Close to the Metal Ep. 47: The Surface Laptop is in the building

After dancing around the issue for several years, Microsoft has finally built a true laptop. The aptly-named Surface Laptop borrows heavily from the Surface Pro and Surface Book’s design elements, with a focus on the beautiful PixelSense display and fuzzy alcantara fabric surrounding the keyboard. It certainly looks the part, but there’s a lot more to high-end laptops than aesthetics.

It’s also the first system to run Windows 10 S, a special version of the operating system that cuts out x86 app compatibility, leaving only software downloaded from the Universal Windows Platform to run. To a lot of users, that sounds like a downgrade from the regular version of Windows 10, because it is. It’s intended for administrators handling dozens or hundreds of systems, because it prevents the end user from installing any malware or custom software. It’s a direct attack on a piece of the market entirely owned by Chrome OS, except Microsoft forgot to drop the price.

The Surface Laptop starts at $1,000, well above the $150+ Chromebook starting price, and the $300+ point where Windows 10 with Bing laptops are available. It includes more premium components, and a high-resolution PixelSense touch display, but not all of the parts are up to snuff with its competitors in the $1,000+ price range.

So why would someone want to pay more, for less? We’ll talk about our time with Windows 10 S and the Surface Laptop, and maybe even glean some insight from our conversation last week with Panos Panay, and our very recent trip to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, all on this week’s episode of Close to the Metal.

Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.

Facebook’s ads will target your entire household this Christmas

Why it matters to you

If you don’t like the idea of Facebook allowing advertisers to show ads to your whole family, you can opt out of this household ad service.

Facebook ads are going to get a little creepy this holiday season. The social media giant just announced new tools for advertisers as they finalize strategies for the holiday season this December — one of them includes displaying relevant ads to your entire household.

Facebook’s consumer research report found mobile shoppers aren’t exclusively from one, young generation — in fact, parents made up more than “50 percent of mobile-first shoppers last year.” That’s why one of the company’s latest tools will allow retailers to display relevant ads to family members in the same household. This data is based on you and your family’s Facebook and Instagram usage.

“[We utilize] the explicit relationships that people declare in Facebook … but we also leverage a handful of other signals,” Graham Mudd, product marketing director at Facebook, said in a media briefing in New York City. “For example, we look at shared check-ins, we look at where you access the internet — and if that happens to be from the same location everyday, then that tells with a pretty high degree of confidence that you are in the same household.”

Household marketing works in three ways: If your family is planning a trip to Canada, a hotel company may start displaying ads to everyone in the family — trying to get its brand on everyone’s radar. The second way is by offering gift ideas for other people in the same household. If your son wants a Sonos speaker for Christmas, rather than advertising the speaker to him, retailers can show the ad on Facebook to the rest of his family. The third method deals with reducing wasted ad spend. If a product is typically bought once per household, and if a customer in a household has purchased it — like a Netflix subscription — the company will stop advertising it to the rest of the family.

Facebook said it hides sensitive purchases, so things like alcohol, engagement rings, and the like will not be displayed to everyone in the household. You can opt out of household marketing by going into your Facebook Settings > Ads > Ad Preferences and remove yourself from the “member of a family-based household” category.

The social network launched dynamic ads last year, which are basically a carousel of static product images retailers can use. Now retailers can add product videos, as well as “overlays,” which are banners over ads that can show price, discounts, and more in various styles, colors, and placements. These will be rolling out in the next few months.

The household marketing tools are available now in the U.S., and will expand to other regions next year. The social network unveiled ad breaks for on-demand and live videos earlier this year, and is also offering more ads in Instant Articles.

What a bargain! These are our three favorite Amazon tech deals of the day

Tuesday’s Amazon Gold Box deals feature a 4K LED Samsung monitor, a Linksys router, and a portable power bank. Score savings up to $74 and discounts as deep as 66 percent. Read on to browse today’s best Amazon tech deals.

Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K LED-Lit Monitor

Take your computer time to new heights with enhanced graphics and clarity by investing in this Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K LED-Lit Monitor, which is currently $74 off on Amazon. The monitor is Amazon’s deal of the day and on sale today only.

