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I owned a Captivate for two years, and a month ago I used my upgrade to get a gray HTC One X. I'm posting this review in here because it's specifically focused on my experience upgrading from the Captivate. I hope that's okay...
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. It's two years newer, so it has more RAM, more cores, more GHz. It's way faster and smoother. Okay, moving on.
GOOD
Screen - The screen, oh my God, the screen. The first thing I noticed about the Cappy in the store was the PenTile display (though I didn't know what that was at the time). I thought, "what's with the jagged edges on the text?" About a day into using the Captivate, I stopped noticing it, and it never bothered me. But when I saw the HOX's screen, I instantly knew what I'd been missing. Now, I know the resolution is much higher, so this is not meant to be a SLCD2/SAMOLED comparison. Just know that the screen is breathtakingly sharp and smooth. I do miss the Captivate's deep, inky, perfect blacks, but it's a tiny price to pay. The screen is also physically larger, which I love, but if you have small hands it could be an issue.
Camera(s) - There's not much to say about the front-facing camera except for one important fact: it exists. I think the Cappy was the last high-end phone not to include one, and it was really starting to chafe. Likewise, the flash on the main camera is a nice addition. The main camera itself is very good, although maybe it doesn't quite live up to the hype ("best phone camera ever") that it was getting around launch time.
The camera app interface is a pleasure to use, and I've had a blast playing around with slow-motion video. Another great feature of the camera is that it's very fast to launch--by default you can access it from the unlock screen, and it takes maybe one second to load up. Instead of switching between snapshot mode and video mode, there are separate buttons for each, and they're always available. Seriously, it's just easy, and I'd be reluctant to flash a ROM that didn't have access to the stock camera app, it's that good.
GPS - It works! It works well! With support for GLONASS, I've seen GPS Status reporting a lock on 15/23 satellites (3m accuracy). Once a steady lock is achieved, GLONASS is disabled and it changes to something like 8/9, but if I move the phone so that it can't get a good signal (like the floorboard of my car), it automatically re-enables GLONASS for the extra accuracy.
NEUTRAL
Unibody construction - This could very easily be a huge NEGATIVE, depending on your own needs/preferences. I went two years with the stock Captivate battery and with a 2GB SD card that never had anything on it. So for me, the non-replaceable battery and lack of an SD card slot are only minor downsides, made up for by the stylish look and very solid feel of the machined body. Although I never felt like there was any problem with the Captivate's build quality, the One X just feels like a solid brick in the hand, hard to describe the difference, but it's significant.
BAD
Power button - Admittedly this is a minor thing, but I HATE the placement of the power button on the top of the phone. Almost one month later and I still haven't found a comfortable one-handed way to push it without mashing the volume rocker. The power button is probably the thing I miss most about my Cappy!
Screen glass - It supposedly has Gorilla Glass 2, but whatever it is, I suspect it's not as scratch resistant as the Captivate's glass. Or it could just be that the phone's physical design puts the glass more "out there". Mine already has a scratch that's worse than anything the Captivate picked up in two years without a screen protector. It can be felt with a fingernail (although it's unnoticeable in normal use). I dislike screen protectors, but I may have to use one anyway.
These next three are BAD as well, but they could potentially be fixed with software updates, either official or otherwise. However, the GPS fiasco with the Captivate taught me never to assume that some problem is just a glitch that will get taken care of shortly! So here they are:
Multitasking - Read about it here. It sucks and, so far at least, HTC seems to be saying it's working as designed. There are various fixes being promoted, with some swearing they work and others saying they do nothing--so familiar! However, I do believe that once something like CM9 is available, it'll be fixed (but read below about dev support). This isn't hardware.
Data issues - There are problems maintaining connections to wifi and mobile data. Hopefully this is another consequence of HTC being overzealous with memory/battery management and will be fixed in software, but I suppose there's a small chance that it's hardware.
Dev support - It's locked down, hard. There are talented devs working on it, and there is good progress. I don't doubt that we'll have everything eventually, but the devs are really having to fight against HTC (because AT&T is leaning on them) to do it. Also, it's brickable--I haven't dared to do anything to it yet for fear of bricking it, and I really miss the Captivate's resilience in that area.
One more nail in the coffin for me not getting the phone.I'll just wait for the blue sgs3 and be happier for it.
Thanks
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium
Thanks for the review. Was considering this for my upgrade but think will consider alternatives.
This will probably a rant, but I don't really want it to be a rant, I like discussions better I really do. So I will talk about some of the reasons to support my claim in the title. If you feel like it please tell me how you feel about this situation.
So I've been using the Galaxy S7 Edge Exynos version since it came out, and before that the S5, and before that HTC One X. To be honest I almost went for the iPhone 6s because I was just sick and tired of all the software problems with the S5, background apps constantly draining battery and there's nothing you can do because most of the time it's Google Play Services. I was like, ok this time I'm moving over to Apple, but then the S7 came out with the curved screen and waterproofness and all that good stuff. I was seduced and got the S7 edge instead.
