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HTC U11 finally gets Pie, only half a year later than the mid-range U11 Life (Update: Finally rolling out on Sprint)
A slice of pie
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Earlier this month, HTC tweeted that its U11, U11+, and U12+ phones would be getting updated to Android 9 Pie this spring, beginning with the U11 before the end of May. The manufacturer is making good on its word, as Pie has starting hitting U11 devices — months after it landed on the cheaper U11 Life.
HTC's got problems. Its sales are tanking quarter after quarter, and blockchain phones are not exactly in high demand. Now, you can add another problem to the list. The long-delayed Pie update for the U11 has been pulled because it's soft-bricking phones.
As surprising as it sounds, there are still recent phones that haven't been updated to Pie, and the HTC U11, H11+, and U12+ are among these few. However, the Taiwanese manufacturer is finally getting ready to roll out the new Android version to these devices, right on time before Q becomes available.
As we truck along into 2019 with Android Q on the horizon, there are still some phones from the last couple of years that have yet to receive their Pie updates. While typical slow-pokes like Samsung, Huawei, and Asus have brought most of their flagship devices up to the latest version, HTC has lagged behind — excluding, of course, the U11 Life late last year. But the company's official Twitter account announced today that the U11, U11+, and U12+ will get Pie in Q2 2019.
The HTC U11 is a phone that can't be found discounted very often. Sure, HTC has run sales on it from time to time, but the best deal we've ever seen for it was $599 with a free set of JBL Reflect Aware C headphones back on Black Friday. This latest deal takes the price down a lot further to an impressively-low 4.95.
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HTC U11 owners on Sprint have something to look forward to on Monday. According to Mo Versi, HTC's VP of Product Management, the Oreo update will start rolling out to users at the start of the work week, though it might take a few days to complete.
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It's always funny when manufacturers leak their own products ahead of their official launches. The U11 EYEs was thoroughly detailed a couple of days ago by Evan Blass, but while that leak was more comprehensive than most, it still didn't show everything. Now thanks to some mistakes at HTC, we can see all of the U11 EYEs's specs in full, right down to the launch promos.
HTC already has two phones aside from the standard U11 under the same branding, the U11+ and U11 life, but it looks like a third variant may be about to join them. The interestingly-named U11 EYEs actually seems like it could be a pretty nice smartphone, judging from the specifications and photos leaked by famed leakster @evleaks - that is, aside from its inclusion of Android Nougat.
On the same day it released an update to its Edge Launcher, HTC today updated its screenshot tool to give it some very useful and overdue features. The new utility, melodiously named "HTC Screen capture tool," adds the ability to do Samsung-like scrolling screenshots, crops, and annotations with text and drawing.
In its thankless quest to prove the squeeze skeptics wrong, HTC updated its Edge Launcher today with more customization options.
Some promos are better left unpublished and HTC should have gotten to this conclusion after seeing this video for the U11+. Even if they paid Danielle a lump of cash and got an entire team to work for weeks or months on setting this up, filming it, and editing it, with heart-fluttering music to go, this video should not have seen the light of day for one main reason: it fails at its purpose.
HTC and Motorola are two of the few companies that we often see releasing kernel source codes for their devices in a relatively timely manner. Today is no exception with HTC publishing the kernel code for its forty-two-days old HTC 11+. The code clocks in at 417MB and there are 4 versions for different carriers. It joins the U11 in being the second Oreo 8.0 kernel code from HTC.
The upcoming HTC U11+ promises to be an interesting device (unless you live in the US, where it won't be released – sorry). It's apparently what became of 'Muskie,' the canceled HTC-made Pixel 2 XL, so we're expecting a premium smartphone that could be HTC's best yet. My initial reaction to it was very positive, anyway.
Hot on the heels of the U11's Android 8.0 Oreo OTA update, HTC has published the RUU files for it. If you haven't yet received the update or can't install the OTA for whatever reason, you can now flash 8.0 Oreo onto your phone manually.
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Owners of the unlocked HTC U11 can expect a treat to help them get through their post-holiday weekend Monday blues. According to a tweet from Mo Versi, HTC's VP of Product Management for the Americas region, the unlocked version of the U11 will receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update tomorrow (Monday, November 27th). This comes about a week and a half after HTC began rolling out the Oreo update for U11 owners in Taiwan.
Black Friday week month is in full swing now and HTC just launched its deals for the next days. They started at 12am Easter time today, November 21, and will last until 12am Eastern time, November 29.
Oreo's era is in full swing and the next device to get the chocolate and cream treat is HTC's U11. Back in August, when Oreo officially launched, HTC said it would be bringing the new software version to the U11, U Ultra, and HTC 10, and the first one appears to have won the race.
With every new phone launch, the manufacturer is expected to include a number of stock wallpapers for users to choose from. They're another way of differentiating from other OEMs and adding some extra branding flair to a device. The latest flagship phone to be announced by HTC is the U11+, which we've heard was once intended to be the canceled Google Pixel 2 XL (codenamed 'Muskie'). If it had been a Pixel, it would have had Google's Wallpaper app by default, but since it's not, HTC has come up with some wallpapers of its own.
Earlier this year, a device called 'Muskie' appeared in AOSP (alongside 'Walleye'), which was believed to be the larger 2017 Pixel device. Then the phone was seemingly cancelled, with the LG-made 'Taimen' taking its place. Taimen turned out to be the actual Pixel 2 XL, and Walleye became the HTC-made Pixel 2. Recently, more evidence was discovered that Muskie was being made by HTC, and it would have had a massive 3,830mAh battery.
HTC's U11 gained two siblings today, and neither of them has been a particularly well-kept secret. They're certainly not identical twins, either. The aptly named HTC U11+ is a substantially updated, upsized version of the headline U11 from earlier in the year, with an 18:9, 6-inch display, a huge battery, and the most modern design ever seen on an HTC phone. The U11 Life is a mid-ranger that will launch with Android One outside the US.