The second generation HTC J butterfly “HTL23” has just been announced to the Japanese market today. Its predecessor the HTC J Butterfly was the best-selling smartphone in Japan and Taiwan. The new device is marketed as HTC Butterfly 2 in other markets in South East Asia including Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Designed for simplicity
Blending design cues from the HTC One and Desire line, the J butterfly features a unique double curve ergonomic design – an evolution from the previous HTC J.
Three colours will be available – Rouge, Indigo and Canvas. The white version is what HTC calls “the purest white with anti-stain finishing”, that does not fade or discolour over time. The red and blue versions feature “unified colour reflection.”
The new curvy device measures 145.4 x 70.2 x 9.99mm and weighs a lightweight 151g.
The latest generation HTC J butterfly was co-developed with Japanese telco KDDI and as a result of the collaboration, offers AU carrier aggregation, a new communication technology – integrating 4G LTE (TDD and FDD) and WIMAX2+, offering speeds of up to 150Mbps.
Top of the line hardware
The HTC J butterfly features very similar underpinnings to the HTC One M8, packing in a super fast quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 running at 2.5Ghz, 2GB RAM, 16/32GB of storage, NFC, WiFi, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.0 and microSD expansion.
The 5-inch Full HD 1080p display is brilliantly crisp and bright.
A new camera
You’ve seen the unique Duo Camera on the HTC One M8 and the latest E8 with UltraPixel technology. The J butterfly also uses the Duo Camera setup but for the first time utilises a new non-UltraPixel 13MP module.
With the Duo Camera, the benefits you’ve seen from the HTC One M8 and E8 are similarly available here – UFocus, Foregrouner, Copy & Paste and Dimension Plus.
Built durable
Dust and waterproof phones are a norm in Japan, therefore being a product unique to Japan, the J butterfly is indeed dust and waterproof – IP57 certified. Unlike applications we’ve seen on some phones namely the Sony Xperia Z2 and Samsung GALAXY S5, the waterproofing execution on the J butterfly is sans any flaps.
It integrates short circuit protection and is the most ‘convenient’ waterproofing on a phone we’ve seen. We put this to the test during a preview yesterday (18 August). More about this later.
Sonic boom
In our opinion, HTC offers one of the most immersive and best audio on a mobile device, largely thanks to BoomSound technology and the front dual-speaker set-up also found on the HTC One M8. The setup offers 25% louder sound and supports HD audio – 24bit/192Khz lossless audio.
Through a collaboration with HARMAN, the HTC J butterfly features “LiveStage Signal Processing Technology”, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and comes bundled with exclusively designed JBL in-ear headphones.
Zoe Blinks with Motion
Apologies for the cryptic subhead. Similarly with the One series of phones with HTC Sense 6, the HTC J butterfly comes with Zoe – a unique way to snap, remix and share content; HTC Blinkfeed and Motion Launch. Motion Launch enables gestures to launch different features of the phone via the locksreen.
HTC Dot View
Optimised by HTC Sense 6 the Dot View case is an outstanding retro-looking case that shows you the tme, weather, notifications and more. HTC recently released an SDK for developers. Already there are custom functions and features even games for the Dot View case.
The Dot View case is available for purchase separately.
Regional Availability
HTC J butterfly HTL23 will available exclusively from KDDI in Japan from 29 August 2014, the first country in the world to receive this device.
HTC Butterfly will also be available in Taiwan on 2 September, and markets like Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand at yet-to-be-announced dates.
