HTC has officially announced its flagship smartphone for 2017, the HTC U Ultra.

The Taiwanese company also introduced the smartphone's new Sense Companion digital assistant feature. The Ultra will reportedly have a sapphire-covered variant and will be only available in certain model configurations. The flagship unit is expected to run on the latest Android Nougat platform. 

The HTC U Ultra flaunts a luxurious design with smooth curves on each of its edges that appear to wrap towards its metallic frame. HTC's official website features the new smartphone and its classy design and colors. Its otherwise smooth rear panel holds the main camera module with a slight bump and a LED flash module on its right-hand side. The front panel features an earpiece and selfie camera up top, while a fingerprint scanner in between capacitive buttons sits on the lower half. It comes in four colors: Brilliant Black, Ice White, Cosmetic Pink, and Sapphire Blue.

The Ultra depends on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset and 4GB of RAM. It comes in a 64GB and 128GB internal storage models. Both variants feature a microSD card memory expansion. A 5.7-inch Quad-HD Super LCD 5 display graces its front panel, and it boasts of a 2560 x 1440 display resolution. It also showcases a secondary screen for notifications and app shortcuts. The device's rear imaging system has a 12 megapixels sensor with OIS and laser focus, while the selfie camera up front is a 16 megapixels unit with HTC UltraPixel mode. It packs a 3000mAh rechargeable battery with Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

The HTC U Ultra is available for pre-order now and is set to start shipping mid-March. It is reportedly packaged with a pair of HTC Usonic headphones, which supposedly analyzes the user's inner ear using a sonic pulse to correctly output audio.