We've all seen this before, a disastrous defeat that turned into a magnanimous victory. We're talking about the upcoming HTC U (or HTC Ocean), the successor to the beautiful but underpowered HTC U Ultra that was released this year.

Despite having one of the most intricate designs in 2017, the U Ultra failed to impress smartphone enthusiasts. Critics have dubbed that phone as a sub-par flagship device that's far off with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy S8.

Furthermore, the HTC U Ultra does not stand out (except for its design) compared to its rivals' flagship units. It's a sad tale that everybody understands, a beautiful face that's hard to sell. It's more like a Ferarri with a Prius' engine at the expense of a Bugatti's price tag (no pun intended).

Thankfully, HTC is regrouping to deliver a better (still beautiful) unit to redeem its predecessor's shortcomings. According to XDA Developers, the future HTC Ocean will pack a few tricks up in its sleeve.

There is still no clues to what all of the tricks are, but I'm sure HTC is planning something big. For a start, we've known that the upcoming flagship will have Edge Sense, a frame-embedded sensor that will enable users to control customizable actions with gestures.

Imagine being able to do actions with gestures such as squeezing and swiping along the sides of the phone. Moreover, to compensate for the Ultra U's lackluster performance, The HTC Ocean is rumored to come with a 5.5" QHD display and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC.

The flagship will allegedly have 64/128GB of internal storage that's expandable via a microSD. Other specs include a 12MP Sony IMX362 rear camera and a 16MP IMX351 selfie shooter. On top of that, the phone will reportedly launch with Android 7.1 and HTC's Sense 9 UX skin.

But the best part of it is taking Ultra U's beautiful aesthetics and incorporating it to the HTC Ocean. Evan Blass recently shared some images of the upcoming phone, and they look terrific.

Instead of opting for HTC 10's appearance, the guys behind its design took cues from the ill-fated HTC Ultra U. The back appears to emulate the Ultra's glossy liquid surface glass. The front also looks similar except a secondary ticker display on the top of the device.

All in all, it's not necessarily a bad thing to fail. In HTC's case it just got a lot better with the gorgeous Ocean, Check out the phone's leaked promotional video below courtesy of TechTastic.