HTC’s plans for 2017 are a bit of a mystery at this point. Having released the stellar HTC 10 last year, and revealing the HTC U Ultra earlier this year, the existence of an ‘HTC 11‘ is still very much in question.
The HTC 10 was a return to form for the company, and it looks like the U Ultra will be the follow-up flagship for the time being – a phone we were similarly impressed with when we tried it out. But where does that leave the HTC 11? We’ve heard reports recently that Samsung struck a deal with Qualcomm for Snapdragon 835 exclusivity until the launch of the Galaxy S8, which is likely why HTC has confirmed it won’t be launching the HTC 11 at MWC this month.
Related: MWC 2017
The HTC 10
But Chialin Chang, HTC’s President of Smartphones and Connected Devices, recently told TBreak: “When the new CPU comes, HTC will have another flagship.” Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy S8 around late-March/April, and the Snapdragon 835 should then be made available to more companies. Which bodes well for the HTC 11.
And while leaks have thus far been few and far between, suggesting the phone, if it does exist, is a long way from launch, we now have a new update from that perennial source of leakage: Chinese social media site Weibo (via). It comes in the form of what appears to be a screenshot from the ‘About Phone’ section of the Android OS, and claims to reveal some of the phone’s specs. According to the image, the phone will come packing the Snapdragon 835 MSM8998Pro chip Chang was so eager to wait for, along with an impressive 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
Elsewhere, the ‘leak’ seems to reveal the phone will run on HTC Sense 9.0 based on Android 7.12 Nougat, but there’s a few things that make us slightly sceptical here. First off, the phone is listed with the ‘HTC 11’ name, a title which has previously been played down by HTC. Also, the screen resolution is shown as 1,556 x 2,550, which doesn’t match any previous resolutions we know about. That said, LG is said to be prepping a 5.7-inch display for its upcoming LG G6, which will come with an unorthodox resolution, so if HTC is planning to follow the impending trend of increasingly bezel-less phones, that could explain the strange resolution listing here.
As with all these leaks, we’d advise caution. There’s no way to know whether this latest screenshot is legitimate or not, and it doesn’t look like HTC plans to release the HTC 11, if that’s even what the phone will be called, any time soon. That said, Chang’s comments do suggest the company is working on something, so stay tuned for the latest.
WATCH: MWC – What can we expect?
Let us know what you make of the leak in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
