HTC U Play review

It might be cheaper than its fancy sibling the U Ultra, but even at £399 it's hard to recommend HTC's glossy mid-ranger.

HTC unveiled two new phones at the beginning of the year: the U Ultra and the U Play. The Ultra is the higher-end of the two, while the U Play is a solid mid-range phone that seems intended to be a good-looking all-rounder without reaching flagship price tags.

Still, £399 isn't small change, so is it worth the money? Here's V3's HTC U Play review.

Design

Ooh, this is a slippery fish. The back panel of the phone has been given a ‘liquid surface,' a new process that gives the glass a multi-layered, super-reflective finish. It looks lovely, no doubt about that, and our black review unit has a pleasingly petrol-esque blue sheen (much like Samsung's old Sapphire Black) - but as well as being the world's most reflective phone, it's also a) disgustingly fingerprinty and b) impossible to keep hold of.

Like the similarly-slippy OnePlus X, the phone comes with a free clear case which feels like an admission of defeat. If you've designed something so impractical that it literally won't stay on a smooth table (the U Play has thrown itself on the floor several times today alone) without a case, you've gone wrong.

All of that said, it does look and feel like a beautiful, premium device. All four colours (blue-black, a pearlescent white, opal-ish pink and HTC's current favourite, electric blue) look good, and the black edition reminds us a fair bit of the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017), which is better than looking like an iPhone (remember the One A9? Apple does).

The aluminium sides of the phone merge nicely into the - again - super-glossy front, which has no branding but more noticeable black bezels than we'd like (mind you, everything looks bezel-y since the S8). There's no HTC branding on this side, just a recessed oval fingerprint sensor below the screen and capacitive Back and Apps buttons that light up when in use. The fingerprint scanner isn't a button, just a fixed pad, but it does unlock speedily, and offers haptic feedback in the process.

It's overall a lighter and smaller phone than many of its competitors, meaning it's that bit more portable and really easy to use with one hand, even if you've got tiny hands like me.

Taking a quick tour around the sides of the phone, you'll find the combined SIM and microSD tray on the right of the top edge, the volume rocker and textured power key on the right, and a single speaker and USB-C charging port on the bottom edge. There's nothing at all on the left edge, which means - you guessed it - no headphone port!

Indeed, HTC has done an Apple (again) and done away with the standard 3.5mm jack, because screw tradition and screw you. You get a set of USB-C earphones with the U Play, and they're perfectly good, but unlike Apple, HTC has opted not to include a dongle to convert your existing headphones to fit the phone. So you'll have to buy one, or use the free ‘phones, or use Bluetooth. Which you're pretty much stuck doing anyway if you'd like to charge the phone and listen to music at the same time. Clearly, HTC's design vision is more important than your convenience.

(A more generous reading is that HTC assumed Apple ditching the headphone jack meant everyone would follow suit, and wanted to get in early. Fortunately, that hasn't happened, and 3.5mm headphones are definitely still a thing. For now.)

Sound from the solo speaker on the bottom is fine. It's directional, gets noisy at higher volumes and it definitely doesn't meet the standards of the front-facing BoomSounds on other HTC handsets, but it's fine. This is good because you might have to use it if you can't find your special earphones.

Hardware, storage and performance

Performance on the U Play is fine for a mid-range phone, but the problem with that is that a lot of mid-range phones now perform like flagships (see the identically-priced OnePlus 3T, for instance). That makes the occasional issues we've had with slowness on this phone a bit disappointing.

You get 3GB of RAM, which is about right for the price, and it's good to see 32GB of storage rather than cheaping out with 16GB. They could probably have got away with it, too, given that the phone offers microSD expansion "up to 2TB" (no, 2TB microSD cards don't exist, but when they theoretically do, the phone can theoretically support them).

The phone's multi-core CPU benchmark score came out at 2894 in Geekbench 4, which puts the U Play in between the OnePlus 2 and the Nexus 6P. For reference, the HTC 10 is at 3389.

Performance is fine, then - but is fine enough to make you spend your £399 on this model?

Next page: Software and battery

HTC U Play review

It might be cheaper than its fancy sibling the U Ultra, but even at £399 it's hard to recommend HTC's glossy mid-ranger.

Software

The U Play comes with the old version of Android: 6.0 Marshmallow. That's disappointing, and at the time of writing (April 2017) there's no update to Nougat yet. That's particularly strange given that the other phone in the U series, the higher-end U Ultra, had Nougat at launch.

Layered over that is HTC's UI, known as HTC Sense. It comes with its own virtual assistant (yes, everyone's doing one now) called Sense Companion, although again it wasn't ready when the phone launched, so we haven't had long to play with it.

Sense Companion seems to be an HTC-ified Google Assistant, and other than bugging us about battery life, it doesn't do much of note.

When it thinks it has something interesting to tell you, the Sense Companion logo (a swirly circle) pops up to the right of your screen like Facebook Messenger's much-hated Chat Heads. You can change this in the settings, but that's the default.

Tap on it and you'll often get a horrible pun involving the letter U, because that's the name of the phone, lolz. There are U puns all over HTC's marketing for the U Play (its strapline is "For the playful U"), and apparently they didn't miss any opportunities to foist them on you once you've actually bought the phone, either.

That's about as useful as it gets.

