Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

HTC U Play Review - Camera, Battery Life and Verdict Review

Sections

HTC U Play – Camera

The HTC U Play has a serious number of megapixels to its name: there’s a 16-megapixel camera on the front and a 16-megapixel camera on the back.

These sensors are the polar opposite of the UltraPixel kind that can be found in the HTC U Ultra, which features numerous tiny 1-micron sensor pixels rather than fewer large ones.

Related: Best Budget Phones

HTC U Play 21Close-up of smartphone camera and LED flash.

HTC hasn’t told us which particular sensors the phone uses, but judging by the specs alone, they’re likely to be Samsung models. Sony’s 16-megapixel sensors tend to have slightly larger sensor pixels.

That said, on the whole I’m fairly happy with the image quality of the HTC U Play’s camera. While it isn’t a match for the OnePlus 3T or Samsung Galaxy S7, daylight shots display a decent amount of detail, fair colour reproduction and, when using the Auto HDR mode, decent dynamic range.

In general, photos can benefit from some post-processing, though. The HTC U Play tends to be quite conservative with its metering, making sure not to over-expose. Given that HTC was criticised for years for its cameras’ blown highlights, this is probably deliberate.

Up-close, images aren’t as clean or sharp-looking as those of a good 12-megapixel sensor – even in bright daylight – but unless you’re really prodding pixels, you’re unlikely to notice. Typical of a non-giant sensor, noise reduction begins to eat away at fine detail when the available light drops, but OIS is on hand to stop night images from looking poor.

HTC U Play 7Smartphone camera interface with photo and video options displayed.

OIS compensates for hand movements when using the camera, letting the HTC U Play use slightly slower/longer exposures. HTC doesn’t seem to put too much faith in the stabilisation, though, with the shutter only slowing down to 1/12 of a second.

There’s a full manual mode that includes control over exposure times, sensitivity and other parameters, letting you push the U Play much harder if you like. Use Pro mode and you can capture RAW-style images as well as JPEGs too. As you’d expect from a 16-megapixel camera, though, they’re huge, at 30+MB each.

This is a decent, if not mind-blowing, camera. However, shutter lag is quite an issue for a phone at this price. When the official camera app is used and HDR is switched off, the lag is present but not annoying. Use a third-party app such as WhatsApp, or switch on Auto HDR, and the U Play often seems unbelievably laggy for a £400 phone.

It appears that such issues may be fixed in a software update in the future, but to even ship the phone with such an obvious issue is quite poor.

HTC U Play 7Photo taken with camera demonstrating low-light performance.Equestrian statue and fountain in Trafalgar Square at dusk.Clear sky over a historic church captured by review camera.Camera review sample image with inset of zoomed detail.HTC U Play 13Photo taken with camera demonstrating low-light performance.Equestrian statue and fountain in Trafalgar Square at dusk.Camera review sample image with inset of zoomed detail.HTC U Play 9Photo taken with camera demonstrating low-light performance.Equestrian statue and fountain in Trafalgar Square at dusk.HTC U Play 3Photo taken with camera demonstrating low-light performance.
Even with HDR, the shadows and mid-tones could do with a little brightening in this shot

HTC U Play 5Street adorned with red lanterns captured by camera under review.Nighttime photo of a lit building facade with Comparison of HDR and non-HDR camera results on a building.HTC U PlayNighttime photo of a lit building facade with Comparison of HDR and non-HDR camera results on a building.HTC U Play 11Nighttime photo of a lit building facade with
Thanks to OIS, night shots still display plenty of detail – and you don’t need to stay ultra-still while taking them

The HTC U Play also lacks 4K video capture, presumably because the Helio P10 CPU doesn’t support it.

There are a few little extra modes worth a mention. Zoe makes a return: it’s a mode that takes a snippet of video whenever you take a photo. Apple’s Live Photos are far more useful, though. Zoe makes you far too conscious that you’re taking a video plus a picture, whereas iPhones takes tiny videos just before and as you shoot; it doesn’t get in the way.

There are fewer caveats to the front camera, which also uses a 16-megapixel sensor. It’s a great selfie cam, producing natural-looking photos, and it doesn’t suffer from the worst effects of the rear camera shutter lag because there’s already a two-second countdown as standard and it doesn’t use camera-stalling HDR.

Indoors, however, images look noisy, more so than those taken with the very best 8-megapixel selfie cameras. However, the HTC U Play still takes very good selfies, and there’s a 4-megapixel UltraPixel selfie mode that smoothes out some of the noise in lesser lighting.

HTC U Play – Battery Life

The HTC U Play is a mix of good and not-so-great, but the one area that has proved consistently frustrating is its battery life. With normal use – which includes no gaming but some podcast streaming – the phone consistently gets close to running out of battery before I’ve finished my work day. On a few occasions, I’ve chewed through almost two full charges in a day.

HTC U Play 5Smartphone lying on white background showcasing rear camera and design.

Evaluate the specs and this isn’t really a surprise. The HTC U Play has a 2,500mAh battery, which is fairly small for a phone with a 1080p screen and a 28nm processor rather than a more up-to-date 14nm one. The lower the nanometer count, the more efficient a CPU tends to be.

Twenty minutes of gaming consumes 19% of the battery, suggesting you’ll get significantly less than two hours of gaming from a full charge. Again – this isn’t great.

You don’t get the consolation prize of ultra-fast charging, either. The HTC U Play uses a standard higher-power 2A charger, whereas a fast charger will increase the voltage to 9V, or the amp count to as much as 5A. Since the battery isn’t huge, the level zips up fairly quickly.

HTC U Play 33Smartphone lying on a surface displaying apps and with visible ports.

Should I buy the HTC U Play?

The HTC U Play is a good phone that’s let down on three counts. Its camera is often far too laggy, some games don’t run that well, and the battery life isn’t good enough. Some won’t like HTC’s decision to kill the headphone jack, either. While the rest of the handset is solid – particularly its build and look – these issues are enough to make the phone a tough sell at £400.

The device is expensive for what you get, particularly when compared to the OnePlus 3T, for example; even the Samsung Galaxy S7, at £100 more.

Of course, in the UK at least, the real test for the HTC U Play will come from 2017’s lineup of phones, and whether their cost will also be amped up as a result of the newly weakened pound.

But a relatively high U Play US price suggests the exchange rate can’t take all the blame, though.

Verdict

It looks and feels great, but mid-range insides and a few stand-out problems make the HTC U Play a tough sell at the price.

We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.

Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.

Used as our main phone for the review period

Reviewed using respected industry benchmarks and real world testing

Always has a SIM card installed

Tested with phone calls, games and popular apps

Trusted Score

rating-star rating-star rating-star rating-star rating-star

Score in detail

  • Performance 6
  • Camera 7
  • Design 9
  • Battery Life 5
  • Value 6
  • Software 8
  • Screen Quality 8

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up and get the best deals straight to your phone

Skip the hunt - get the latest discounts delivered directly to WhatsApp by signing up to the Trusted deals Whatsapp Channel.

Get Access