HTC BUTTERFLY
HTC kicked off 2013 with a bang by launching
India’s first smartphone with a Full HD
display, the HTC Butterfly. This trend of Full
HD screens on smartphones looks like it’ll soon pick
up pace as Sony gets ready to launch the Xperia
Z, followed by Samsung and other OEMs who’ll
announce their flagships at MWC 2013. For now, the
Butterfly is the only handset in the market with a
Full HD display. It currently reigns over the high end
smartphone segment with its iPhone 5-esque
price. The Butterfly has some big shoes to fill if
it’s serious about luring Apple fans. Can it deliver
something more than just an impressive spec sheet?
The first thing you notice when you lift the
Butterfly out of the box is how freakishly light it is.
In spite of having a 5-inch display, it’s just a teeny bit heavier than the HTC One X. The display does
not seem obnoxiously large like the Galaxy Note’s
did since it’s longer in length, like the iPhone 5, and
not too wide. This makes it comfortable to use if
you have medium-sized hands. The volume rocker
is wide enough to be used without stretching your
palm, but you’ll have to shuffle the phone a bit to
reach the power button, which is placed at the top.
The Butterfly is completely sealed, so you can’t
remove the battery. All entry points to the SIM slot,
microSD card and USB port are covered with flaps.
The fl aps prevent dust build-up over time, but are
terribly annoying to use, especially the flap for the
microSIM tray
India’s first smartphone with a Full HD
display, the HTC Butterfly. This trend of Full
HD screens on smartphones looks like it’ll soon pick
up pace as Sony gets ready to launch the Xperia
Z, followed by Samsung and other OEMs who’ll
announce their flagships at MWC 2013. For now, the
Butterfly is the only handset in the market with a
Full HD display. It currently reigns over the high end
smartphone segment with its iPhone 5-esque
price. The Butterfly has some big shoes to fill if
it’s serious about luring Apple fans. Can it deliver
something more than just an impressive spec sheet?
The first thing you notice when you lift the
Butterfly out of the box is how freakishly light it is.
In spite of having a 5-inch display, it’s just a teeny bit heavier than the HTC One X. The display does
not seem obnoxiously large like the Galaxy Note’s
did since it’s longer in length, like the iPhone 5, and
not too wide. This makes it comfortable to use if
you have medium-sized hands. The volume rocker
is wide enough to be used without stretching your
palm, but you’ll have to shuffle the phone a bit to
reach the power button, which is placed at the top.
The Butterfly is completely sealed, so you can’t
remove the battery. All entry points to the SIM slot,
microSD card and USB port are covered with flaps.
The fl aps prevent dust build-up over time, but are
terribly annoying to use, especially the flap for the
microSIM tray
The Butterfly doesn’t have a uni body design like
the One X, but it still manages to look good. The
front is dominated by a Gorilla Glass 2 protective
layer with the same lacquer finish we saw on the
One X. This makes the colours pop, but it does
leave nasty fingerprints on the phone. The sides
feature a mesh-like trim, which does nothing for
cooling the handset but is simply there for aesthetic
value. We liked the attention given to the power
and volume buttons—they have concentric circle
patterns that add to the grip as well as the ‘cool’
factor. The Butterfly’s back is glossy, but it still
manages to mask fingerprints extremely well. The
rear is also home to the 8 megapixel shooter with
LED fl ash and a new notifi cation light. This is the
first time we’ve seen HTC, or anyone for that matter,
put a notification light on the back of the phone as
well. Just like the light on the front of the phone, it
fl ashes amber or green depending on the type of
notifi cation. Both are extremely dim, though, and can barely be seen in day light.
the One X, but it still manages to look good. The
front is dominated by a Gorilla Glass 2 protective
layer with the same lacquer finish we saw on the
One X. This makes the colours pop, but it does
leave nasty fingerprints on the phone. The sides
feature a mesh-like trim, which does nothing for
cooling the handset but is simply there for aesthetic
value. We liked the attention given to the power
and volume buttons—they have concentric circle
patterns that add to the grip as well as the ‘cool’
factor. The Butterfly’s back is glossy, but it still
manages to mask fingerprints extremely well. The
rear is also home to the 8 megapixel shooter with
LED fl ash and a new notifi cation light. This is the
first time we’ve seen HTC, or anyone for that matter,
put a notification light on the back of the phone as
well. Just like the light on the front of the phone, it
fl ashes amber or green depending on the type of
notifi cation. Both are extremely dim, though, and can barely be seen in day light.
The build quality of the Butterfly is excellent, but
it doesn’t really feel like a Rs 40,000 phone. The
One X exuded a premium look and feel and you
could tell that it was an expensive phone by just
looking at it. The Butterfly somehow fails to deliver
such a feeling.
The HTC Butterfly runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1
along with the Sense 4+ mask. The main talking
point, the panel type, is Super LCD 3 and boasts of
an impressive 1920 x 1080 resolution, giving it a pixel
count of 441ppi. This is nearly double the resolution
you get from any other flagship phone in the market.
The pixels are so densely packed, you can’t see
any pixellation around icons even if you look very
closely. This makes everything, especially text,
incredibly sharp and vivid. What’s more, HTC has
had to bump up the resolution for their entire skin
in order to keep up with the extra pixels. While it
does look great, you can’t really tell the difference
between a 720p and 1080p display on a 5-inch
screen just by looking at it. HTC’s up scaling engine
does a good job of rendering games and apps on
such a high-res screen, and we didn’t come across
any issues her The Butterfly is powered by Qualcomm’s
Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC and has a whopping 2GB of
RAM. The 16GB of on board space can be expanded
to 32GB via microSD cards.
