplish, or grey instead of black. Which is very good.
The sound from the rather inaptly named BoomSound speakers is anything but Boom. The Xiaomi Redmi 4X (~ EUR 100) or the Huawei P8 Lite (2015) easily trounce it in terms of sound quality (especially bass). The sound is also rather imbalanced, most of it coming from the bottom firing speaker (which is also very easy to inadvertently cover and mute whilst holding the phone horizontally). At least it is rather loud, can create a sense of spaciousness when held horizontally and overall it is not “bad” like on many other phones I’ve heard. What is not good at all, however, is that it has an undefeatable volume ramp-up curve, which means that any sound is produced with the volume being gradually increased in the beginning, omitting the initial attack. For songs, such as for example Brain Stew by Green Day, this could be rather hilarious (or to me, rather aggravating). Unsurprisingly then, there is no attack from most notification sounds. So, the good thing is the phone’s notifications could never startle you which means you won’t get a heart-attack if you forgot to reduce your notification volume. Yay… I guess…? Nah, this is just plain dumb and awful.
I wish HTC engineers knew what “centering” means. Then the capacitive buttons wouldn’t have been in the places where I least expect them to be during my day-to-day use of the phone. They are not in the middle of the chin centrally, they are not in the middle of the chin vertically, they are just simply not in the middle of anything. I thought I’d easily get used to that. I was wrong. Their sensitivity zones are also barely extending beyond their graphical symbols. Thus, I have to depress them with my entire thumbs to make sure I’ll catch them. Sneaky bastards. Even turning on the constant backlighting of the buttons does not help as much as I thought it would.
The capacitive scanner/homebutton is also a double-edged sword – easy to use when you want to, but also very easy to accidentally touch and activate when you don’t want to – especially during heated gaming this stinks a lot.
The camera may not be obliterating any DxOMarks any time soon, but to me it is really really good. For one, the wide aperture, combined with the OIS, means you get good night and indoor shots, which I sorely desire. It is fast to snap a picture, it can be activated with a double-click of the power button, it shoots great and reasonably stable 4K video, and even more stable FullHD video if you can sacrifice the clarity of 4K. Great sound recording too! (for the videos) Overall, the camera experience feels “flagship”. Also, given that the phone is with a Snapdragon 821, Google’s ported cameras work pretty well (mind you, there are bugs, sometimes the apps just close, sometimes they don’t produce the intended results, if any at all). When using Google’s ported camera apps the HDR photography results are quite phenomenal (at least to me) and even a lot better than the stock camera app (which is very good to start with) especially for high-contrast and night-time/indoor shots. Also, portraits come out pretty stunning (provided the app doesn’t crash, of course, but that’s not a fault of the phone).
A caveat is that both the front and back cameras of the phone are very prone to flares. It certainly looks like the image is being reflected by something inside (the lenses or the sensor assembly, I have no idea which exactly) and then this reflection gets picked up by the sensor. For instance, at night when shooting shops’ neon signs, I can easily see the vertically flipped ghost flares of those signs. I, personally, am not overly bothered and find those flares more interesting than troublesome, though. Some surely might not.
All in all, it is the high-quality spacious screen (side note: a 5,8” 18.5:9 screen has ~5 cm2 smaller area than a 16:9 5.7” screen, not counting the 2nd screen on the Ultra too), the awesome headphone sound, the great camera quality and experience that make this phone worth the ~ EUR 275, provided you can live with its shortcomings, which are quite a few in my view. You’d be really hard pressed (I’m pretty sure it is impossible but maybe the ZTE Axon 7 could do the trick) to find such a screen, such sound or especially such a camera on any other phone retailing for ~ EUR 300 brand new. At its original price I’d never buy it, though.
But, if you want off-the-charger longevity, a screen with realistic colors, really good speaker sound, durable body and good ergonomics, this is certainly not your phone, even at its current price.
To me it is quite the bipolar experience – sometimes it overjoys me with its sound or camera chops, sometimes it makes me want to smash it against the wall for its absurdly stupid quirks (Which I believe someone thought were “good design ideas”. No, they are not good at all.)
So it is quite the paradoxical one – it can be both extremely good value and extremely bad value, depending on what you want. Hopefully my personal observations can help you make your own well-informed choice.
