HTC U may pack Snapdragon 835, Sense 9 and touch-sensitive frame

The company is expected to unveil the handset in April, followed by release in May.

HTC U specs leaked — HTC's 2017 flagship could be HTC U codenamed Ocean Reuters/Tyrone Siu

HTC could be planning to launch a new flagship handset codenamed Ocean for 2017, which would compete with Samsung's Galaxy S8.

A person familiar with HTC's plan told Evan Blass aka evleaks from Venture Beat that HTC U is likely to sport a 5.5in WQHD screen with resolution at 2560 x 1440 pixels.

Ocean would be the third handset in HTC's U series, joining HTC U Play and U Ultra featuring a dual display, which were launched in January.

Like the S8 and its larger screen sibling S8 Plus, HTC U is also expected to use Qualcomm's top-tier Snapdragon 835 chip. Other key elements are metal frame and Edge Sense - frame-embedded sensors would enable users to control customisable actions with gestures including squeezing or swiping from left to right.

The handset would be powered by Android 7.1 Nougat with a layer of HTC's Sense 9 user interface on top of it. HTC U is expected to have the same camera resolution as U Ultra. HTC is said to be using a 12 megapixel IMX362 camera at the back and a 16 megapixel IMX351 at front.

HTC is planning for a mid to late April launch of the device, which was once the company's concept design model, the source told evleak. The market rollout is expected in early May.