We weren’t overly impressed with the HTC 10 . Don't get us wrong: it was a good all-round phone with a new design, but it lacke...
We weren’t overly impressed with the HTC 10. Don't get us wrong: it was a good all-round phone with a new design, but it lacked the stand-out features of some rivals and was therefore hard to recommend. If rumours are true HTC is upping its game with its next flagship, and the HTC 11 spec will blow you away. So, when is the HTC 11 coming out?
It's now widely believed that no flagship phones running the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 will launch at MWC 2017. This is because Samsung, which helped Qualcomm build the chip, has first dibs and won't be launching its Galaxy S8 until April. Very sneaky. This means the upcoming HTC flagship will be announced after MWC, and probably not until at least April when the Galaxy S8 goes on sale. (Oddly the Sony Xperia XZ Premium has been announced with the Snapdragon 835, but you won't be able to buy it until later in the spring.)
Chialin Chang, president of smartphones and connected devices at HTC, told TBreak: "When we will look back, it will be clear why HTC introduced [the U Ultra]. We want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes. But that will be in another period of time - not at MWC. Not for us or any other player. I can tell you that for sure.”
R E L E A S E D A T E
Everyone is predicting a 12-month cycle for HTC’s new phones, which puts the HTC 11 launch date in April 2017. Traditionally it has launched in March: only the HTC 10 has launched later in the year.
However, with what we now know about no Snapdragon 835 phones launching at MWC, and the company's own claims, we know we still have a couple of months to wait for the HTC 11.
The so-called 'HTC Ocean' has not been forgotten in light of the 12 January HTC Ocean Note launch, and @evleaks has posted a new video of a young couple purportedly using it.
C O S T
If it follows HTC's usual game, the HTC 11 will have a high price in line (or slightly below) other flagship phones. Our prediction is that it will cost between £549 and £599.
S P E C I F I C A T I O N S
We had assumed that the HTC 11 would use Qualcomm’s best available mobile chip for its next flagship, the 10nm Snapdragon 835 with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0, except it now appears that no other company is allowed to use this chip until Samsung has announced its Galaxy S8. That won't be until April, meaning the HTC 11 will likely run the Snapdragon 821 with 4GB or 6GB of RAM.
The HTC 11 is said to also get 256GB of storage, although this will more than likely be an option (as it is with the iPhone), with the default amount set at 32GB or perhaps even 64GB if we're lucky.
For the camera, rumours are suggesting HTC will stick with a 12Mp main camera at the back, and put an 8Mp selfie camera at the front (up from 5Mp). One of the main issues with the HTC 10’s camera was its lack of consistency. Some photos were great, some weren’t. Also, it relied too heavily on the presumption that people wanted to use the Pro mode and all its controls (and RAW capture), but the vast majority of users just want to press the shutter and get top-quality pictures and video.
The screen is expected to be a 5.5in 1440x2560 panel, which is larger than the 5.2in screen on the HTC 10. The battery is also expected to be larger, at 3,700mAh up from 3,000mAh, so it's possible we're looking at a slightly larger handset for 2017.
A new Sense Touch feature is rumoured to allow you to control the phone by swiping and tapping its metal frame. This has also been highlighted in the video further up this page.
A screenshot leaked recently on Weibo purports to show the HTC 11 in a benchmarking app with the Snapdragon 835 processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It has a Quad-HD screen and is running Android Nougat with HTC Sense 9.0.
Source - PCAdvisor
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