Love it or hate it. I don’t see any middle ground.
Glad to see another bulgarian with htc u ultra. I thought that i am alone. Reading the title i expected another rant against htc but in fact the review is very good and completely confirms what i observed for the 5 months with this phone. I am not fan of games and the good screen, headphone sound quality and camera are very important for me so i am quite happy with this phone. I am not so heavy user so battery lasts between 1 and 3 days (usually 2) and i also have power bank with me supporting quick charge so battery life is not a problem for me. Generally i am quite happy with the phone at that price but definitely would not pay the initial price which was over 500 eur. Regarding the type c to 3.5mm adapter - i bought original one from here and it is working very good:
http://www.citytel.bg/adapter-htc-from-3-5-mm-to-usb-type-c-dc-m321
Great review, I agree with most of yours notes. I just wanted to add, IMO - currently there is no better phone for the price it goes these days.
Agree with some fancts, bottom line is at the current price, you cant get anything better.
The Speaker of this phone is pure cancer. My old Galaxy s6 and my business(forced) Iphone SE were way better. I'm not even able to hear Music while cooking etc. IT just fu*** the ears. This is without a doubt the worst phone I've ever bought. I really should have bought the honor 7x
I am a HTC Combatant and die hard, but your review is clear and very honest. Thumb Up! All the negative point you gave really need to be reviewed and improved by HTC. I'm facing the same issues. Overall I like the phone for my everyday use..
Thanks. This honest review will definitely help
FatManYelling said:
The Speaker of this phone is pure cancer. My old Galaxy s6 and my business(forced) Iphone SE were way better. I'm not even able to hear Music while cooking etc. IT just fu*** the ears. This is without a doubt the worst phone I've ever bought. I really should have bought the honor 7x
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had an Honor 8 for six months. It was awful. Just didn't like it. Camera, interface, sound... The U Ultra is a far superior phone for a similar price.
You Sir should do phone reviews. very detailed, objective and honest review!
Thank you!
Hello, I own a Moto G4 Plus and I'm going to replace it very soon. Your review helped very much, as I can't decide between a HTC U Ultra and a Moto G6 Plus, as they both retail for the exact same price currently, at least here, in Romania. On one hand, the U Ultra is closer quality to a flagship, has a nice screen, good processor (maybe a bit old, I'll admit it) and a very good camera, at least when compared to competitors from the same year. On the other hand, the G6 Plus has near stock Android, treble support, a very easy to unlock bootloader, and still has a nice screen and decent camera and processor. I really cannot decide between those, as I am looking at the U Ultra's shortcomings as potential deal breakers. What would be your recommendations? Thanks!
For me its no brain picking the right phone.I would allways buy older flagship instead of similar placed midranger.
Yeah Ultra have some bad things battery is short-ish but all other things are beter.Build quality,sound on headphones is awesome,phone is fast no lags,slowdownds or anything like that.Camera is good and screen is ok for me.
But ur the one who needs to pick.
Only thing questionable now is Android Pie.
Thank you for this review. I ordered HTC U Ultra yesterday. Price was pretty cool - 200€. Can't wait to test it!
Thought I'd share my initial impressions on the Oppo Ace2 since it has not gotten much coverage. I also owned the Red Magic 5G for a week before selling it.
I'm coming from a Oneplus 6 and have owned a lot of other Android devices, off the top of my head these include the Nexus 4, OnePlus One, Asus Nexus 7, Samsung Tab Pro 8.4, Galaxy S7 Edge, Huawei Nexus 6P, LG v20, Lenovo ZUK Z2, Mediapad T5, Red Magic 5g etc.
Let's start with the Red Magic 5G. I ordered this a few months ago off tradingshenzhen, it got to me fast enough and the price was fair, but their customer support was not very good (I will not be ordering from them again cause of this https://i.imgur.com/2qd4zPM.jpg). They'll get your phone to you and offer one year warranty but don't expect them to be nice or helpful in the event you dont like your phone or have any issues.
