HTC Butterfly... beating iphone5..

After teasing the HTC Butterfly on its website a few days ago, HTC yesterday officially unveiled this 5-inch handset at an event held in Taipei. This smartphone's specifications are similar to that of the Japan-only HTC J Butterfly and the US-only Droid DNA.

The HTC Butterfly, minus the J, is identical in specifications to its US and Japanese counterparts, which means that the 5-inch, Super LCD 3 screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels is featured on this handset as well. The smartphone comes equipped with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC running at 1.5 GHz and has 2 GB of RAM. HTC has chosen to endow the Butterfly with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and it's Sense UI on top. The handset features a 2020 mAh li-polymer battery that should keep the handset running for quite some time. However, the company has not stated how long the battery will last, so there is no official information available on the battery life.

HTC Butterfly with 5-inch 1080p display aiming to set an example for future high-end smartphones

Commenting on the launch of this handset, Chief Executive Peter Chou at HTC said, “We are confident that HTC Butterfly will set a new example for high-end smartphones.”

Here is a quick look at some of the highlighted features of the HTC Butterfly:

• 5-inch super LCD 3 display with 1080p resolution

• 3G, EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC, DLNA

• Bluetooth 4.0 with USB

• 8 MP camera with AF, BSI Sensor, f/2.0 with 1080p video recording, 2.1 MP front camera

• 16 GB internal storage, expandable up to 32 GB via microSD card

• MHL

There had been rumours in the past stating that this HTC device would be called the HTC Deluxe or the HTC DLX, but it seems HTC has chosen to go keep the branding consistent across the globe.

As mentioned in the specifications table above, the handset comes with an 8 megapixel rear camera that has an aperture value of f/2.0 and features a 26 mm lens. HTC has also included a range of features like auto focus, LED flash, and a BSI sensor that can be useful for capturing images in low lit environments. Another neat feature is that it can capture videos in 1080p, which allows for full HD video recording. It also comes with a VideoPic feature where a user can capture 6 megapixel photos while shooting HD video at the same time. The camera used here also features slow motion video capture and playback.

As is the case with all HTC smartphones launched in the past year, the HTC Butterfly comes with Dr Dre's Beats Audio drivers.