The monitor is Ultra HD with 1 billion colors that provide 64 times the colors and four times the resolution of 1080 Full HD. Transitions between colors are incredibly detailed and accurate, making everything look more lifelike. The picture comes through clear and bright, so you can more easily enjoy your favorite movies, games, and more.

The monitor features upscaling technology and detects the content’s original resolution and then improves it with noise reduction and up-converting for clearer, sharper images. Picture 2.0 technology displays dual signals in 100 percent of the source resolution, up to 1080p Full HD, and you can even connect two computers to one monitor and view both desktops simultaneously. Like some of the best monitors you can buy, this Samsung model also has a Game Mode that detects changes in scenes, enhances colors, and adjusts the contrast so you see everything clearly.

The Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K LED-Lit Monitor regularly retails for $344 but today only is discounted to $270 on Amazon, saving you $74 (22 percent).

Amazon

Linksys N750 Wi-Fi Wireless Dual-Band Router

Finally get the fast internet you deserve with the Linksys N750 Wi-Fi Wireless Dual-Band Router, which is currently 57 percent off on Amazon. The router has Gigabit and USB ports and can be used as a smart device so you can control it from anywhere.

Like many of our favorite routers, the Linksys router gives you dual-band wireless that supports high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming and file sharing. It offers Wireless-N speeds of up to 300+450 Mbps, along with wireless dual bands (2.4 and 5 GHz) to double the bandwidth and avoid interference while maximizing throughput. As a result, you can connect laptops, tablets, and devices to the Internet without lag.

On the back of the router are four Gigabit Ethernet ports, which let you connect entertainment and gaming devices, and provide 10 times faster speeds than traditional Ethernet. The router also comes equipped with a USB 2.0 port that allows you to quickly share files or add external storage. Like other Linksys products, the router features a Wi-Fi Protected Setup along with WPA/WPA2 encryption and an SPI firewall to protect your data and keep your home Wi-Fi network safely connected and secure.

The Linksys N750 Wi-Fi Wireless Dual-Band Router normally retails for $70 but is currently marked down to $30 on Amazon, providing a $40 (57 percent) discount.

Amazon

Poweradd Pilot 2GS 10000mAh Power Bank

Always be prepared to power up with this Poweradd Pilot 2GS 10000mAh Power Bank, which is currently 66 percent off on Amazon. The power bank is fully portable and provides fast charging speeds for a variety of devices.

At full charge, the power bank can charge an iPhone 6S four times, a Galaxy S6 two and a half times, or an iPad Mini one and a half times. The power bank auto detects your device and delivers the fastest possible charge speed up to 2.4A once connected. The device has a 5V/2A input that is twice as fast than 1amp input, meaning you could fully charge it in only five hours.

The power bank has a lightweight design, crafted out of an aviation aluminum body that to ensures it is as lightweight as it is durable. Like many of the best portable chargers, its compact size makes it easy to carry and it is so small it easily fits into pant pockets. The Grade A+ Li-polymer cell premium microchips multi-protect system provides overcharge, over-discharge, overvoltage, overcurrent, and short-circuit protection.

The Poweradd Pilot 2GS 10000mAh power bank regularly retails for $40 but is currently discounted to $13 on Amazon, saving you $27 (66 percent).

Amazon

Facebook deletes 288,000 posts due to hate speech a month — here’s how

Why it matters to you

A recent blog post offers an inside look on how Facebook draws the line between censorship and removing hate speech.

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech — so what happens to hate speech that is posted online? In a blog post on Tuesday, Facebook shared how it defines and enforces guidelines to keep hate speech off its social media platform.

Globally, Facebook deletes around 288,000 posts a month after the posts are reported to include hate speech. As part of the series Hard Questions, Facebook is sharing how it handles hate speech and to do that, it has to define what, exactly, hate speech is.

Facebook says there is a difference between disagreeing on politics and religion, and hate speech. “Our current definition of hate speech is anything that directly attacks people based on what are known as their ‘protected characteristics’ — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or serious disability or disease,” Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa Public Policy, said.

The social media platform says flagging and removing hate speech is often difficult because the line between it and free speech often varies between cultures and nationalities. For example, some posts that are protected speech in the U.S. could result in a police raid in Germany.

