Design
- Unique, beautiful "liquid surface design" - the phone has a glass and metal finish and the exoskeleton is mostly made up of glass - giving it stunning looks, that change colors depending on the viewing angle - the colour options are out of this world too - this is a phone unlike any other (except its own sibling HTC U11), and will certainly stand out - whether you appreciate it or not may be more of a personal preference
- High quality build
- Upgraded IP68 dust and water resistance
- Due to the use of glass, the phone attracts a lot of fingerprint smudges and it's impossible to have it with its clean look all the time, unless you use a case
Display
- Very good, sharp display (though the colors are not as vibrant as some of the competing flagships with AMOLED panels)
- The display is also edge-to-edge, and larger at 6 inches now, bringing the phone at par with modern bezel less display trend
Software
- HTC's skin on top of Android is light and intuitive, works well, the RAM management system is very efficient, and there is next to no bloatware
- One of the major USPs is the way HTC designers have used the sensors on this device - you can literally squeeze this device to make do things like click a photo or a selfie, open Google assistant, pick up a call, change the music track etc - it's a pretty useful concept extending the standard gesture support on modern smartphones
Performance
- The performance is top-notch and the HTC U11 Plus is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor that's backed by 6GB RAM - giving it more than enough firepower to rival other flagships like Galaxy S8 or the iPhone
Camera
- Top-notch high-quality camera with the Ultra Speed Auto Focus - images clicked turn out to be outstanding in all lighting conditions
- Great quality video recording too, with the option for acoustic focus, which works like having a video recording equipment with a directional mic
- The front camera is good too and capable of clicking 150-degree wide angle selfies (it is downgraded to 8 MP now from 16MP earlier on the HTC U11, but that doesn't really make any real life difference)
- Its only a notch behind the best Android camera phone currently - the Google Pixel 2
Audio
- The BoomSound speakers sound nice and satisfying
- HTC has also bundled this smartphone with very good quality U-Sonic headphones (USB-C based) that have noise cancelling
- Lacks the standard 3.5mm audio jack - although it does bundle a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm adapter
Battery
- The battery easily lasts the day (and in fact has a bit more juice now, compared to the HTC U11) and has a good battery management system, along with fast-charging support
More
- On the whole, the HTC U11 ticks all the boxes of a top-end flagship - beauty, power and performance - and brings it more up-to-date with the new bezel-less design
- While the upgrade of the display to bezel-less is nice, in some other areas, the U11 Plus is now a shade behind the other recently launched flagships - for instance, it lacks Portrait Mode, a cool feature available in most flagships, the display legibility outdoors is not the best, and while the battery life is good, but not the best-in-class - in short, its a very good phone, but it's not path breaking like the HTC U11 was at the time it was launched