HTC U Ultra and U Play Gallery

HTC has a pair of new smartphones for 2017, aiming to kick off the new year with more personalization and distinctive looks. The HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play each use a new, vaporized mineral casing with 3D glass and smoothly curved edges, finally retiring the metal design language of HTC's older devices. The U Ultra is the more powerful of the two, with a Snapdragon 821 chipset, 4GB of memory, and up to 128GB of internal storage.

It also has two displays. The main screen is a 5.7-inch Quad HD panel, but it's topped by a second "Dual Display": a thin strip that offers app shortcuts, quick-dial contacts, and notifications. It's next to a 16-megapixel UltraPixel camera, while on the back is a 12-megapixel UltraPixel 2 camera with both laser and phase-detection autofocus, OIS, and 4K recording.

As for the HTC U Play, that switches to a MediaTek chipset and has a smaller, 5.2-inch 1080p screen. No secondary display, but you do get a 16-megapixel camera front and back; the latter can switch into an UltraPixel mode for better low-light performance. It'll go on sale later in 2017, while the HTC U Ultra is up for preorder from today.