When a post is flagged, Facebook considers the post’s context, including how identical words can have a different meaning in different regions of the world. Intent is also a consideration — for example, several offensive terms that cause posts to be flagged do not result in removal when the user is referring to themselves.

Facebook says it is working on an artificial intelligence solution but it is still a ways away in the future. Community reporting remains one of the biggest ways the platform identifies hateful content. The company will be adding 3,000 people to that team before the end of the year, and Facebook’s discussion comes on the heels of the announcement of a partnership with Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube to fight terrorism online. The inside look at the process of flagging hate speech comes after the company’s guidelines for removing content were allegedly leaked last year.

“If we fail to remove content that you report because you think it is hate speech, it feels like we’re not living up to the values in our Community Standards. When we remove something you posted and believe is a reasonable political view, it can feel like censorship,” Allan said. “We know how strongly people feel when we make such mistakes, and we’re constantly working to improve our processes and explain things more fully.”

The in-depth look at the policy is part of Facebook’s Hard Questions series that asks users to share input and suggestions for improvement through hardquestions@fb.com.

Charter and Comcast are reportedly in merger talks with Sprint

Why it matters to you

Charter and Comcast, the country’s two largest cable companies, reportedly want to merge with mobile provider Sprint.

Charter and Comcast could soon acquire Sprint. That’s according to Fox Business, which reports that the two cable companies have been eyeing the ailing wireless carrier for the past several months.

According to Fox, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has shelved merger talks with T-Mobile, which were ongoing. Two months, ago, it entered a two-month exclusivity agreement for discussions with Charter and Comcast through late July.

It’s the result of a truce between the two cable giants. In May, Charter and Comcast agreed not to close a wireless deal without the other’s blessing or participation.

The two service providers are reportedly mulling over whether to invest in improving Sprint’s network in exchange for “favorable terms” to sell subscriptions through the carrier’s channels. (Fox notes that Charter and Comcast have a similar arrangement with Verizon, but that the Sprint could offer much better rates.) As part of the proposed agreement, Charter and Comcast would take an equity stake in Sprint’s wireless business.

Another, less likely, proposal on the table is an outright merger. According to Fox Business, Charter and Comcast have discussed jointly acquiring Sprint, which has a market value of $32 billion.

It’s a 180-degree turn for Sprint, which as recently as June was said to be in acquisition talks with Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company. German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that the company sought an all-stock deal to bolster T-Mobile’s marketing strategy.

When rumors of the merger were reported months ago, SoftBank — Sprint’s parent company — backed off, reportedly because of strict U.S. Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting rival carriers from conspiring during airwave auctions.  And back in 2014, Sprint ultimately abandoned an acquisition due to antitrust regulatory pressure. AT&T’s attempt to buy T-Mobile back in 2011 failed for similar reasons.

There’s a chance Sprint’s cable company discussions won’t disrupt its long-term T-Mobile plans. Fox Business reports that a reseller agreement with Charter and Comcast “wouldn’t preclude” a subsequent merger.

Whatever the end deal’s terms, Sprint stands to benefit. It’s consistently been playing catch-up with rival carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, last year taking last place in all categories of OpenSignal’s network test. T-Mobile, on the other hand, expanded 4G coverage to 81.2 percent of the U.S. — neck and neck with AT&T at 82.6 percent.

T-Mobile’s relative success over the past two years makes the prospect of a merger seem all the more likely. When discussions began in 2014, Sprint was in third, and T-Mobile was valued at $20 billion less than it is today. According to data from February, T-Mobile now claims roughly 10 million more customers than Sprint.

AT&T just expanded into a whopping 70,000 new locations in the rural U.S.

Why it matters to you

If you live in a rural area, you may soon have access to a much faster broadband network thanks to AT&T’s rapid expansion.

AT&T is trying to appeal more to its rural user base and as such it has launched fixed-in-place cellular access in a hefty eight more states — a move that will bring broadband internet to 70,000 locations that otherwise may not have had any good internet coverage.

The company isn’t quite done yet — it has a goal of launching its service in a massive 400,000 locations before the end of 2017, and its most recent announcements bring it a whole lot closer to meeting that goal.

