Australian PC World | Nick Ross

The HTC U Play is less divisive than its big brother. It's easier to use, does everything well and represents great value.

NotebookCheck | Florian Wimmer

HTC has built a stylish, relatively solid mid-range handset. Ultimately, HTC's U Play is a solid mid-range smartphone, but the competition now offers more.

The Mobile Indian | Nirupam Manik

HTC U Play is certainly a new approach from HTC in the smartphone space. The U Play does bank heavily on the new aesthetics and the software coupled with a decent camera.

NDTV Gadgets | Roydon Cerejo

The HTC U Play is a neat little device with striking looks and smooth all-round performance. The real kickers, though, are the price of this phone and the budget-class processor that HTC has used.

phoneArena | Daniel P.

The HTC U Play offers a very pleasant design to look and hold, a simple but functional interface, and decent picture and video capture abilities. The U Play ticks all the boxes in its segment, save for a few camera mishaps, so if you are pleased with its premium design, and don't mind paying a bit extra, it's a nice choice in the midrange category.

TechRadar | John McCann

The HTC U Play is a solid Android smartphone. It has enough grunt under the hood, a decent display, strong cameras and smart bundled earbuds – but it's a package which feels like it's missing something.

S21

The HTC U Play is a mid-range phone that's priced too high and comes with a list of problems. It's not a phone we can recommend.

The Inquirer | Holly Brockwell

Overall, the HTC U Play is fine. On the plus side, it looks stylish and takes good photos that look particularly bright on its HD display. However, its performance is on the slower side of average, the battery doesn't last the day, it's slippery as heck and it doesn't have a headphone port.

Trusted Reviews | Max Parker

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... 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.

Recombu | Chris Barraclough

The HTC U Play is a mixed bag unfortunately, and very much lurks in the shadows of rivals