Here’s the latest phone from a brand you’ve forgotten about

A promotional image of the HTC U24 Pro.
A promotional image of the HTC U24 Pro.

HTC is back. After teasing the announcement of a new smartphone recently, the company — once a titan of the smartphone world — has shown off the HTC U24 Pro, a midrange smartphone with great specifications and at least one unexpected feature to surprise us. Lets see what’s new.

It has a simpler design than the HTC U23 Pro, which was announced this time last year, with a sandblasted rear panel that meets the curved screen at the edge of the case. The camera module’s design is reminiscent of the Huawei P20 Pro‘s, with a dual camera module in the top left and a single third camera set underneath it.

The screen is a 6.8-inch OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 2436 x 1080 pixel resolution that’s covered in Gorilla Glass. The phone has an IP67 water and dust resistance rating. Wondering about those surprise features? Also on the U24 Pro’s body is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and there’s space for a MicroSD card to expand the standard 256GB of space. Both these are rare features on a phone in 2024.

Introducing HTC U24 pro - New Phone With 50 MP Cameras, AI, and More

There are two 50-megapixel cameras on the back of the phone. The main 50MP camera has a 2x optical zoom, plus optical image stabilization (OIS) and electronic image stabilization (EIS). It’s joined by a 50MP telephoto camera. There’s also an 8MP wide-angle lens that also deals with depth data. In the promotional video you can watch above, HTC makes a big deal over the camera’s app, which has AI features like a version of Google’s Best Shot, where you can use AI and multiple images to engineer a group photo in which everyone has the ideal expression.

What else? The HTC U24 Pro has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,600mAh battery with 60-watt wired and 15W wireless charging, plus Android 14 software. The phone weighs 199 grams and is 8.99mm thick, and comes in a single Space Blue color. HTC is better known for the HTC Vive VR headset than its phones today, and the U24 Pro connects with HTC’s Viverse platform and unlocks features on the Vive XR Elite headset.

HTC has not released its phones globally for a while, and currently the HTC U24 Pro is listed on the firm’s U.K. website for 469 British pounds, or about $598. This puts it in competition with phones including the OnePlus 12R, the Nothing Phone 2, and the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE. It does not appear on the U.S. HTC website, and a firm release date is not indicated at this time.