Either way, here my notes on the phone:
Software
I got the Chinese version of the phone. I found the software experience to actually be very good despite this, ignoring the fact that there were some chinese apps that I didnt understand. I'm sure if I removed these few apps I would have had a very good software experience. The software felt very smooth and stable. There were some pretty cool features, but not a ton. Experience felt close to stock android, but lightly skinned with the right theme after some setting up. It didnt come with play store, I just had to install the playstore from apk, chrome and google keyboard then I had an experience not all that different from my OnePlus 6. My red magic 5g got a lot of updates in the time I had it, with big change logs, I'm not sure if global rom users will get that same experience since these types of phones seem to get better support in China.
Display and Body
This is where my mind was blown. That 144hz screen is beautiful and smooth. This was definitely what I loved about the phone most. However, I had my gripes with this screen. For one the, bezels were huge, and the corners were too rounded (meaning less screen). They were so rounded that it was distracting to me, almost as much as having a notch.. This might be a gross exaggeration but I hope it gets my point across. As for the large bezels, it feels like they used the "gaming phone" identity as an excuse to cut corners here with bezel size. It bothered me that there's so much potential screen space being wasted with those large unused bezels. Now the body has very nice comfortable shape, so I don't have anything against that, but it is kind of big, and it is pretty heavy. It felt very premium and nice in hand, but at the same time, it was not comfortable to one hand for long periods of time, it's size and heft also made it a little unwieldy for one handing. This is the main reason I ended up selling this phone. I would often find myself going back to my oneplus 6 instead of using my new phone cause it was just way more comfortable to use with one hand.
Battery and Misc
Microphone was good according to those that I called, speakers sounded fine to me, werent bad at all. They were stereo speakers, one bottom firing and one in the ear piece, which was nice. Battery was meh. For a 4500mah battery phone, it died very fast. Battery felt about the same as my much older oneplus 6 in it's current state.. Around 6-7 hours of screen on time with regular use (not gaming). With gaming I got around a little more than half that. It charged at a decent speed, not slow but not astonishingly fast. My Red magic 5g benchmarked around 595k on Antutu, so it was very fast. The fan was barely audible in it's intelligent mode or whatever it's called. Personally I think the fan is pointless, and that good thermal design makes a much bigger difference. I loved having the shoulder triggers for gaming. playing games like codm, pubg, etc were great experiences. I sunk hours into these games even though I dont tend to really do any smartphone gaming. I don't really like that manufacturers are trying so hard to make phones into "gaming phones" cause they are still just phones at the end of the day. If anything I would like to have a good value flagship (or flagship killer) with shoulder triggers, it doesn't need to be a "gaming phone". For instance, I think the oneplus 8 (or pro) but with a flat screen + shoulder triggers would be the perfect and ideal phone for me.
I also ordered the Realme X2 Pro but the seller (realme's aliexpress store) cancelled this order due to shipping issues. Then I ordered the Poco F2 Pro but GearBest hadn't shipped it out even after 3 weeks so I cancelled the order. Finally I ordered the Ace2 off Giztop and this was a much better experience. Order placed Friday, shipped out Monday, then received next week Monday (today). The Ace2 was discounted to $589.99 and I got a further 4% discount with the GTRE4 code. Shipping was $30 (DHL) and duties/brokerage was $37, so I paid a grand total of around (roughly) $632. Not bad. The shipping, handling, duties and fees all together were still less than Canadian tax (13%). Canadian retailers sell phones like the Poco F2 pro for around $580 (USD), after taxes that's $655, not even including shipping costs. Much better to wait a little for longer shipping and buy from outside of Canada it seems. So let's talk about this phone.
First and foremost, I'd like to note I do get buyer's remorse (like I did with my red magic 5g), but I've never had any issues post-purchase rationalization. If I don't like something, I don't try to justify it, especially where phones are concerned and having owned so many different devices, both good and bad. For example, the LG V20 was my most expensive purchase and easily the phone I hated most out of all the devices I've owned. I had already paid for it, so I stuck with it even though I hated it for at least a year, before finally getting my current oneplus 6. The LG V20 was so bad that I thought my much older nexus 6p was wayyy better, I wanted to go back to it so bad but I had already handed it down to my mom. While I liked the red magic 5g, I didn't like it enough to keep it and ended up selling it at a loss. My point here is, that these are just my opinions, but I do try to be as unbiased as I can be. I bought the Ace2 knowing that I would sell or return it if I didnt like it, like I did with my Red Magic 5g, so I didnt have my hopes high or any plans to keep it if I wasnt happy with it.
