HTC officially announced its new flagship smartphone (HTCXF)

HTC U11+

HTC announced its new flagship smartphone, the U11 Plus.
The device is a follow-up to the U11 announced earlier this year.
It will only come to the UK and the rest of Europe, not the US, starting this November.

HTC officially announced its new flagship device on Thursday, the U11 Plus. The handset, as the name suggests, is a souped up version of the company's great (if a little unfortunate) U11, which debuted earlier this year.

The device had already leaked almost in full yesterday, and it looks like the information was mostly correct.

The biggest change from the standard U11 is the size: The display moves from 5.5 to 6 inches.

HTC managed to trim down the bezels, however, so the dimensions make for a handset that is only marginally bigger; where it feels more noticeable is in thickness, where the few added millimeters are being used to fit a battery that's 31% larger, at 3930mAh.

The front panel moved from 16:9 to the elongated 18:9 (2:1) aspect ratio of most other flagship phones — at 2880x1440 resolution — but it retained the standard liquid-crystal (LCD) display technology, as opposed to the organic light-emitting (OLED) panels Google, Samsung, and Apple are using.

HTC U11 Plus

The system-on-a-chip is still Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, but the RAM is getting a boost, up to 6GB (with 128GB of storage; a 4GB/64GB option is still available).

HTC also improved the phone's water resistance, which moves from IP67 to IP68 certification. The cameras, on the other hand, remain the same, while the fingerprint reader has been relocated below the rear shooter to accommodate the larger display.

The Taiwanese company also improved the Edge Sense software (this time on top of Android 8.0 Oreo) which takes advantage of the "squeezable," pressure sensitive sides. You can now map them to activate both Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant with different pressure strengths, or open a new, carousel-like menu of apps.

The phone will only launch in the UK and the rest of Europe, but not in the US, and be available in a so-called "Ceramic Black" colour (which is not made out of actual ceramic) — the see-through version leaked yesterday does exist, but The Verge reports that the company hasn't decided whether to actually bring it to market yet.

The UK retail price is £699 for the 6GB/128GB version, launching November 20, while Europe — which will also get the 4GB/64GB variant — customers will be able to get their hands on the device for €799 some time later this year.