Has HTC lost it's way?

[lothar]

• There will be no HTC 11.
• HTC U Ultra is the new flagship device.

HTC U Ultra specs:
Platform: Android 7.0 Nougat with HTC Sense
Dimensions: 162.41 x 79.79 x 7.99 mm, 170g
Display: 5.7-inch 1440 x 2560 S-LCD5 main screen, 2-inch 160 x 1040 secondary screen
System chip: Snapdragon 821 with 4GB of RAM
Storage: 64GB, expandable via microSD cards
Camera: 12MP rear cam with PDAF, laser AF and OIS, 16MP UltraPixel front camera
Battery: 3,000 mAh
Extra features: HTC USonic headphones, USB-C, no 3.5mm jack, 4 hi-quality mics,
Price: $749

Speculative summary:
It's a Pixel XL with horrible battery life, without a headphone jack, with 2 screens, and might either not be Daydream compatible or give the best experience. Last years specs being released as a 2017 flagship, while everyone else will be releasing a flagship with Snapdragon 835 SoC.

I wonder what all those people that thought Google's Pixel devices were overpriced would think about this one.

References:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/01/12/hands-on-with-the-htc-u-play-and-u-ultra-i-am-confused/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/01/12/there-will-probably-be-no-htc-11/

 

[sdifox]

HTC has been rudderless for a long while now

 

[StrangerGuy]

2017 and we still have vendors thinking making iPhone clones that is just as expensive or more as the real thing is a good idea.

 

[bigboxes]

2017 and we still have vendors thinking making iPhone clones that is just as expensive or more as the real thing is a good idea.

They'll charge whatever the market will bear. Not everyone wants to be in the Apple ecosystem. Certainly not I.

 

[Red Storm]

They lost their way a long time ago.

 

[dark zero]

If you see the HTC U Play... that is worse...

Full HD and Helio P10... what crazy combination is that?

 

[gorcorps]

HTC never had a way

They only were decent when there was less competition

 

[core2slow]

Felt bad for them because they're one of the smartphone pioneers over a decade ago, but somehow bucked under horrendous mismanagement and the unwillingness to listen to their core customers. I still have an HTC Diamond and an HD2 because they reminded me of the golden days of HTC, but I've been off their bandwagon for the past 5 years.

 

[postmortemIA]

They should make only one flagship device per year, and focus on its support. They did this with M7/M8 and it worked, then M9 flipped and we got stream of devices every few months.
Whichever maker did this, they failed.

 

[lothar]

If you see the HTC U Play... that is worse...

Full HD and Helio P10... what crazy combination is that?

I saw that, didn't even feel like commenting on it. Any phone with a Mediatek processor is a no-go area for me. I don't care what other features such a phone has.
My understanding is also that the HTC U Play won't be available in the US (and possibly Europe)?

 

[lothar]

They should make only one flagship device per year, and focus on its support. They did this with M7/M8 and it worked, then M9 flipped and we got stream of devices every few months.
Whichever maker did this, they failed.

I doubt that would work.
Amazing to think that this device is going to last them until their 2018 flagship(whatever that may be)

 

[poofyhairguy]

They are kicking butt in VR. But for phones their best hope is the Pixel takes off.

 

[cronos]

As a self-appointed HTC apologist (couldn't even get myself to say 'fanboy' anymore), even I can't defend comprehend this latest decision from HTC.

With the M9 considered mostly a dud even by fans of M7/M8, I really thought the HTC 10 (and later on Pixel) showed that they're on the right track to come back to prominence (at least hardware-wise), regardless of people everywhere trashing them for multiple things. But this U series make very little sense to me, and I'm still not sure what they were thinking with pricing these so high in the past two years. And releasing only two phones, but one with Mediatek? That's just baffling.

It's still speculation on whether there's not going to be any more HTC flagship this year (though it does seem likely), but I don't know. I'll believe it when it's official. Or maybe they're really ready to close up shop or something.

 

[ChronoReverse]

They've lost their way.

But what do you expect? They built the HTC 10, a phone that basically did everything asked of them except waterproofing and people decided to rail on the fact HTC _DARED_ to price it like a flagship.

Basically they got the message that clearly building the 10 wasn't what everyone wanted.

 

[dark zero]

I saw that, didn't even feel like commenting on it. Any phone with a Mediatek processor is a no-go area for me. I don't care what other features such a phone has.
My understanding is also that the HTC U Play won't be available in the US (and possibly Europe)?

At least now Mediatek can help to upgrade to Nougat. Now the new dreaded is Spreadtrum.

And the HTC U Play uses a worse procesor than the competition.

 

[cronos]

So maybe there will be another snapdragon 835 flagship from HTC this year:

source: http://www.droid-life.com/2017/01/2...h-will-another-flagship-snapdragon-835-ready/

Chang did suggest that when the 835 is ready, HTC will have another flagship phone to show off. His exact comment was, “When the new CPU comes, HTC will have another flagship.”

Like I said above, I'll believe it when it's either officially announced that there will be none, or one is actually announced.

 

[mrochester]

Failing to see what the problem is... great processor, stacks of RAM, loads of built in storage...

 

[Dulanic]

Felt bad for them because they're one of the smartphone pioneers over a decade ago, but somehow bucked under horrendous mismanagement and the unwillingness to listen to their core customers. I still have an HTC Diamond and an HD2 because they reminded me of the golden days of HTC, but I've been off their bandwagon for the past 5 years.

Much as Nokia did 10 years before that.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[thilanliyan]

All I wanted was a M7 replacement from HTC...ended up going with an Axon 7 as it is pretty close to what the M7 was. Would have swung for the HTC10 if it had an AMOLED screen and proper stereo speakers (and it wasn't exclusive to Bell here in Canada). They really struck out badly with the M9. They needed something somewhat fresh at that point.

 

[agent00f]

HTC has been rudderless for a long while now

They lost their way a long time ago.

It's not so much that they or similar peers have "lost their way", but rather hitching yourself to android means competing with an endless list of OEM/ODMs. Other than lower prices you can only really differential yourself from the fray (ie gain marketshare) through brand recognition/marketing, and thus far samsung and maybe LG has been the only success story there.

 

[sdifox]

It's not so much that they or similar peers have "lost their way", but rather hitching yourself to android means competing with an endless list of OEM/ODMs. Other than lower prices you can only really differential yourself from the fray (ie gain marketshare) through brand recognition/marketing, and thus far samsung and maybe LG has been the only success story there.

Their Windows phones didn't help them much either.

 

[mrochester]

It's not so much that they or similar peers have "lost their way", but rather hitching yourself to android means competing with an endless list of OEM/ODMs. Other than lower prices you can only really differential yourself from the fray (ie gain marketshare) through brand recognition/marketing, and thus far samsung and maybe LG has been the only success story there.

I don't know for how many years I've been saying these manufacturers need to ditch Android and design and build a better OS.

Android is literally what is killing these OEMs and they keep stabbing themselves over and over by releasing more and more Android devices.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I don't know for how many years I've been saying these manufacturers need to ditch Android and design and build a better OS.

Android is literally what is killing these OEMs and they keep stabbing themselves over and over by releasing more and more Android devices.

They'll just stab themselves even more if they tried to create their own OS. Even Samsung isn't getting far with Tizen.

It simply takes too much capital to develop a stable, secure OS and also get app developers to actually make stuff for it.

 

[mrochester]

They'll just stab themselves even more if they tried to create their own OS. Even Samsung isn't getting far with Tizen.

It simply takes too much capital to develop a stable, secure OS and also get app developers to actually make stuff for it.

But we could all see in 2008 that this would happen, why didn't the manufacturers?