HTC U: Offers of ocean of features, but will it make a splash?

HTC’s upcoming flagship dubbed “Ocean” is shaping up to be quite a handset, based on the recent leaks that have surfaced, thanks to @LabTooFeR, who is known to have a reputation for being spot on with regards to HTC’s latest.

The HTC Ocean or HTC U reportedly will come with an IP certification rating of 57. This means that users will be able to submerge the phone under water for as deep as 3.3 feet deep and for as long as 30-minutes. The certification also makes the phone rigid enough to be impenetrable by large bodies bigger than 1mm in size. Another leak, unfortunately not for the purists that could be a deal-breaker, is that the phone might not come with a headphone jack. There will be either a single SIM or dual SIM configuration.

While we now know that the HTC U will feature a 5.5-inch Super LCD display with a 2K resolution display along with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space, nothing else had cropped up about the device until this latest leak. There will still be a large 4,000mAh battery along with a 12MP camera on the back, the front gets a 16MP selfie camera. The phone will come with Android Nougat out of the box with HTC’s Sense UI layered on top.

According to 9to5Google, the phone will feature Sense Touch, which allows for the frame of the phone to be used as the method of input. This will activate a few new menus and options for the user to interact with. Whether it will be an imitation of the Edge display that Samsung initially had in their first series of curved screen phones or if it will bring something new to the table, we’ll have to wait and see until the phone shows itself completely.

The phone also may release at the end of April or early May internationally. With a promising performance package and a new form of input, it seems like HTC is going to be bringing its A-game this year to the flagships that currently rule the roost. Its previous outings have not been so profitable for the company. Will the release redeem the company’s reputation like the first HTC One did?