Today I don't regret my decision back then, I still like how the S7 matches up against the iPhone 6s. I love how it's waterproof because I like to wash it once in a while, it's a stupid reason but whatever... I love the screen and how it's impossible to see any pixels. I love the battery life (except the times when an app mysteriously drains battery in sleep). And I love the camera performance. However, with iPhone 7 coming out, the tides are turning fast.
Areas the iPhone is better than any android phone
1. The iPhone 7 is faster than any Android phone, and I don't see Android catching up. The single core performance of the A10 is just off the charts, nobody is even close to it, and nobody will be in the foreseeable future.
2. The iPhone 7 now has wide gamut display with ambient lighting awareness. While android fanboys are still obsessing with MOAR PIXELS. While I agree the iPhone COULD use more pixels, it's not a significant improvement going from 1080p to 2k. But it is a big improvement going from dumb static colors, which look harsh and terribly blue under most indoor lighting conditions, to dynamic and natural colors on the iPhone 7 and iPad Pro.
3. Android still has no high precision vibration motor like the Taptic Engine. The increase in precision delivers a qualitative change in how vibration helps UI experience. Android is still stuck with ancient rotational motors that can only give one type of long continuous vibration. I haven't tried the iPhone 7 home button. But the static trackpads on newer MacBooks are amazing, like you swear it's a perfect button with precisely the same actuation force everywhere, except they're static and you're not actually pressing anything down.
In comparison, capacitive buttons suck because they require no force to activate and it's easy to activate by accident. Hardware buttons are ok but the long button on Samsung phones can fail to activate when you press the side and not the centre.
4. Sapphire. I don't know if people forgot about it or what, the iPhone has sapphire camera cover glass ladies and gentlemen, did we just forget about that? Some Android manufacturers like Sony for some reason still think it's a good idea to use plastic. The durability of the iPhone camera hump is just much more reliable. Also the Home button is sapphire. Why is that important? Well because if you have hard dust particles on your phone, it won't immediately scratch unless force is applied, like when you press a button. This makes the buttons more vulnerable to scratches. The S7 still has plastic buttons, mine is already scratched up.
5. Actual hardware-based features, rather than software hacks. The perfect example for this is the selfie flash. While Android phones have been doing it for a long time, none has a custom display driver chip like the iPhone has. Why? Well because they can't afford it, Android phones use off-the-shelf components as much as possible to reduce cost. When a selfie flash is really needed, like with some Chinese phones, they just mount LED flashes in the front, which makes the front face of the phone ugly.
Another example of this is 3D touch. When this came out many Android fanboys were like, oh why can't you just long-press to do the same thing? Other examples include the aforementioned Taptic engine, dual tone flash, decent DAC and amp for headphone output, Multiple RGB ambient light sensors, and chip-based fingerprint encryption.
6. Honest, sincere software updates. My S7 Edge still has no palm rejection. Enough said. While the iPhone 5 can run the latest iOS 10.
7. Higher quality apps from the App Store. Tighter control over what apps are allowed and not allowed to do. Peace of mind that no app will drain your battery in the background.
8. Gaming performance. the iPhone not only has the fastest GPU, it also has Metal which is actually used by devs. While Android has Vulcan, it's pointless because nobody uses it anyway. Also most android apps are designed for mid-range android phones, which are much much slower than iPhones.
9. Design. As pretty as the S7 Edge is, it cannot match the attention to detail like the iPhone. The speaker holes aren't chamfered, the holes don't aline properly and it looks stupid. the USB port isn't centred which also looks stupid. When the best of Android can't compete with the iPhone, I think it is safe to assume no other Android flagship will come close in a long time. Also, the clock icon actually moves, so does the calendar.
10. Apple Watch. Android wear watches are just too big, they're gigantic, wtf guys? make a smaller watch! I have the Gear S2, it's great it's barely small enough, but it is also the smallest non-Apple smartwatch. Again, while the S2 looks great from a distance with the round screen and stuff, it's not water proof to 50 meters, you have the ancient and really bad classic watch band system which is impossible to install and uninstall unless you only use the band Samsung gives you. And there is no speaker, and the OS is much much much less powerful than Watch OS.
Areas where the iPhone is strong, but not necessarily the best
1. Sound quality. Yes the LG V10, V20 and a couple of Chinese phones have better sound quality than the iPhone. But most android flagships still suck in this department. Please don't say Viper, it's exactly the problem I was talk about. Software hacks will never be as effective as purposeful and quality hardware. When you have a weak ****ty amp no software will allow it to drive good headphones.
2. Screen. While we can all agree that Samsung has better screens, the same can't be said of other phones. Mostly because of ****ty calibration. Most android phones are horribly blue, with super high color temperature. Now with the iPhone 7, apple has two screen features Samsung doesn't namely wide gamut with proper color profile management, and awareness of ambient lighting condition.
