HTC announces Snapdragon 600-powered Butterfly S with 3200 mAh battery

HTC has officially announced Butterfly S, a refresh to the company’s first 1080p smartphone. And this one seriously takes the original’s specs to the next level.

The original Butterfly, launched last year in certain markets, had a great full HD Super LCD 3 display, which has been retained by HTC along with the screen size of 5 inches. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3. However, the low battery capacity of 2020 mAh had been heavily criticised by users. HTC looks to have listened to their clamour as the Butterfly S will come with a 3200 mAh battery that sounds quite capacious. This is the highest capacity battery in an HTC phone, the company says, and it's quoted as good for up to 25 hours on 3G and up to 29 hours on GSM.

The Butterfly S looks like a cross between the One and the original Butterfly

Just like the HTC One, the Butterfly S comes with the Snapdragon 600 SoC, with the four Krait cores clocked at 1.9GHz. In addition, there’s 2GB of RAM. The Butterfly S comes with Android Jelly Bean out of the box with Sense 5 (BlinkFeed et al) on top. The press release does not mention whether this is Android 4.1 or 4.2, but our money is on the former, considering 4.2 is not yet out for the HTC One either.

There are other inspirations from the HTC One too. The camera on the back is the same HTC UltraPixel unit that’s on the flagship and there’s the now-familiar dual front stereo speakers powered by HTC BoomSound. The camera will come with features like the HTC Zoe, which were reserved for the One till now. The front-camera is a 2.1 megapixel affair with support for HDR stills and 1080p video recording.

Connectivity wise, the Butterfly S will come with support for HSPA+ and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac bands. This one is DLNA compatible and comes with an IR blaster, support for Miracast wireless display and MHL support in the micro USB port. The Butterfly S also has an NFC chip and Bluetooth 4.0. The HTC Butterfly S will be available in select Asia Pacific markets from July.