“We’re committed to connect hard-to-reach locations to the internet. This changes lives and creates economic growth for these areas,” said Cheryl Choy, vice president of wired voice and internet products at AT&T, in a statement. “We’re excited to bring this service to even more underserved locations.”

As is the case in other locations, the company will now offer a $60-per-month LTE connection with 160GB of data. After that 160GB, users will be able to pay $10 for an extra 50GB. AT&T says it will offer speeds of at least 10Mbps — which isn’t all that fast, and actually doesn’t even meet the FCC’s definition of broadband — but it is better than what was on offer in the area already.

The states serviced in AT&T’s new coverage include Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana. In total, AT&T will launch expanded service in 18 states, and on top of the ones already mentioned it will also include California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin.

AT&T isn’t the only company attempting to expand its coverage to more rural areas. Charter has been looking to expand as well, however it may not need to expand as much as it otherwise would have. That’s because the Federal Communications Commission recently rolled back a requirement for Charter to expand to 2 million new subscribers within five years. That requirement was put in place as part of the Time Warner-Charter merger that was announced last year, and that will see the two companies being rolled into a new Charter.

In any case, it’s nice to see more rural areas finally getting better broadband access — and hopefully more than one company will expand into each area so that customers have choices and so that there is a little competition in the market.

Samsung’s updated Smart Switch website helps iPhone users switch to Android

Why it matters to you

If you’re the owner of a shiny new Samsung Galaxy, you might want a quick and easy way to transfer your files. That’s what Smart Switch is for.

Samsung is trying to take back some of the market share currently controlled by its biggest competition — Apple. How is it doing this? Well, it’s redesigning its Smart Switch website aimed at luring iPhone users back to the Android side.

Smart Switch basically allows users to move their data and content from one phone to their shiny new Galaxy handset quickly and easily — without having to worry about transferring individual file types like photos. It does this from basically any phone — including the iOS-powered iPhone. That makes it a great tool for those who might be interested in switching to an Android handset.

Smart Switch doesn’t only work for those moving from the iPhone to a Galaxy — it’s compatible with Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, and even BlackBerry. You can also transfer data a number of different ways if you so choose — wirelessly, through a cable, or through the Smart Switch computer app.

From there, you can choose the types of files that you want transferred over, after which your new phone will have all your old files.

Of course, Samsung isn’t alone in offering this kind of tool. Apple has built a tool of its own called “Move to iOS,” which is available on Android phones. To this end, the app is one of the very few Apple apps available on Android — and it’s aimed at helping users ditch Android in the first place.

While tools like this are helpful, they’re becoming increasingly obsolete thanks to the fact that users are moving to cloud storage. Cloud storage solutions make it extremely easy to move to new phones, since few files are stored on the handset itself, and even the ones that are are copies of the original file stored in the cloud.

Samsung and Apple have long struggled against each other to control market share, and while Samsung has traditionally sold more handsets overall, Apple currently controls the vast majority of the U.S. smartphone market.

While Samsung has only updated the Smart Switch website so far, we may soon see an update to the apps as well — though the apps are still pretty nicely designed.

Intel may bridge mainstream, enthusiast CPUs with six core ‘Coffeelake’ chips

Why it matters to you

Intel isn’t taking AMD’s Ryzen competition lying down. Coffeelake could offer a great middle ground for those who want increased multi-core performance.

A listing on the Geekbench website may have revealed a number of details about an upcoming six-core, 12-thread, eighth-generation Coffeelake CPU. Although it’s listed as part of the Kaby Lake generation, nothing in that series has that core/thread count, so we could well be looking at the first reveal of a next-gen processor.

Intel has had a bit of a touchy 2017 thanks to increased competition by its longtime second fiddle, AMD. The Ryzen CPUs that debuted earlier this year and the Threadripper follow-ups really nipped at the heels of the chip giant in a number of ways, so Intel’s next-generation chips will need to bring the fight back to AMD if it doesn’t want to see a chunk of its traditional audience jump ship to the first real competition its had in years.

