HTC announced the arrival of the Butterfly S smartphone at its launch event in Taiwan, Engadget reported. The 5-inch 1080p display is powered by a Snapdragon 600 1.9-GHz quad-core processor, (which Engadget noted is faster than the HTC One), and features many of the innovations launched with the HTC One earlier this year, including the UltraPixel camera, HTC BlinkFeed, HTC Zoe and HTC BoomSound speakers. It also offers HTC’s latest Sense 5 experience and Android Jelly Bean.
Perhaps the biggest news is that the Butterfly S comes with HTC’s longest-lasting battery at 3,200mAh. This translates into up to 25 hours of talk time for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) and up to 29 hours for GSM. “We’ve also added our largest-capacity battery ever found in an HTC handset so you can surf the Web, watch videos, play games, listen to music and stay in touch without worrying about battery life,” said the company in an emailed statement.
“We’ve upgraded the popular HTC Butterfly to reflect the new standards set by the HTC One for smartphone performance,” Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, said in a statement. “The HTC Butterfly changed the way people looked at a smartphone, thanks to the world’s first full-HD 1080p, 5-inch screen, and that complete viewing experience has been taken to the next level with HTC BlinkFeed. HTC BoomSound and HTC Zoe integration also [making] the experience of the HTC Butterfly S unlike that of any other 5-inch device.”
HTC BlinkFeed delivers content from more than 2,000 media sources, including AOL, ESPN, MTV, The Financial Times and Reuters, while HTC BoomSound dual front-facing stereo speakers with Beats Audio integration delivers high sound quality.
For imaging, the smartphone sports an UltraPixel camera with HTC Zoe, along with a 1.2-megapixel ultra-wide-angle front-facing camera. The UltraPixel camera is said to capture 300 percent more light than traditional smartphone camera sensors to deliver superior low-light performance. HTC Zoe provides the software for advanced editing capabilities such as clustering 20 photos together to create high-definition moving images.
Other features include a Super LCD 3 display, a Micro SD (Secure Digital) card slot, 16GB of total storage and 2GB RAM memory.
The HTC Butterfly S will be available in select markets across Asia, according to HTC. When asked about availability in North America, the company said: “We have not made an announcement about this product coming to North America, and we cannot comment on rumors or speculation. We are currently excited about the new all-metal HTC One in North America, which is our current flagship smartphone available at AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and coming to Verizon later this summer.”