The other main thing you'll notice about HTC Sense is that it includes a panel to the left of your homescreen, called Blinkfeed. This dates from the time when everyone used things like Flipboard, and it's designed to collate all your sources of information in one place. I've never found it useful, and more recent iterations have been a bit too quick to promote things to me - not least News Republic, whose standalone app also comes preinstalled and likes to give you push notifications all the time. Both this and Blinkfeed can be turned off, and that's my preference.

You can give your phone a lick of paint with HTC's Themes app (which comes preinstalled), and includes both standard themes and the freestyle ones that launched on the HTC 10.

These enable you to place app icons anywhere on the homescreens rather than snapping to a grid, like you can on a PC desktop, and you can also add "stickers" that link to apps of your choice. It's not a game-changer, but it's cool, and a nice point of difference.

Otherwise, Android on the U Play isn't wildly different to stock. If you're a fan of HTC's motion launch gestures, like double-tap to wake and double-swipe down to launch the camera, those are still in there too.

Battery

This is definitely not a gamer or a streamer's phone. The 2,500mAh battery sounds low and it is. It always needs a charge by mid-afternoon.

I use my phone a fair bit for Whatsapp, email, calls and suchlike, and I couldn't rely on the U Play to see me through the day: I felt distinctly uncomfortable going out without a portable charger. If you don't use your phone a whole lot during the day, or have it plugged in at your desk, you might be fine - but a lot of people will find it sorely lacking in stamina.

See if you can guess when I started playing Pokémon Go:

There's no fast charging or wireless charging to make up for this, though it does at least have USB-C (if you're not currently using it for music!). There are also some useful built-in battery modes to save power, including one that maximises stamina during games and one that basically turns it into a 3310 if it's close to running out of juice. Still, we'd swap all these features for a bigger power pack.

Next page: Display, cameras, price and verdict

HTC U Play review

It might be cheaper than its fancy sibling the U Ultra, but even at £399 it's hard to recommend HTC's glossy mid-ranger.

Display

The HD screen on the U Play is perfectly lovely, if a little oversaturated for my tastes. You can tinker with the colour temperature in Settings, but not saturation - still, it's handy to be able to make colours warmer or colder according to your preference.

There's a night mode in there too, for making sure you can still sleep after reading the internet for hours in bed. You can schedule it to switch on at certain times, or do it manually, and calibrate the colour temperature you'd prefer for that too.

The U Play's display is protected with Gorilla Glass, though the version number isn't included in the specs. We've found the screen decently robust, surviving several face-down drops without a crack but, if you can, whack a screen protector on it anyway - it's slippery, remember?

Otherwise, the screen is bright and attractive, with lovely deep blacks - not a patch on the QHD panels on some devices, of course, but plenty good enough for most people's Netflix and Facebook habits.

Cameras

The cameras on the U Play put in a solid performance, but they're nothing to get too excited about. The large round lens on the rear of the phone juts out a bit, which will annoy some people, though the included case sits flush with it. Again, this feels like an admission of defeat: "we couldn't make the lens flat, but we can if you put this case on top."

The main camera is good, but not great. It includes Zoe mode, which HTC is bafflingly still trying to make happen - it was one of the earliest executions of what Apple calls ‘Live Photos,' something that even the mighty fruit hasn't been able to make people care about. It takes 3 seconds of video alongside your photo, so you can "bring it to life" - but that doesn't happen in the background, you have to watch the progress circle complete. It's all a bit pointless, honestly.

The camera app is decently laid-out and includes some appreciated extra functionality, like Pro mode for extra control, and saving in 12 bit RAW format. Video only goes up to 1080p (30fps) on both cameras, though: no 4K recording, although you can snap a 2MP photo during a video.

Hyperlapse and panorama are in there, and you can also take panoramic selfies, which involves swivelling the phone to either side to include other people or dramatic backdrops. It's surprisingly useful, once you remember it's there.

The fixed-focus selfie camera is actually better than the main one, in my opinion - at least for its intended purpose. You have the option of switching between full 16MP and ‘UltraPixel' mode, to let in more light, and it does seem to make a difference. Beauty mode, misguidedly called ‘Makeup,' works well but does get a bit plasticiney at the top levels.

Low light performance is variable on the U Play: selfies shot in dark environments came out better than photos taken with the main camera, which is presumably the UltraPixel capability at work. Overall, it's a good camera, but not moreso than others offer in this price range.

HTC U Play camera samples

Verdict

We can't work out who HTC was thinking of when it made this phone. It looks nice, yes. Its features mostly work well, agreed But who would pick this over any of the other options?

At £399, its main competition is the OnePlus 3T, which offers much better specs for your money. However, HTC is a much bigger, more trusted name, so perhaps they were hoping to win on brand appeal - but the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) is £30 cheaper, and Samsung has even more star power than HTC among normal folk.

Overall, the U Play is fine. On the plus side, it looks stylish and takes good photos that look particularly bright on its HD display. However, its performance is on the slower side of average, the battery doesn't last the day, it's slippery as heck and it doesn't have a headphone port. For just under £400, that doesn't seem good enough.

The only people we can realistically recommend the U Play to are ones who currently have an HTC and want another one, but don't want to shell out for the U Ultra or the HTC 10. Especially if they don't use their phones heavily or intensively. In that case, they might love it, but we're not sure it's a very big market.

UK price and availability

The HTC U Play is available now for £399 SIM-free directly from HTC. It's also available from retailers including Carphone Warehouse, which currently has the exclusive on the black colour.

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