Squeeze me: transparent, notchless HTC U12 Plus debuts for $799

There’s a new HTC smartphone that South Africans will have to lust over from a distance. The HTC U12 Plus, as its called, is the company’s new smartphone that wants you to wring its neck.

Because everyone seemingly loved the HTC U11’s squeeze sensor gimmick — which allowed users to command the phone through pressured grabs of the phone’s flanks — it returns to the U12 Plus.

It now comes with new gesture support, what HTC calls the “Edge Launcher” and support for voice assistants. HTC is seemingly platform agnostic in this regard.

“Simply squeeze your phone to take photos, launch voice assistants and bring up Edge Launcher, a customizable way to quickly access your favorite apps, contacts and quick settings,” it writes in its marketing material.

Beyond this defining feature, the U12 Plus is stock-standard flagship material, packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, 6GB of RAM and a choice of 64 or 128GB of storage.

There’s a 6.0-inch 18:9 2560×1440 screen, powered by a 3500mAh battery.

As for its camera arrays, there are two dual-camera interfaces. Up front, dual 8MP selfie cameras add “natural Bokeh” to your precious yoga poses. At the rear, a 12MP and 16MP sensor work in tandem to provide optical zoom witchcraft.

HTC makes sure that everyone knows its DxOMark score of 103, which is only bested by the Huawei P20 Pro.

IP68 dust and water resistance, fast charting and the lack of a headphone jack rounds up the package. Oh, and there’s no notch.

Finally, HTC is promising an Android P update in the future, debuting with Android Oreo in the meantime.

It’s highly likely you’ll never see this device in South Africa, but for what it’s worth, it’ll be sold in three colours: Ceramic Black, Flame Red, and a pretty awesome semi-transparent Translucent Blue sheen.

And the price?

That’ll be US$799 for the 64GB model, and US$849 for the 128GB version.

Feature image: HTC