HTC U11 Life review: Stock Android with a so-so camera

Camera

Though the camera in last year’s flagship U11 was probably the device's major callout, the U11 Life’s camera just doesn’t come across as particularly impressive (both in contrast or on its own merits). Maybe if it had been released about six months earlier, it’d come across as more impressive or adequate.

These days, even budget and mid-tier phones are delivering increasingly impressive photographic capabilities with dual and wide-angle lens configurations. The U11 Life inevitably seems a little lackluster by comparison.

Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG

The main camera here features features a 16-megapixel sensor, flash, Phase Detection Autofocus and a HDR Boost feature - which promises to deliver more balanced results by taking multiple shots that measure and combine the darkest shadows with the brightest highlights. But that’s pretty much it. It can’t simulate or capture bokeh-style portrait shots. There is a pro-mode that lets you dig into the details but when the camera on the U11 Life feels so limited, there’s not a whole lot of appeal to it.

Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG

Still, the color depth does seem good for the most part even if the quality on the images themselves just comes across as a little ordinary.

Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG

There’s a slightly fuzzy quality to every shot we took with the U11’s camera, no matter how finely we adjusted the focus. There's also no form of bokeh or portrait mode.

Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG

Performance

In terms of performance, the U11 Life doesn’t have that little bit of extra ‘oomph’ or slick smoothness that you’d get out of something like the Google Pixel 2 or the even the regular HTC U11.

That said, it does arrive with near stock Android and offers up a surprisingly robust software experience as a result. HTC don’t usually opt for stock Android but there’s a bit of a story here.

The HTC U11 Life is the first Android One device to land on Australian shores. Launched in 2014, Android One was an initiative by Google to take a bit more care and control over the experience offered by vendors producing mid-tier and bottom-end Android handsets. As part of the program, hardware vendors would agree to guarantee regular security, regular Android OS updates, base the out-of-box experience around just the core Android interface and Google’s own apps and only use hardware approved by Google.

The result of this formula is a device that runs really well, despite the middle-of-the-road processor. More specifically, when it comes to benchmarks, the U11 did a surprisingly good job of keeping pace when it came to PCMark’s Work benchmark.

However, it fell short of the competition on a pretty consistent basis, with Oppo R11s and the OnePlus offering up significantly better performance at a very similar price point. 

Credit: Fergus Halliday | IDG

Battery Life

Though the 2700mAh on the U11 Life’s spec-sheet doesn’t sound particularly fearsome, it’s lean enough on the software side that it actually delivers surprisingly well on this particular front.

In terms of everyday battery-life, we’d easily make it through the usual 9-5 work day and often well into the evening as well. We’d still have to charge our device back to full overnight - but if we accidentally forgot to do, we’d sometimes still have a little bit to go on until we found a power source.

We’re talking eleven or twelve hours of average mixed use here, though - as always - your mileage may vary (particularly if you watch or film a lot of video content).

The Bottom Line

Though there’s a lot to like about the U11 Life, it does suffer from one too many compromises. If the processor was a little faster or the camera was a little better, it’d be a steal at $600. However, as it stands, it’s hard to recommend it over the other sub-$600 phones out there.

In fact, given the heavy, heavy discounting that’s hit HTC’s 2018 range in recent months, some of its biggest competition might actually come from the device’s predecessors.

As it stands, the U11 Life is a solid stock Android experience that’s easy to recommend if you can’t stand all the other options or are particularly drawn in by the design and waterproofing.

Unfortunately, viewed in context, it’s just another HTC phone that just can’t quite seem to hit the mark.