In addition to the Android One version, HTC will also be selling an HTC Sense variant of the U11 Life, which instead of the stock Android, runs on a customised version of Android.
The price of the smartphone is going to be €799 in Europe, with the flagship being sold in "select markets" around the world. To be mentioned, U11 life also features Edge sense technology which lets you launch apps or perform certain actions, and lacks a 3.5mm audio jack.
The U11+ is also IP68-rated, making it both water- and dust-resistant.
It's protected by Gorilla Glass 5, which is said to be capable of surviving 1.6m drops onto "hard, rough surfaces" up to 80 per cent of the time.
The U11 Life with HTC Sense will be available from HTC.com in Sapphire Blue starting today, November 2, for $349 ($449 CAD). The flagship smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core SoC under the hood, the same chip that powers the U11. Is the HTC U11 life one such phone? The fingerprint scanner can be found on the back considering the phone has a taller screen. The connectivity features present on the U11 Life include LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, GPS and GLONASS. This didn't blow us away in our U11 review but can now be programmed to do whatever you want - zoom on Google Maps, turn a page on the Kindle app etc.
What do you think of the U11 Life?
More news: Amazon Key offers package delivery, inside your homeThe U11 Life is no slouch on the spec sheet. We wouldn't recommend putting the claims to the test yourself.
There's either 3GB of RAM with 32GB of storage but for the asking price, we get 4/64GB as standard in the United Kingdom which is impressive. Either option nets you microSD support as well. At the front, there is another 16MP camera with f/2.0 aperture, BSI sensor, HDR, and 1080p video recording support. For example, you can activate Alexa on the U11 by saying "Hey Alexa", but you can't with the U11 Life. It is capable of shooting 4K video.
We need time to test the cameras properly but they seem to be decent after some hands-on time.
Thoughts on the U11 Life? If HTC can do it then so can you.
Google made an interesting decision over this past summer concerning the Pixel 2, and it resulted in the company releasing a phone completely different from what it had originally planned, according to The Verge, which spoke to a "source familiar with HTC and Google's tumultuous recent history". The U11 Life unfortunately doesn't come with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, nor is HTC including a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter in the box. HTC told me that on the USA version, an Oreo build is expected to be out by the end of the month, but I'd expect the skinned, U.S. version to regularly lag behind the Android One version. Also remember that HTC is the king of LCD panels, yet they made the Pixel, Pixel XL, and Pixel 2 for Google and went OLED because Google told them to.
You also get monthly security patches for up to three years and guaranteed OS updates for two years.