That generation is set to release at some point in the second-half of 2017, and this could well be our first look at it. Spotted by WCCFTech, the chip has a clock speed of 3.19GHz — though that may be without a boost frequency. It also sports 1.5MB of level-two cache and 12MB of level-three cache.

Of some surprise is the listing of the 1151 LGA socket, which would suggest a 200 series motherboard. Coffeelake chips are rumored to only be compatible with the upcoming 300 series chipset. WCCFTech suggests this could be an example of a specialized 200 series motherboard, enabled to work with the new CPUs. However, since the chip is listed as from the Kaby Lake generation, it’s also possible that this is a placeholder classification for the Geekbench benchmark prior to being updated with support for the as-yet-unreleased hardware.

Although we don’t have much other information about the system that was used in this test, we know it had 64GB of memory and was running Windows 10 Pro.

Although we should take all stats and information about this hardware with a pinch of salt for now, preliminary comparisons with AMD Ryzen hardware suggests that this chip would perform comparably to a Ryzen 5 1600X.

While that isn’t exactly groundbreaking, the Intel eighth-generation CPUs are expected to be clocked higher and overclock further when eventually released. They should provide a solid middle ground for those wanting additional multi-core support, though it will be interesting to see how such consumer released hardware fares against AMD’s latest crop of processors.

HTC U11 review: A second opinion

HTC’s 2017 flagship is an excellent handset that sets the tone for the future of HTC’s smartphone business.

When you can pick up a pretty good smartphone for around $400, why would you cough up the extra 250 bucks for an HTC flagship? That question has been central to the Taiwanese manufacturer’s decline over the past couple of years. The company would target the likes of Apple and Samsung, miss, and get trounced by OnePlus, Huawei, Honor and others on the way back down.

HTC’s phones once led the pack in many important areas: Performance, build quality, software and audio. But lackluster products like the One M9 and One A9 have significantly eroded this lead. Things started to improve with last year’s HTC 10, but not enough to move the needle.

HTC needed to establish a new design language for its phones, as the tried-and-true metal unibody became increasingly pedestrian. (No small task given the departure of successive VPs of design in recent years.) And that nagging question of what was special about an HTC handset needed a direct, unambiguous answer.

What’s special about a HTC smartphone in 2017?

So now we have the HTC U11, which tells us pretty clearly what HTC is all about in 2017 — and presumably beyond. It’s about color, with bright blues, shimmering silvers and fiery reds making up the U11’s palette. It’s about a brilliant camera, which works similarly to the Google Pixel’s legendary HDR+ shooter. And it’s about squeezing the phone to do… stuff — which is is kinda gimmicky, but useful in a handful of instances.

A subset of those features were present in the first two “U” devices — the U Play and U Ultra — but as I’ve said before, you can safely forget about those phones. Chances are you already have.

The chassis of the U11 straddles the past and the future of smartphone design. From the back, it’s a glitzy masterpiece; from the front, it’s another relatively boring Android phone. The front face is highly unremarkable, and I’m of the opinion that HTC desperately needs to update its front ID, which is almost identical to the HTC 10 and Bolt. Think: Big bezels, capacitive buttons, and a front-mounted fingerprint scanner.

The curved edges of the glass (but not the screen) add a little bit of flair, but not enough to make the phone feel as elegant and futuristic as its almost bezel-free rivals.

And the extra horizontal and vertical padding makes the U11 feel sizeable despite its average-sized 5.5-inch display. (Compared to, say the OnePlus 5, which feels much less bulbous.)

The centerpiece of the U11’s design is the curved, mirrored, color-shifting glass back panel.

Around the back, a single curved pane of Gorilla Glass 3 is the centerpiece. Unlike the Galaxy S8, the U11’s rear glass appears to have an oleophobic coating, but that doesn’t stop it becoming a magnet for fingerprint smudges. Nevertheless, the liquid-like surface of the U11’s back panel is a thing of beauty. In the “amazing silver” color I’ve been using, it shifts between an almost-purple hue, through sky blues and, at certain angles, the eponymous silver. Even more striking is the newly-released “solar red,” which shifts between red and gold.

