Mine showed up early yesterday morning, and I'm loving it so far. Only hitch had nothing to do with the phone itself: Google did not have my HTC M8 listed when I went to restore. Turned out to be a good thing though, as several apps were no longer needed.
Battery, build quality, signal strength has been solid. I was surprised that the call quality was fuller and more natural sounding than my M8. Music through the speakers was more natural on the M8, but the U11 had less distortion at louder volumes. I don't know what purpose Theatre Mode is supposed to serve, but I don't like it.
My ONE area of concern on the U11 was the headphone jack. I'm a pro audio engineer out of motown records, and the M8 has been a darling for audio... the first phone I would feel comfortable handing to a client in a studio and having them review the last recording session. Incredibly, I kept being interrupted from testing the audio until late at night. Conference call that dragged on forever, kids needing rides, a trip to the AT&T store to replace someone else's phone, my daughter's car breaking down, and my son's car breaking down 15 minutes later. Arggh!
But I finally did get the testing done, and the results were a bit surprising. Test results on an oscilloscope and paper are not always an accurate representation of how good something sounds to human ears. An example is the HTC M9: Excellent on paper, but when I got mine, it sounded so bad compared to the M8 that I boxed it back up the same day. I tried to like it, but the grainy top end and forced sounding bass were a turn off. It should have been better. Then last night, the HTC U11 turned out to be another example of what's on paper not telling the whole story. I used two pairs of on-ear headphones for testing; one for enjoyment, and one for work which is more accurate but not as pleasing. I used an M8 for reference because it is still the golden child of headphone audiophiles, though the HTC 10 and LG V20 are close. When I compare lower end phones, the differences stand out. Plug in an iPhone and I can tell on the first note. Plug in an S7 Edge, and it takes about 15 seconds or more to pick out the differences. Compare the M8 and HTC 10, and it's just about impossible to tell any difference, though you might find one song that has two notes in the first measure after the bridge that sounded better to you
I expected to be disappointed when I plugged into the adapter in the U11. I listened, then changed to the M8. I went back to the U11, went through a few different songs, went back and swapped back and forth, being careful to compare the same recording on the same player. The differences between the U11 with the 3.5mm headphone adapter, and an HTC M8? Very minimal. Most general songs were very difficult to tell what phone I was listening to. It was only with very intricate or complex recording that I was able to pick out differences. An example would be on the Jean-Michael Jarre's album Oxygene. On track four there is a synthesized finger snap that has light reverberation on the first snap, and reverberation plus echo on the second snap. It's a subtle detail that you have to listen to even pick out, but on the U11, there a touch less detail on the echo of the second snap. Yeah... not exactly a deal breaker. The funny thing is that I spend over an hour listening to headphones, then plugged in the uSonics which immediately made my other headphones sound like crap.
So your options on the U11 are:
A: Using uSonic headphones which are better than just about anything.
B: Using wireless headphones which will sound as good as the headphones allow.
C: A headphone adapter with it's own DAC which is difficult to tell apart from built-in headphone jacks.
So as an audio professional, you can color me relieved.
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