3. Water proof. At this point only Samsung and Sony have the expertise to do this.
4. No headphone jack. I actually like this, even though I use a 3.5mm headphone. It's just more beautiful in design. A Chinese phone also did this a few months before to try to steal Apple's thunder so it's no longer exclusive to Apple. How do you listen to music while charging? Well there will always be some down sides to progress, the answer is simply you can't, not without a dongle of some sort. I do worry about the quality of the DAC in the adaptor they give you.
5. Battery life. the iPhone now has some of the longest battery life, other than crazy designs with like 5000mha batteries. Increasing battery size is just not the right way to increase battery life. Apple does the right thing by improving efficiency instead. Because bigger battery takes longer to charge, and using quick charge reduces battery lifespan, bigger battery also doesn't reduce power draw, which causes heating problems. Where as increased efficiency has no down sides (other than price, cost and difficulty).
6. Hardware silence switch. WTF Android manufacturers!? It's so useful! have one of these please! Why not! Because it doesn't look badass on the spec sheet?
Areas where Android is ahead
1. I am serious here, this has been a big problem for me for a long time. You can't freely arrange the icons in iOS. I get why Apple is doing this, because most people suck at arranging their home screens, most people are not good artists or designers. If you give them freedom they will just make their phone look lame and stupid. While I can agree with that decision from their perspective, I still wish I can customize my home screen.
2. No file system. So frustrating, so annoying. While I also hate how messy the android file system is, with all the apps making random folders everywhere it also bugs me as hell. Why isn't there a middle ground? Have a simple root directory with four folders that say Camera, Pictures, Music and Documents, with NO other folders? This is getting better with iCloud access and stuff so yea, it's not as bad as before.
The problem with Android at the end of the day, is there is no single device that can do enough things better than the iPhone. The iPhone is either the best or almost the best in just so many categories. You can get the V20 for best sound quality yes, you get no waterproofness, no stunning design, no best screen. You can get the Note 7, but you get bad sound quality, no new camera features, and bad software updates. You can get the Nexus 6P for good updates, but you get ****ty plastic construction (with metal shell), really bad sound quality, bad screen, and outdated camera.
Any argument someone makes to me about iPhones gets countered with one single word:
iTunes.
If Apple would give us a proper navigable file system (WTF is wrong with drag-and-drop?) and the ability to customize the homescreen beyond wallpaper and where to put icons in that boring-ass grid, I'd be more interested. Customizable interface (ie: launcher), on-screen widgets, and the ability to use storage as STORAGE, and I'd be interested.
The iPhone is fine if you're looking for a smartphone. My Androids are computers I can fit in my pocket, that can do all sorts of things an iPhone can't.
And iTunes is the worst. Just awful.
This is an Android development/discussion site, not iPhone.
Thread closed.
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!
So as the title suggests, let's hear about your current daily driver, how do you like it so far? What kinds of features do you appreciate most? What do you think is missing?
Also, let's talk about your least favorite devices as an added hono bonus.
Might as well get it started, my current daily driver is an LG V30, H933 to be exact. It's a very well rounded phone, and for up to 90% of the tasks, it's managed to replace my laptop. Battery life is more than enough for me, even with brightness set on auto and screen resolution on 2880 x 1440, the cameras are real nice, and the wide angle shooter is just addictive to mess with, great stock camera app too. Audio quality is superb, I just love the HiFi quad DAC and even the speaker is well above average imho. Finally as expected from any flagship, performance is great, and while activating battery saver mode does introduce a difference, for most tasks you still don't notice much lag.
I'm gonna say I appreciate the ip68 rating and the ruggedness of the phone, it's already taken a small drop and survived no problem, but that was enough motivation for me to get a UAG plasma case. I also put a screen protector on it initially, but dust kept accumulating around the edges and eventually making its way under the protector I got fed up and removed it. As long as you have a decent case that has raised lips both the front and rear glass should be fine, but now I never keep the phone in the same pocket as coin or keys.
Also it turns out that in case you damage the glass, it's quite cheap to replace (15 dollars from what I've heard).
As for phones I never see myself using as daily drivers, the latest iPhones certainly make the list. On top of almost complete lack of customizability and control over the phone, lackluster stock camera apps for (a photographer like me at least), and ridiculous pricing, Apple's desperation to sell their phones (or rather force them down your throat) is becoming pathetic. The 8 and 8 plus are rather fragile, and the iPhone X, while admittedly better, isn't better by much, and the worst part is that if you crack the glass on any of these phones, it'll cost so much to replace if you don't have apple care, you might as well just get a new device, which, in all likelihood, is exactly what Apple wants you to do. Between that, and introducing OS updates that intentionally throttle the performance of their older phones, whatever little appeal Apple's devices had, is now imho gone.
Another phone I would avoid is the Motorola moto z2 force/play, the plastic screen not only feels cheap, but is also very prone to scratches. The moto G5s plus is a better budget device than the play of you ask me.