Sure: It’s easy to gunk up with finger grease. And you’re almost guaranteed to pick up a bunch of hairline scratches over the course of several months or years of use. (A couple of weeks in, I’m not seeing any yet, but it’s only a matter of time.) And yes, the curved glass is fairly slippery in-hand, even more so than the Galaxy S8. But I still love it.

It’s a radical departure from the sturdy metal unibody of the HTC 10, making the phone feel less hardy. But from the back, no other phone matches the look of the U11’s curved, mirrored uniquely colored glass.

The U11’s performance is almost unrivaled in an Android smartphone.

On the inside, the latest Snapdragon 835 processor, paired with 4GB of RAM, keeps Android 7.1.1 running smoothly. This phone is as fast as any handset I’ve used, with the possible exception of the OnePlus 5. That’s less a criticism of HTC and more a point of praise for OnePlus, which has hit a homerun with its software and performance tuning this year. (And of course, having 8GB of RAM at your disposal also helps.)

In any case, the HTC U11 hits all the major spec points you’d expect from a 2017 flagship. You get the latest processor, plenty of RAM and storage, plus microSD expansion, fast and accurate biometric security, IP67 water resistance and a great-looking display. Nothing is left wanting.

HTC’s SuperLCD 5 panel (read: IPS LCD) doesn’t get quite as bright as Samsung’s latest SuperAMOLED in direct sunlight, but it does go toe-to-toe with top LCDs like those found in the iPhone 7 Plus and LG G6. My only display-related gripe has to do with visibility while wearing polarized sunglasses. As highlighted by our old pal Phil Nickinson: In portrait mode it’s fine, in landscape it’s practically invisible. If you’re taking photos outside while wearing sunglasses — as you may well be in the northern hemisphere at this time of year, it’s a case of: Landscape mode, sunglasses, U11 — pick two.

The U11’s other major compromise is obvious, and unfortunately not unexpected in the wake of the Bolt and U Ultra — there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack. The decision is baffling — it’s not like there isn’t room for the port down there on the lower edge of the phone. Instead, it seems HTC wants to push U11 owners towards its own “USonic” USB-C earphones — now with active noise cancellation — which are bundled with the phone. The bundled cans sound great, if a little over-bassy, but they won’t work with non-HTC phones, and they don’t solve the problem of not being able to charge while you listen to music.

There’s no justification for leaving out the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Fortunately HTC does bundle a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle in the box, complete with built-in DAC (and firmware, which updates via the phone). Like the iPhone’s dongle, it’s easy to misplace. Unlike the iPhone’s adapter, though, getting hold of a new one isn’t as simple as a trip down to your local Apple store when you inevitably do lose it.

At least audio from the built-in “BoomSound Hi-Fi” speakers is impressive. I feel like it doesn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of the old One M9’s front-facing BoomSound setup in terms of bass — but it’s as good as any contemporary phone when it comes to distortion-free volume.

There’s not a whole lot to say about HTC’s Sense software on the U11. If you’re familiar with the latest Sense on the HTC 10 or U Ultra, this is basically the same experience. That’s good because it’s fast, clean and uncomplicated… And perhaps not so good because there’s been so little meaningful change in Sense for so long now.

HTC Sense is fast, but in dire need of a fresh coat of paint.

A good point of contrast is OnePlus’s OxygenOS. Oxygen also builds on bone stock Android, but in a way that feels like it belongs in 2017, not 2015. There are influences from the Google Pixel, and Google’s Material Design as a whole — but it all feels like it belongs together, and more importantly, its design is evolving alongside Android itself. As fast and clean as Sense is, it’s in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. Some areas of the UI haven’t changed much since 2014’s One M8, and that’s a big part of what makes the U11’s UI feel so dated next to its contemporaries.

It’s hard to find fault with Sense’s performance, and the appeal of the minimalist aesthetic that runs through all the preloaded HTC apps. There are relatively few preloaded apps I’d count as superfluous — compared to the vast mire of bloat you’ll find on most Samsung phones. Among them are HTC Boost+, which does things I don’t understand and can’t explain while insisting to me with fancy graphics that it’s improving performance.

Another is HTC Sense Companion, an on-device AI feature which tries too hard to be useful and doesn’t succeed often enough to justify its existence. Sometimes it’d remind me to recharge mid-day, or prepare for adverse weather tomorrow — moderately useful. Other times it’d interrupt me to tell me about about tourist spots 200 miles away from my current location.

