HTC is looking for a hit after the mediocre performance of its 2016 lineup. It scored the contract to manufacture the Pixel, but that doesn't do much to help its flagging brand. The Ocean Note (a code name) looks to be HTC's next attempt to get people interested in its devices again. Photos of the device have leaked (from the depths of Weibo), and it has some traits you'll find very familiar.

HTC appears to have gone to an all-glass frame this year; quite a departure from the aluminum HTC has used in the past. The Ocean Note looks a lot like Samsung's recent phones, but it's got a rather substantial camera hump. Samsung cleaned that up last year with the Galaxy S7. We don't know how big this device is, but "Note" in the code name implies it'll be a phablet. I don't see a headphone jack, either. This seems to be a recent leak—the date on the screen is January 5th, and the location is Las Vegas. That implies HTC had these phones at the show.

Okay, let's talk about the elephant in the room; that secondary ticker display. It's a dead ringer for the display on the LG V10/v20. It's even shifted over to the right with the front-facing camera on the left. The leak shows the ticker with shortcuts, notifications, and an always-on display mode (LG does all this too), but maybe HTC has something special planned for it. If it's just a different version of LG's display feature, I don't know that it'll get anyone excited.

Via: Weibo 1, Weibo 2