While HTC generally impressed the market with the HTC U11, it was unfortunately unable to compete with industry powerhouses such as Samsung, Apple, and Google. It was an all-around solid phone, but with slightly outdated specifications and a design that didn’t look quite as slick as that of flagships like the Galaxy S8 or the new Google Pixel 2, it was difficult for the phone to keep up in an increasingly competitive high-end arena. With the release of the HTC U12, the company has the chance to take a pretty good smartphone and make it great. We’ve compiled some of the rumors floating around the web that give us a sense of what we can expect from the upcoming device.
While we don’t have any idea what the phone will be called, as it hasn’t even been announced yet, all bets point to the HTC U12 as the most logical step forward. It will certainly have to be a big change for the company in order to compete with new phones coming out from Samsung, Google, and even up-and-coming Chinese manufacturer Huawei.
HTC U12 Release Date
Perhaps the first question on everyone’s mind is when exactly we can expect the HTC U12. If the phone were to be announced at the Mobile World Congress, we would have had some idea of the specifics by this point. Odds are that the announcement and release is a little further out – perhaps sometime in late spring or early summer. We anticipate that the smartphone will be announced in May at the latest, with a release date around 30 days later – just as with its predecessor.
Launching the HTC U12 at the Mobile World Congress would probably be a poor choice for the company, considering we’re expecting the Galaxy S9 release right around the same time. By staggering the release date and pushing it back a little more, HTC might have a better chance at getting some significant sales as the hype around the S9 starts to die down.
HTC U12 Specifications
As far as leaks go, there honestly isn’t a lot of reliable information out there about what we can expect from the HTC U12. However, we can make some educated guesses as to what we’ll see based on past releases as well as what other flagships are doing.
There’s a possibility that the HTC U12 could feature a larger display than the U11. While it’s not possible to make a smartphone itself much bigger at this point without making it near-tablet sized, the current trend with smartphone design is to continually shrink bezels – thus increasing screen size by another means. It’s certainly possible that the HTC U12 will follow in this path, which may be a good thing considering one of the main areas that the HTC U11 was criticized was its dated design.
We also hope to see a dual-camera setup with the HTC U12. One of the main reasons that the U11 was unable to compete with the likes of the Pixel 2 and S8 was its lackluster camera – a failing in a feature that is very important to many smartphone users. With a dual-camera with beefed up specifications, it’s possible that the HTC U12 could capture a more significant portion of the market – especially considering that the base Galaxy S9 is expected to only have a dual-lens setup.
As far as power specifications go, the phone will almost certainly ship with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845. As the most powerful chip currently on the market, any flagship has to either include Qualcomm’s chip or produce one of equivalent power, with the manufacturer largely setting the standard for high-end smartphone processor speeds. The HTC U11 featured two different models, available in 4GB and 6GB of RAM with either 64GB or 128GB of storage, and we expect we’ll see the same from the HTC U12. For the operating system, expect an HTC-skinned Android Oreo build.
HTC U12 Price
With several high-end flagships breaking the $1000 price point and more expected to do so later in 2018, the price of these premium phones is becoming more of a consideration for many buyers. One of the HTC U11’s strong points was its relative affordability when compared to competing models from Samsung and Google. We should expect comparable power to the best of the best at a more affordable price, with a price of around $650.
It will likely be a few months until we get more concrete information regarding the HTC U12, but until then we can take some educated guesses and take advantage of what little information we have. If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that there’s a lot riding on the release of the HTC U12. The company may never quite reach the market dominance that the likes of Samsung and Apple enjoy, but there’s definitely room for more than a few players in the smartphone scene – provided their devices have the chops to keep up.