Setup
The unboxing experience was very basic, like any other Chinese smartphone so I will skip this part, but it does come with a pre-applied screen protector and a surprisingly nice clear case. I thought it would be a cheap clear case that looked nasty on the phone.
First thing I did was update the phone's firmware, then do a full factory reset. I set it up fresh, uninstalled what chinese bloat I could (there was a lot), installed playstore with the first apk I found, then using that I installed chrome + google keyboard. After turning on the app drawer, and dark mode I felt I had a very usable experience similar to what I had on my oneplus 6. I hate migrating phones, but the experience here wasnt too bad, I downloaded and used oppo's phone clone app from my oneplus 6, it connected the two phones with direct wifi and copied 30 gigs of data over in around 15min. I did not get much control in what gets copied over but it was still a very simple and hassle free process that I could appreciate.
Software
I'm going to start with this phone's biggest weakness. So the software is.. a mixed bag. Say what you will about the design, but ColorOS and oppo launcher are really well optimized. ColorOS has really come a long way from what it used to be. I tested a bunch of different launchers on this phone but I ended up going back to the oppo launcher cause it was just wayyy smoother and responsive. I wish that's all I had to say about the software but there's a lot more to say.. like how bloated this phone comes. Just random chinese apps everywhere. Most of them can be uninstalled off the bat, but the rest need a little more work to get rid of, including ADB and a little research. I actually think I would have liked coloros a bit more than oxygenos had this been a global version and came with less bloat. It's just a big hassle that I'm sure nobody wants to deal with after getting a new phone. The software experience here is great- if you're chinese. If you're not, you have a whole lot of work to do to get it somewhere good. On the other hand, I thought coming from oxygenos I thought this would be a complete downgrade, but much to my surprise there are a lot of things it actually does better. There are way more features, yes I mean useful ones, it feels smoother and more responsive for some reason (the animations are way quicker and smoother). I think ColorOS isn't actually that bloated once you get rid of the apps you don't need (using ADB where you need to). OxygenOS is great and used to be way ahead of it's time, but I feel the other choices available have caught up while OxygenOS hasn't really gone anywhere. My OnePlus 6 barely gets updates and is slow to get them when it ever even gets any. I've noticed that's a common occurrence with OnePlus devices, you get a lot of quick updates when your device is still a new release, but then it gets put on the backburner as new devices come out.
Display
This display is amazing, it's breathtaking. Side by side with my oneplus 6 it looks and feels like an upgrade in every way. The colors are better, and the smoothness is so satisfying, every bit as much as the 144hz display I had on my red magic 5g, which further leads me to believe anything above 90hz isn't really worth the price premium and battery cost. The punch hole was a little distracting at first since I wasnt used to it, but I quickly got used to it and dont even notice anymore. It's a very small punchole and is a nice upgrade from the big notch my oneplus 6 had. I would rather have this punch hole then the huge top bezel (and lost screen space) the red magic 5g had any day. I didn't realize this until I had the red magic 5g in my hand and wish I realized this sooner. The whole point of notches and punch hole I think is to give us more screen where we used to have bezel, and this is something I appreciate a lot more now. One of the biggest things for me here is that the screen is flat. I'm soo glad that I didn't have to compromise with curved edges. After owned an s7 edge, I never want to deal with that again. I know they aren't as bad as they used to be, but I still think it's silly to have to compromise with how the light reflects off of curved edges, the accidental touches or touch rejection, finding screen protectors that work, etc. If flat screens are cheaper I dont see why more manufacturers dont choose to go this route on their budget flagships at least (looking at you mi 10 non pro and oneplus 8 non pro).
