HTC U11 Life
HTC U11 Life comes as a lower-priced variant of U11 but keeps the ‘stand-out’ feature of the premium phone, along with decent performance and cameras.
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The HTC U11 Life arrives to please the HTC fans with a mid-range model of the Edge Sense introducing U11. Priced at Rs. 38,999, the HTC U11 Life cuts down on some aspects of the U11 model but comes with the fantastic Edge Sense that sets it apart from other phones.
HTC U11 Life gives a mixed response in other aspects of the handset. In performance, it delivers appropriately, but in terms of battery and display, the phone falters. It can be a good phone for HTC fans if they do not keep their expectations too high.
Highlights
The HTC U11 Life trims down from the HTC U11, but you get many of the benefits of the HTC U11. It has the following pros and cons:
Pros
- HTC U11 Life has a great design with the customizable Edge Sense, where you click the sides of the phone to activate certain apps.
- The phone has a bright screen with right amount of sharpness.
- The processor of this phone is quite good, offering capable mid-range performance along with superior gaming performance as well.
- The camera performs well in HDR mode and delivers promising shots.
Cons
- The battery life of U11 Life is inferior due to a small 2600 mAh battery.
- The case of U11 Life feels very plasticky.
- It does not have a headphone jack.
- The resolution of the Screen of HTC U11 Life is quite mediocre.
- The low-light performance of the phone is inadequate.
Overall, the HTC U11 Life is a hit and a miss. It comes with certain excellent specifications, but before crossing the premium boundary, it stays back. Hence, you will not get a striking phone, though if you want a budget U11-like handset, HTC U11 Life provides that for you and is recommended.
Expert Opinion
HTC U11 Life comes as a lower-priced variant of U11 but keeps the ‘stand-out’ feature of the premium phone, along with decent performance and cameras.
Display
The HTC U11 Life comes with a small 5.2 Super LCD screen, which is quite disappointing. Plus, it has a low resolution of 1080×1920 which does to stand a chance against the QHD resolution present in the market. The brightness is not adequate and loses at extreme angles. The colours are still well-saturated though. Regarding the brightness, while it does falter because of poor viewing angles, it is adequate to run outdoors. Along with that, the phone remains quite colourful and punchy.
Design
HTC U11 Life resembles the U11. The rear is curved and made of acrylic glass, which is plastic. The back is also quite shiny and reacts to different angles of light. Of course, you don’t get the premium coolness that glass and method cases bring. The U11 Lite does not feel premium. It has IP67 rating water resistance, which means it can handle being submerged. It also has a snappy fingerprint scanner on its front. One of the things that set HTC U11 Life apart from other phones is the Edge Sense. The pressure sensors are on the side, which can be pressed activate gestures. A quick squeeze will launch the camera, and a longer one will bring up the Google Assistant. But the Edge Sense is not new, and HTC U11 introduced it which makes it a bit old. HTC U11 Life does not come with a headphone jack, but it does have a USB Type-C port.
Performance
The HTC U11 Life arrives with a Snapdragon 630 chipset. It is a mid-range processor and hence, you get smooth multitasking with this phone. The Geekbench 4 multi-core rating goes to 4125 points, which are quite good. However, regarding gaming, this phone turns out to be quite a beast. The reason is that the phone has improved the GPU to Adreno 508 clocked at about 850 MHz. You can run high-end games on this set while getting playable frame rates. However, another reason for the use of this processor is that it is quite power efficient. Hence, it can utilize the low-fuel battery that HTC U11 Life comes with.
Camera
The HTC U11 Life has the potential to click beautiful photos even though it does not have the best sensors. On its rear, the phone comes with a 16MP shooter. In daylight, the images have incredible exposure levels, and the details are precise without much noise intake. The resolution of the phone is quite high, and the colours are sharp. Only the red tones tend to get washed out. In low-light, the phone struggles a little bit. There is no image stabilization. Hence, it results in slow exposures and tricky daylight details getting captured. Due to the lack of any depth-sensing camera, the portrait mode is missing on this phone.
In the front, the phone comes with a 16MP selfie camera which tends to soften the colours and gives suitable images for social media.
Video shooting can go as high as 4K. It can also record slo-mo videos at 120 fps.
Battery
The HTC U11 Life comes with an extremely low 2,600mAh battery. It is due to the poor display and power-efficient performance that the battery stamina remains good. However, if you are looking for a handset which lasts for a whole day, then this phone is not for you. In a 90-minute video with maxed out brightness, the phone ended up losing about 35% of its charge. The Moto X4, on the other hand, just lost 10%. To put things into perspective, the battery of U11 Life is quite weak.
Verdict
The HTC U11 Life misses out on some aspects and hits a bullseye on other elements of a mid-range phone. It has a great processor which keep it grumbling even in case of gaming. As far as the display goes, it is quite bright too. You have Edge Sense, which helps you the ability to customize and is quite useful. Otherwise, the phone comes with a weak battery. The cameras are quite good, but in the current age of dual and triple camera modules, it falls short. Overall, the phone can seem quite dated, and there are better alternatives in the present times.
Tech- Specs
- Bluetooth5.0, A2DP, LE
- Thickness0.32 inches
- Height5.87 inches
- Weight142 g
- ColorBrilliant Black, Sapphire Blue, Ice White
- BuildPlastic body
- Width2.87 inches
- Display TypeSuper LCD capacitive touchscreen
- Screen Size5.2 inches
- Pixel Density424 ppi
- ProtectionCorning Gorilla Glass 3
- Display Resolution1080 x 1920 pixels
- Screen to Body Ratio0.686
- CPUOcta-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53
- Chipset GPQualcomm SDM630 Snapdragon 630 (14 nm)
- GPUAdreno 508
- OSAndroid 8.0 (Oreo), upgradable to Android 9.0 (Pie) Android One
- Expandable MemorymicroSD, up to 1 TB (dedicated slot) - single-SIM modelmicroSD, up to 1 TB (uses shared SIM slot) - dual-SIM model
- RAM/Internal Storage64 GB, 4 GB RAM or 32 GB, 3 GB RAM
- Single Camera16 MP, f/2.0
- Back Camera FeaturesLED flash, HDR, panorama
- AutofocusPDAF
- Back Camera Video2160p30fps, 1080p30fps
- Front Camera Video1080p30fps
- Single Camera16 MP, f/2.0
- Front Camera FeaturesHDR, panorama
- HeadPhone JackYes
- LoudspeakerYes
- Audio Features24-bit/192kHz audioActive noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Talk TimeUp to 17 h (3G)
- User ReplaceableNon-removable
- Battery Capacity2600 mAh
- Battery TypeLi-Ion
- USB2.0, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector
- RadioNo
- Network SupportGSM / HSPA / LTE
- NFCYes
- GPSYes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
- SIMSingle SIM (Nano-SIM) or Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
- WLANWi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot
- SensorsFingerprint (front-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
- Water ResistantIP67 dust/water resistant (up to 1m for 30 mins)
- Announced On2017, November
- StatusAvailable. Released 2017, December
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