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HTC U12+ review: Fundamentally flawed
Once a big player in smartphones, HTC is now better known for its Vive VR headsets than anything else. The firm offloaded the team responsible for the Pixel phones to Google earlier this year, shortly before the chief of its smartphone division resigned. Another round of layoffs later, as HTC merged its VR and phone arms together in North America, and you'd think it was kissing the industry goodbye. But according to the company, that's far from the case, though we imagine there'll be a keen eye on the success of the new U12+, the HTC flagship of this year. With plenty of top-tier competition recently unleashed on the public, though, can HTC still hold its own?
Vive Focus VR update lets you take calls from the real world
Even though the Vive Focus won't be available outside of China until later this year, it's already getting a major update which will make it a lot more versatile. At the annual Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen just now, HTC announced that as of today, its standalone 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) VR headset can install a "System Update 2.0" which adds a handful of notable features. One of the main highlights here is the added ability to receive calls, social notifications and messages from a paired HTC smartphone, with the recently unveiled U12+ being the first model to take advantage of this immersive feature. This is nothing new for existing Vive users, of course, as the Vive companion mobile app already supports the PC-powered headset on this end.
HTC leaks the flagship U12+ on its own website
Although HTC's U12+ will be officially unveiled tomorrow, the company has accidentally jumped the gun by revealing a bunch of expected features on one of its own websites. On a test domain visible to the public -- which has since been killed -- WinFuture.de writer Roland Quandt noticed previously rumored specs detailing the device's processor, display, RAM size and some undisclosed extras.
HTC will reveal its next flagship on May 23rd
In an interesting twist on the clichéd device tease, HTC has preempted an iFixit-style teardown by showing the back and guts of the phone it's about to release. It looks like the U12 (or U12+) smartphone will arrive on May 23rd, judging by the parts and shape. According to several leaks, it will sport dual rear 12- and 16-megapixel cameras, probably to allow for zooming with no detail loss, along with dual 8-megapixel front cameras.