Body
This phone is very solid and quality feeling. It doesn't have any super outstanding premium feeling that a higher end flagship might give you, but it does not feel cheap at all. The body is your typical metal frame, gorilla glass 5 sandwhich build. I have to say though, I love this two tone color on the back. It's like a black/navy type color that looks really elegant and sexy in my opinion. I hate oreo shaped camera modules but this is the one phone that I think it actually looks good on because of it's simple minimalist design. My favorite part of this phone is the weight and size. It's almost the same as my oneplus 6, in both weight and size, but has a larger screen. To me, that's amazing, because looking at all the new SD865 phones released this year it felt like I was going to have to give up the light weight and compact size of the oneplus 6 to upgrade to a "better" phone. It's one of the smallest and lightest Snapdragon 865 phones available and it IS the smallest and lightest one available with a flat screen, which exactly what I wanted. It just feels soooo comfortable in hand compared to anything else I've recently used. They really nailed the comfort aspect with this phone. I had no idea this was going to matter so much to me until I used the red magic 5g for a week (which isnt even that big or heavy for a gaming phone, there are worse offenders out there like the black shark 3). I can see why some people really want smaller phones now. For me, I like having a big screen, so it's not smaller phones that I want, but phones that have better screen to body and weight ratios.
Sound
Now here's where I found a nice surprise. Good stereo speakers. Never thought I would ever care about having this. I'm a headphone guy, and phone speakers always suck anyways so why would I care (so I thought). These are by far the best phone speakers I've ever heard, and they somehow blew me away even though I've never cared about how good the speakers on a phone were. They get very loud, and they sound very full. Even at the loudest volume setting where I expected the fidelity to deteriorate, it still had nice clear, smooth, full sounding stereo audio. I saw someone on reddit asking for a phone recommendation with good stereo speakers, apparently it was a must for him, and I didn't get why until now. I no longer feel the need to grab my headphones when I want to watch a youtube video, the stereo experience on this is just much better. There is still a con to be talked about however, no headphone jack. Having a headphone jack would have been nice, and even cooler if the phone came with a nice DAC (pretty much the only thing LG does right in their phones). Not a huge deal for me, I would be using bluetooth or a USB DAC anyways if it didnt come with a good internal DAC but it does make things less convenient in a pinch.
Battery and Performance
Well, it has a snapdragon 865, haven't had a single hiccup yet. Phone is blazing fast as expected. Coloros is well optimized too. Battery is good too, I will report screen on times soon. Much better than my red magic 5g so far from what I can tell. The main star of this show though is that 40w wireless charging and 65w wired charging. Charging cable that it came with is kind of short but the phone charges so fast I don't think it matters. 4000mah might seem small compared to alternatives, but coloros is surprisingly very efficient with it, even with 90hz on and all the chinese bloat it came with. Im surprised they managed to fit a battery this size and a 40w wireless charging coil in such a compact and light phone (relative to similar spec phones).
Closing thoughts
I think this is what the OnePlus 8 should have been, and I hope for others that this is what the Realme X3 pro is going to be if not better. There are a lot of things more expensive oneplus 8 is missing out on here, like the 65w charging, wireless charging, flat screen, etc. The only thing I think it has going for it is that it seems like a nicer build/quality phone with better software. I think the Poco F2 pro on the other hand is a solid contender because it actually comes with global software, has a huge battery + great screen on time, has a decent camera and will have a big developer community. I ultimately ended up passing up on this phone because it doesnt have 90hz, wireless charging, 65w charging, doesnt support very many frequencies, has a slower face unlock and cause its a pretty heavy phone (so not as comfortable), but this phone will make sense as a better choice for many others that have different priorities. Pick what suits you and your needs best. All in all, this is a very underrated phone that doesn't get talked enough about outside of Asia. I think if you're interested in the Ace2, feel it fits what you want well at a price that you think is good that you shouldn't be afraid to buy it. It's a great phone and it's worth it. Just note that you may need to do some extra work to make the software experience good for you because of the chinese bloat (as you would need to with any chinese rom phone anyways). Not to say that the software is bad, it's very good software that's just marred by all the extra chinese stuff it comes with that most of us probably dont want or need.
If there's anything more you guys would like to know about any of the phones that I own or have owned please let me know. I'll try to answer them the best I can. Would love to see some form of an Ace2 community grow but I won't be surprised if it's just me even months later.
Inspiring
I think that based on your detailed review (That I read before on reddit) I’m convinced to purchase this phone, the only android experience I’ve had was an old samsung s7 edge so I’m convinced that the ace 2 will be smooth, so one question: can you guide me on how to debloat the phone once I get it?