The Sense 4+ UI is free of any lag and navigation
is buttery smooth, but we missed the shortcut
toggles in the notification bar from previous Sense
versions. The music and video player are very similar
to Sense 4, with the addition of DivX and MKV
playback. The only audio enhancement, Beats Audio,
amplifies the volume and low frequencies and treble
quite a bit. SD content doesn’t look terrible despite
the high-resolution screen and Full HD videos play
flawlessly. Colours are rich and vibrant and the
display is bright with very good viewing angles and
sunlight legibility. An FM Radio is also present
it doesn’t really feel like a Rs 40,000 phone. The
One X exuded a premium look and feel and you
could tell that it was an expensive phone by just
looking at it. The Butterfly somehow fails to deliver
such a feeling.
The HTC Butterfly runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1
along with the Sense 4+ mask. The main talking
point, the panel type, is Super LCD 3 and boasts of
an impressive 1920 x 1080 resolution, giving it a pixel
count of 441ppi. This is nearly double the resolution
you get from any other flagship phone in the market.
The pixels are so densely packed, you can’t see
any pixellation around icons even if you look very
closely. This makes everything, especially text,
incredibly sharp and vivid. What’s more, HTC has
had to bump up the resolution for their entire skin
in order to keep up with the extra pixels. While it
does look great, you can’t really tell the difference
between a 720p and 1080p display on a 5-inch
screen just by looking at it. HTC’s up scaling engine
does a good job of rendering games and apps on
such a high-res screen, and we didn’t come across
any issues her The Butterfly is powered by Qualcomm’s
Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC and has a whopping 2GB of
RAM. The 16GB of on board space can be expanded
to 32GB via microSD cards.
The Sense 4+ UI is free of any lag and navigation
is buttery smooth, but we missed the shortcut
toggles in the notification bar from previous Sense
versions. The music and video player are very similar
to Sense 4, with the addition of DivX and MKV
playback. The only audio enhancement, Beats Audio,
amplifies the volume and low frequencies and treble
quite a bit. SD content doesn’t look terrible despite
the high-resolution screen and Full HD videos play
flawlessly. Colours are rich and vibrant and the
display is bright with very good viewing angles and
sunlight legibility. An FM Radio is also present
The HTC Butterfly is a quad-band GSM handset with dual-band 3G support. It also has dual-band
Wi-Fi (hotspot), Wi-Fi Direct, GPS with A-GPS
support and GLONASS, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.0, and TV
out (MHL). Social networking and other services like
Sky drive and Drop box are baked right into Sense. All
your contacts are automatically synced with various
social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter,
and the Friend Stream app gives you quick access to
feeds and updates
Wi-Fi (hotspot), Wi-Fi Direct, GPS with A-GPS
support and GLONASS, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.0, and TV
out (MHL). Social networking and other services like
Sky drive and Drop box are baked right into Sense. All
your contacts are automatically synced with various
social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter,
and the Friend Stream app gives you quick access to
feeds and updates
Besides the usual assortment of Google apps,
a few HTC-centric apps like Mirror (uses the front
facing camera), HTC’s Car setup app gives you a
landscape display with over sized icons, which make
it easy to access your device while you’re driving.
The camera sensors seem to have been lifted
off the 8X, as the Butterfly packs the same f/2.0
front-facing camera and rear camera. The camera
interface and features are very similar to that of the
One X+, only, the quality of images is much better.
The f/2.0 aperture gives you incredible depth offield
effects for macro shots. The sensor is also able to
pick up much more detail than before. The awesome
burst mode also makes a comeback here The Butterfly has a 2020mAh battery, which
lasted for just 6 hours and 40 minutes in our video
drain test; this is borderline average. The One X+,
on the other hand, gave us about 9 hours of video
playback despite having a more power-hungry
SoC. The high-resolution screen seems to be the
culprit here more than Qualcomm’s SoC. We don’t
even want to imagine what eff ect a Full HD Super
AMOLED screen will have on the battery.
With a price tag of Rs 45,990, the HTC Butterfly
is officially the most expensive Android handset in
the market and goes head on with the iPhone 5. It is
a brilliantly-crafted handset and takes pole position
in HTC’s Android fleet. It looks majestic (although we
still maintain the One X was a better looker), feels
comfortable in your hand despite the large screen,
has a sharp and vivid display, very good multimedia
features and excellent cameras. However the poor
battery life, coupled with its high price and just 16GB
of on board storage is a potential threat to sales
a few HTC-centric apps like Mirror (uses the front
facing camera), HTC’s Car setup app gives you a
landscape display with over sized icons, which make
it easy to access your device while you’re driving.
The camera sensors seem to have been lifted
off the 8X, as the Butterfly packs the same f/2.0
front-facing camera and rear camera. The camera
interface and features are very similar to that of the
One X+, only, the quality of images is much better.
The f/2.0 aperture gives you incredible depth offield
effects for macro shots. The sensor is also able to
pick up much more detail than before. The awesome
burst mode also makes a comeback here The Butterfly has a 2020mAh battery, which
lasted for just 6 hours and 40 minutes in our video
drain test; this is borderline average. The One X+,
on the other hand, gave us about 9 hours of video
playback despite having a more power-hungry
SoC. The high-resolution screen seems to be the
culprit here more than Qualcomm’s SoC. We don’t
even want to imagine what eff ect a Full HD Super
AMOLED screen will have on the battery.
With a price tag of Rs 45,990, the HTC Butterfly
is officially the most expensive Android handset in
the market and goes head on with the iPhone 5. It is
a brilliantly-crafted handset and takes pole position
in HTC’s Android fleet. It looks majestic (although we
still maintain the One X was a better looker), feels
comfortable in your hand despite the large screen,
has a sharp and vivid display, very good multimedia
features and excellent cameras. However the poor
battery life, coupled with its high price and just 16GB
of on board storage is a potential threat to sales
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