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HTC's U Ultra flagship is an epic fail

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NewsHubHTC has a serious problem: it cannot deliver a flagship worth getting excited about. A while back, the company at least tried to do things differently, to get consumers talking, but lately it seems happy just to have a new high-end smartphone on the market — even if everyone knows it’s way behind the competition.
Last year’s flagship, called HTC 10 , was better than its most-recent predecessors, but it failed to stand out against devices like Apple’s iPhone 6s and Samsung’s Galaxy S7. So no one cared about it. This year’s HTC U Ultra is no different — it’s probably the most uninspiring device in its segment. How disappointing.
First off, the name is terrible. It’s what you’d expect an aspiring smartphone maker to name its budget flagship. What does “U Ultra” even mean? I have no idea. And it looks like HTC doesn’t either, judging by how its press release starts.
What is that? I think that a preschooler could come up with something better.
Moving on to the actual device, the U Ultra feels similar to the LG V20 , save for the exterior design and the fact that it’s unveiled a couple of months too late. It’s got a 5.7-inch main display, with a resolution of 1,440 by 2,560 and Gorilla Glass 5 on top or sapphire, depending on the storage option (64GB or 128GB, respectively).
The secondary screen is a 2.05-inch unit, with a resolution of 1,040 by 160, and it can show contacts, favorite apps, reminders, notifications and more.
Most of the hardware is fine, but if you look at HTC’s choice of processor — Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 — you will realize that it only has a couple of months before the Android-toting competition wipes the floor with it in terms of performance. Actually, that’s not true, because it goes on sale in mid-March in US.
In the smartphone market, if you are an Android maker that launches a new flagship just before a new high-end processor goes on sale — namely, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 830 — you have already lost control of the narrative.

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