Sense Companion will be growing new features in the coming months, so here’s hoping it’ll become a little more useful throughout the U11’s life.

Another unique feature is Edge Sense, the thing where you squeeze the U11’s bezel to trigger certain actions. There are countless actions that can be triggered by squeezing the phone — either with a long squeeze or short squeeze — but the most useful one I’ve found is launching the camera. I’ve been surprised by how reliably this works, even when the screen is off, and the visual feedback when squeezing the phone has helped me avoid accidental squeezes.

Sure, you can also just double-tap the home key to hop straight into the camera at any time, but the extra second or so Edge Sense saves by not requiring me to fumble around and find the home button makes it worthwhile.

As for other shortcuts, like squeezing to take a photo, or the many upcoming features coming to Edge Sense, like squeezing to zoom in on a map. Well, I’m less enthusiastic about those. But whatever: If Edge Sense isn’t your thing, it is at least easy to ignore.

Imagine the Pixel’s camera, but better.

Speaking of that camera, I’ve been genuinely impressed by the quality and consistency of pics from HTC’s latest UltraPixel 3 shooter. It’s a 12-megapixel shooter with 1.4-micron pixels behind an f/1.7 lens, putting it on par with the Galaxy S8. And it uses HTC’s HDR Boost software — HTC’s version of Google’s HDR+, basically — to produce photos that match or beat the Galaxy S8. In particular, the U11 routinely did a better job in bright or extremely high-contrast situations, and produces images which, while slightly darker than the S8 in low light, retained more color detail.

The Galaxy S8 was recently voted the best smartphone camera in our blind camera comparison, so that’s high praise indeed. And should you want to get more involved, there’s a full Pro photo mode to get stuck into, including RAW capture capabilities.

The U11’s 3,000mAh battery, paired with its high-end internals and relatively large display, may seem like a recipe for mediocre battery life. However, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the phone’s ability to withstand even a fairly heavy day’s use. This isn’t a two-day phone, but the U11 routinely got me past the 12-hour mark, and often beyond it, with screen-on time across Wi-Fi and LTE usage approaching five hours.

So why should you buy an HTC flagship in 2017? For me, the answer lies in the HTC U11’s top-tier performance, gorgeous design and almost unrivalled camera experience. And as high-end smartphones become increasingly homogenous, the camera might be what swings it for the U11. It’s crazy to think that two years ago we were dealing with a genuinely awful camera in the One M9 — the progress HTC has made in this area in a relatively short space of time is worthy of high praise.

Is it the very best phone you can buy? That depends on your budget, and what your priorities are in a smartphone. The U11’s relatively dull software design and bulky chassis (for the screen size) stand out as reasons to consider the Samsung Galaxy S8 instead — but then, the GS8 is a more expensive phone.

And at the £650 price point, there’s nothing as good as HTC’s latest creation.

See at HTC

HTC U11

• HTC U11 review
• HTC U11 specs
• Manufacturing the U11: Behind the scenes
• Join our U11 forums
• HTC U11 vs Galaxy S8
• HTC U11 vs LG G6

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How to fix Google Play Music crashing bug

Give me back my music. GIVE ME BACK MY MUSIC!

Google Play Music is being a naughty app for some users after an update sent the app into a crash loop and locked them out. Music is a highly important part of my phone, and my life, so I went in search of a fix or workaround. Good news! There seems to be a simple enough way to get back in, though depending on your listening habits, it might be a bitter pill.

Turning off Bluetooth seems to make the app useable again. If you’re someone who listens over Bluetooth, wears an Android Wear watch, or just likes having Bluetooth on, reboot your phone before you try turning it on. For some, Bluetooth needs to stay off, for some of us, turning it off and rebooting was enough to fix things.

Here are the individual steps:

Open your phone’s Settings.
Turn off Bluetooth.
Re-open Google Play Music.

Whichever camp you’re in, we can all hope that a permanent solution comes soon, but for now, I’m just going to hold my playlist close and tell it I love it. After all, you never know when they’ll be taken away by random bugs.