The HTC U Ultra won’t be HTC’s only 2017 flagship

With the HTC U Ultra launching around the time we’d expected to see the HTC 11 there was some question over whether this would be HTC’s main or only 2017 flagship, but the company has confirmed that it won’t, and that a new one could be on the way soon.

Speaking to Tbreak, Chialin Chang, HTC's president of smartphones and connected devices, said that “when the new CPU comes, HTC will have another flagship”.

He added that: “We want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes. But that will be in another period of time – not at MWC [the 2017 Mobile World Congress show]. Not for us or any other player. I can tell you that for sure.”

So it sounds as though the HTC 11, or whatever it ends up being called, might launch a little while after MWC 2017, perhaps around the middle of the year.

Blame Samsung

That makes sense, as it would give the HTC U Ultra room to breathe, although it sounds like the next flagship chipset won’t be ready before then anyway.

While he doesn’t name it, he’s likely talking about the Snapdragon 835, and it’s rumored Samsung has snapped all of those up, at least in the initial batch, which would explain why he can be so sure that no other companies will be using it for phones launched at MWC.

But with rumors of 8GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch curved QHD display and a big 3,700mAh battery coming to the HTC 11 it’s shaping up to be worth the wait.

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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