Hands-on with the HTC Butterfly

We went to several stores yesterday to check out the HTC Butterfly, ended up at the HTC Concept Store in Cyberzone, SM MegaMall and was able to play around with both the white and red models of the unit.
The Butterfly has a 5-inch display size but once you hold it with one hand, you won’t really think it’s that big.

Having used the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2, the 5-inch HTC Butterfly feels closer to the size of the 4.7-inch HTC One X+ (more of a smartphone than a phablet).
There are two color variants, black & red and white & red, with the front side all covered in Gorilla Glass 2 while the back side is a slightly curved polycarbonate body.

The shape is reminiscent of the HTC 8X except that the finish is really glossy all around the body and not matte like the 8X. It feels very light too for its size.
We inspected the 1080p display, and having used a lot of the 720p displays on the other flagship phones, we couldn’t really distinguish it from the rest on casual use. It might be different once we watch full HD movies or some hi-res photos but I guess that’s where the idea of pixel density comes in — that anything beyond 300ppi will look almost the same to the human eye. Nevertheless, the 441ppi looks impressive on paper.

The micro-SIM card slot and micro-SD are both found on the top end of the phone, beside the power button and 3.5mm audio port, and is hidden by a small flip cover. The bottom end is where the micro-USB port is also hidden under a similar plastic flip cover.
The handset has a pretty solid body, a nice design that shows attention to detail and the two-tone adds to that premium look. However, the polished finish at the back makes it very prone to fingerprint smudges. That’s a departure to the usual matte finish HTC did with the One X+, One S as well as the WP 8X and 8S.

HTC moved back to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor with the Butterfly (they used NVidia Tegra 3 on the One X and One X+). See full hardware configuration below.
HTC Butterfly specs:
5.0-inch Super LCD3 full HD 1080p @ 1920×1080 pixels, 441ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 2
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz quad-core processor
2GB RAM
Adreno 320
16GB internal storage
up to 32GB via microSD
HSPA+
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, DLNA
Bluetooth 4.0
Beats Audio
GPS w/ aGPS support, GLONASS
8MP autofocus rear camera, LED flash
1080p video recording, stereo sound recording
2.1MP front-facing camera, 1080p @ 30fps
Li-Po 2020mAh battery
Android 4.1.1 Jellybean
HTC Sense 4+ UI
140 grams (battery)
143 x 70.5 x 9.08mm (dimension)
The LTE option is not available to the units released in the Philippines but we’re hoping the telcos will carry that variant later on.

Check out the quick video we took of one of the units below. Show’s how HTC Sense UI makes good use of that screen resolution (more spaces for icons and widgets on the home screens).

Based on the figures given to us by the HTC Concept Store in Cyberzone, SM Megamall the suggested retail price of the HTC Butterfly is Php32,190 which can be had for zero interest on 12-months credit card installment. However, if you get it for cash or 3-month CC installment, the price drops to Php30,990.

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