Dubai

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer is hoping to turn things around after weak first-quarter results with its new flagship for the year – U 11 – which was revealed globally on Tuesday.

HTC is incorporating squeeze technology called “Edge Sense” by using sensors embedded in the frame of the phone that will allow users to squeeze the sides of the frame to perform actions.

Nikitas Glykas, President of HTC MEA, told Gulf News that smartphones need a refresh on how to use them. Holding a phone is also squeezing a phone gently.

“So, in order to offer a niche, we are offering two additional patterns — short squeeze and long squeeze — to perform two different actions such as take photos, turn LED lights on or turn Google Assistant on, and this can be adjusted in the settings of the phone. All these features can be done when the screen is locked,” he said.

It comes preset with camera on for short squeeze and Google Assistant for long squeeze.

The 5.5-inch device with 2560 x 1440 resolution is powered by Qualcomm’s 835 chipset coupled with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage capacity. The hybrid-style SIM tray can house two SIM cards or one SIM and one microSD.

It sports 12MP rear camera and 16MP selfie camera.

HTC is also playing up the camera on its new smartphone, and a DxOMark rating of 90. That’s higher than the iPhone 7’s score of 86, Samsung S7 Edge’s 88 and Google Pixel’s 89.

DxOMark measures the performance of a camera’s lens and sensor. Higher scores indicate better overall camera quality.

The phone is priced at Dh2,599 and be available in June with five different colour variants — white, black, blue, red and silver. HTC has started taking pre-orders for the device and offers two-year warranty.

Glykas said that HTC is bringing “Edge Companion” app in July that users can assign two actions in each application. For example, inside a music app, short squeeze can be made to turn volume down and long squeeze for turning volume up.

The phone comes with machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities known as HTC Sense Companion and will be available only in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Research firm Gartner predicts that, by 2019, 20 per cent of all user interactions with the smartphone will take place via virtual personal assistants (VPAs).

The “USonic” technology is incorporated into the phone. The USonic hi-res USB Type-C headset when placed into the ear analyses the inner ears with a sonic pulse and then adapts to the listener.

Glykas said that due to customers feedback, HTC is bringing back its twin front-facing BoomSound speakers.

The Taiwanese firm reported revenues of TWD 14.5 billion in the first quarter of this year compared to TWD 14.8 billion a year ago while booking a smaller operating loss of TWD2.4 billion compared to TWD4.8 billion a year ago.

Regarding the region [MEA], Glykas said that HTC is growing when the regional market is heading south, especially in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and has sold more than two million units.

“2016 was the best year for HTC in the region with five per cent market share. Our mid-range devices are continuing to deliver strong numbers. Revenue wise, we are on track in the region and with this new device, our average selling price is also going higher with the U11, U Ultra and U Ultra Play,” he said.

He said that he expects regional revenues to rise this year also.