Dragan is right. I don't understand why htc is being attacked in these terms even by professional Writers, not only gossip mongers and normal people who doesn't even understand some qualities of the devices they slander just because the brand isn't stylish anymore. From what i've seen from technical reviews htc produced high end devices that were among the best considering the overall package and most of the times they were the better performing at least regarding the smoothness and the consistency of the operations, wich is very very pleasing. This is true for the first desires, that were also the first smartphones but this seems to be forgotten, going through the htc m8, the 10 wich for example has been praised by Anandtech especially for the perceived smoothness and the time in wich things happen. They put it at the top of their best high end devices with the Galaxy s7 edge wich had all the performance issues related to smoothness, lag, stuttering wich is documented trough software programs. Xda was entusiast for the u11 and the 12 probably is as good form what i can see from videos. To me this is an important aspect if not the most basic but rarely Always observed like it should be. There is in fact a plethora of devices, chinese in particular, wich are in some ways fast enough but some of them have a few and maybe extensive bugs, do things like blacklisting applications, running background processes that slow downs the device in general and greatly impact the stability when opening closing switching applications for example. This is not good but it is the new fashion so the are considered the paragon when they should'nt be. They are considered cool but htc made some of really interesting devices design wise, such as the first desire, wich for me features a really impressive workmanship for a phone. HTC also constanlty brought this level of performance in their lower range smartphones, for example the u play and u 11 life wich i really perceive as smoother than other phones on wich the manufacturers put the minimum effort because they are not top tiers probably and this speak volumes about the brand works and the level of performance that can be expected on their devices. Really i'll probably buy one of the devices i mentioned from htc for that reasons alone and considering the levelling of that tiers of smartphones, if i have to. Also why crticize every word they say even before they make anything? Their focus on working longer on the u12 and extending the line is actually very good because i dont' understand why releasing a product, wich is a computer Platform on his own, with maybe its own perks in this case, and one year later is a little outdated because there are even newr models so all phones are basically rushed out for the sake of doing so, all with the same specs and that do the same things in the same way (mediocre most of the times). Then why throw away an intere machine wich has a project and this project is reflected by these thoughts now wich is very good imo. Considering the point through wich they make evalutions over the course of a review dxomark seems pretty much a subjective analysis so again why taking this as the gold standard, sure if one wants ok but there's no reason to stress this so much (i'm speaking generally, beacuse of all people that praise it) as there is no reason to put at the very top devices with good specifications for their prices like chinese but often with little substance. At their time there were too some phones witch bargain socs, but again this seems to be forgotten. HTC is surely using very mediocre hardware in some phones and they shouldn't, because those socs were not optimal even when introduced for thew first time 4 years ago, considerign how much the top range has progressed but for the reason i listed htc is still doing well, for some things still besting easily other comaprable devices even if they are so fiercely adversed, so please don't spread the hate at least.