HTC U Ultra: Release date, rumours, specs on HTC Ocean Note

by John_A

From a position of knowing nothing about HTC’s plans, we skipped in a phase of having a deluge of information, with very little clarity about what fitted in where. Multiple devices, conflicting reports, a wealth of codenames.

But finally there is some clarity on one of the rumoured devices. Here’s everything we know about the HTC U Ultra, codenamed Ocean Note.

HTC U Ultra: The name

The Ocean Note name first appeared following the surfacing of a video showing off a concept UI for HTC. It adopted the codename HTC Ocean, but set off a domino effect, with well-known HTC leakers adding to the picture.

Codenames OCEAN MASTEROCEAN NOTEOCEAN SMARThttps://t.co/r4FY9I0Ske

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) September 21, 2016

It was @LlabTooFeR that first gave us the name Ocean Note, whereby it was assumed that this would be larger device, part of a family of HTC phones for 2017.

This was followed by another established Twitter source @OnLeaks claiming that the Ocean Note would be called the HTC U Ultra. It was declared at the time that this was unverified, but the name happens to fit with an invite that HTC issued to an event on 12 January, mentioning “For U”.

Got it from an unverified source but I put that here anyway… ????#HTC Ocean Note = HTC U Ultra = 6″ display = no 3.5mm Jack…

— OnLeaks (@OnLeaks) December 31, 2016

Still, with very little of substance appearing, this has been one of the most obscured devices to track through the rumour cycle, as there’s so much other information about potential Ocean devices appearing at the same time.

HTC U Ultra: Design

One of the barriers to tracking HTC’s forthcoming devices in 2017 has been the real lack of photo leaks. In previous years there have been a number of prototypes appearing, there’s been YouTube videos of devices in the hands of people, leaving nothing to the imagination, and multiple sources to draw on.

For the HTC U Ultra, there’s been very few claimed photo leaks, and only a few concept devices claiming to be an Ocean device – again, with a number of devices, lining up what is what has made things difficult to decipher.

Weibo

On the eve of the announcement of the device expected to launch as the U Ultra, however, there’s been a substantial photo leak. This appears as a series of in-hand shots. If they are genuine, they leave little to the imagination – although there is some inconsistency compared to leaked specs, as we’ll discuss.

The HTC U Ultra appears to have a metal frame with a glass or plastic back, appearing in four different colours and carrying a glossy finish based on the photos. There’s no word on measurements, but this looks like a big device, with a 6-inch display.

There’s a couple of design points that are interesting: the lack of a 3.5mm headphone socket confirms a number of rumours and follows the path set out by the HTC 10 Evo/Bolt using USB Type-C for audio. On the HTC 10 Evo this was said to allow the phone to have an IP57 rating, but there’s no mention of that so far for the U Ultra.

Water and dust IP ratings: What do they actually mean?

There’s also a second display, rather like the LG V20, showing a number of app shortcuts – a detail that HTC hasn’t included before.

There’s also a front fingerprint scanner, sitting under the display in the same style as the HTC 10.

From the leaked photos, there’s more than a hint of Samsung design, especially around the camera, which is a typically Samsung shape. Sadly, with few sources for U Ultra or Ocean Note images, it’s difficult to know if these are genuine or not – although we can’t help noticing that one of the shots has a dual flip clock, displaying Las Vegas on 5 January, so could have easily been shot at CES 2017. The horrific carpet suggests so.

Weibo

HTC U Ultra: Display

From early on, the Ocean Note was assumed to be a large device and the 6-inch size was shared as we’ve already discussed. We’ve also seen a substantial specs leak shared on Weibo and picked up by HTC Source.

The display is detailed as 6-inches again, with a WQHD resolution. That’s 2560 x 1440 pixels, or 2K, the resolution of flagship devices in 2016 and likely 2017. This makes the U Ultra one of the largest devices to launch in recent times, but still sporting a 489ppi pixel density.

As we mentioned, there’s a second “ticker” display at the top of the handset that appears in the photos showing app shortcuts when the display is on, as well as weather in one photo. When screen is on standby, it shows essential information, like time, date and battery life.

Weibo

This isn’t mentioned in the spec leak that this information comes from, which does raise some doubts, as a unique feature like a second display it likely to be something you’d share. We also don’t know what type of display it is, whether this is AMOLED or a more regular LCD display.

HTC U Ultra: Specs and hardware

We’ve mentioned that there’s USB Type-C in the base and this is likely to offer not only audio – presumably of the BoomSound Hi-Fi version – but also fast charging for the rumoured 4000mAh battery which is suitably massive.

That’s a feature offered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, Qualcomm’s newest chipset which is rumoured to be powering the HTC U Ultra. This chipset is so new, however, that this HTC handset could be the first device revealed to the public that’s powered by it.

Weibo

It’s said to be paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There’s likely to be microSD card support, probably within the same tray as the SIM card, as per the fashion for HTC’s last few handsets.

In a separate leak, @LlabTooFeR mentions that single and dual SIM versions will be launching.

Ocean Note to be announced on the January 12th. Device will be available in single and dualsim modifications.

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) December 30, 2016

Currently, that’s all we have on the hardware front, but we do have some doubts about some of these specs. Firstly, the leaked images don’t match the camera specs we’re about to talk about. We’re also not sure if this is too early a launch to be carrying a chipset that was only officially announced just recently.

Although HTC hasn’t released any huge phablets for some time, it hasn’t always been a place for such premium specs, making us think these might just be someone’s wishlist. Again, with so few sources, it’s difficult to have much confidence.

Weibo

HTC U Ultra: Cameras

When it comes to cameras, this is where the biggest problem with corroboration crops up, which might cast some doubt as we’ve just said. The photos clearly show a single camera on the rear, sitting next to a flash and laser autofocus system.

However, the leaked specs suggest a dual camera system on the rear, pairing a 24-megapixel camera and a 13-megapixel camera on the rear. This sounds a little extreme: HTC doesn’t have a good track record with higher resolution sensors, which is the first point (HTC One M9 is a case in point), we don’t think HTC would be able to get them to work.

The second point is that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 lists in its specs that it only supports dual 16-megapixel cameras, so the information picked up by HTC Source from Weibo in this case doesn’t work.

That leaves us with little information on what cameras to expect from HTC. Again, very few leaks means we have very little to work with.

HTC U Ultra: Software

There’s been little said about software. Part of the Ocean story so far comes back to that original video, and the follow-up video that shows a button-less interface.

However, one of the more reliable leakers, @evleaks, went as far as tweeting to say that those HTC Ocean videos have nothing to do with Ocean Note (you can see how this all got confusing).

Let’s be clear, here. The Ocean imagined in this and a previous video is absolutely not related to the Ocean Note that HTC is launching.

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 8, 2017

Returning to those photos, however, we have a number of fairly regular HTC software features shown. There’s the classic flip clock, presenting two times in a roaming setup. There’s also HTC’s app icons arrayed across the bottom, looking exactly as we’d expect Android Nougat with HTC Sense to look.

We’re only assuming it’s Nougat, of course, and we won’t know until there’s more information released to base a software analysis on.

Of course one of the interesting things is the ticker display, that looks like an interesting addition. It’s very much a copy of the LG V20’s feature, presumably designed to stop you always powering on that massive display.

Aside from that, we’ve had wallpapers leak, again from @LlabTooFeR.

New wallpaper from Ocean Note device (1 out of 3).Original can be found here.https://t.co/ADns2D1kMF pic.twitter.com/eaE3mEEm5R

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) January 10, 2017