HTC plays it safe with its latest flagship, the U12

Yes, HTC Is still here.

Once one of the most innovative phone makers, HTC has had a long slide toward mediocrity. While it occasionally does some interesting things, it hasn't moved the needle in years. Its latest attempt to stay competitive is the HTC U12+, a new flagship that it touts as a "game changing" phone but is really just HTC playing catch-up.

The feature HTC is touting the loudest is the camera, which it claims is the "highest rated" camera on a smartphone right now. That may be true, but the rating comes from DxOMark, whose ratings have been suspect for a while. However, the dual-camera system (16 and 12 megapixels) does sound impressive, with a 2x optical zoom and combined phase-detection and laser autofocus, letting you zero in on subjects as fast as possible. Read more...