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We thought we’d seen the last of the HTC Butterfly, a device that initially launched in Asian countries before making its way to the US as the HTC Droid DNA. Rumors floating around ePrice (they’ve gotten their hands on some juicy leaks in the past) might have revealed HTC’s plans to keep the Butterfly line alive with an upgraded HTC Butterfly S looking to launch in China this June.
This new and improved Butterfly will carry an all new Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, and while it wasn’t specifically mentioned, we suspect it could be Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 800 SoC. Along with an improved processor, the Butterfly will also come with HTC’s upgraded 4MP “UltraPixel” camera, along with an SD card slot for additional memory, higher capacity battery and of course, Sense 5.
We still have our doubts if we’ll see the HTC Butterfly S launch anywhere outside of Asian markets (HTC has their hands full with the One for now). One HTC device that’s all but certain to hit the US is the HTC Mini (M4), rumored to launch in mid-July. ‘Course, all this is rumor at this point, but we’ll let you know if we hear more.
If this were a Nexus device, I would have thrown my wallet all the way through my screen.
Hopefully the battery life is better then the first iteration. Apparently it was pretty poor.
Eh, you just wait for Franco to take care of that issue, or at least supplement it a bit.
The point is that we should be able to buy a device without having to resort to flashing and rooting. The average user doesn’t even know what that stuff is, they shouldn’t have to deal with it.
I wish to own an unadulterated version.
I am the owner of the first generation Butterfly. The battery life isn’t bad at all, one day easy, with WIFI and push mail and taking a few pictures, and listen music and 2 hours Internet a day. End of the day of avarage 35procent remaining……..
A 4 mega pixel camera?
maybe they forgot a number? ummm… 4mp isn’t much lol
Nope, its 4MP just like the htc one.
Well that is just disappointing
Yes. Same one in the One. Bigger sensor + less pixels = better low-light shots. Plus Facebook and Google+ both downscale when you upload anyway. Facebook timeline previews are about 0.3MP. Twitter is 0.14MP.
4 MP is roughly an 8×5 when printed. (72dpi)
If you print a lot of 8x10s or larger, it’s not so hot, but then why are you using a phone instead of a DSLR?
Only thing is, if you’re printing 8X5 with 72 dpi, it already looks awful.
I dunno about awful… Maybe not optimal, but for years Photoshop defaulted to 72dpi for new documents.
For me? Meh. My wife has a nice DSLR, and I can’t remember the last time we printed a photo I took. (She’s by far the better photographer.) I’m normally shooting video or taking pictures of bands. Low light is more important for me. Certainly not more important for everyone, though.
I should have mentioned before that I’m actually a photographer so I look at it worse than most people. The reason (I believe) that Photoshop defaulted to 72 dpi back in the day was because it was originally created not to be a photo editor at first, but more of a way to design graphic and advertisement content made for the web, hence the native 72 dpi!
Totally agree with you on the printing and low light being more important! For myself, obviously ppi is the most important as I print several images a day for clients, but for a typical phone user it really doesn’t make much sense to have a high megapixel count anyway. I’m actually getting the One in a few days and excited to see some of the low light performance!
Its not like people are just using their phones to call anymore that argument is old and tired, photos are consistently being taken with phone cameras due to the availability and convenience people are watching videos and playing games on these devices its not a phone its an entertainment device with a phone capability aka a Smartphone.
Of course they are TAKEN with both phones and DSLRs, there’s no argument. We were talking about the quality of prints they would produce with a 4MP sensor at 72 DPI which is, in my opinion, pretty awful. But then again, who actually prints the photos taken on their phone? Maybe 1%? So it really doesn’t matter as long as they look good on screen.
True, no one is taking pictures with their phone to blow them up and get pictures developed. But on facebook there is an option to have better quality pictures uploaded, I don’t know how much better though.
Why use a phone instead of a DSLR? For one some places you can’t willfully take a DSLR because people will complain about its sole presence alone.. Like malls for instance or stadiums unless you work for a big company that will get you a media pass… There is a lot of reasons to not use a dslr and it all boils down to preference and hat you need to get the job done sometimes a phone can do the job.
True, but those are generally places that if you’re going to print/publish the photos, you’d need to have the press pass anyway.
A phone camera is the modern version of the Instamatic. No phone camera is designed to take professional shots (see: lack of optical zoom), so why are you expecting full professional quality? HTC is optimizing for the same shots people took on 110 film 30 years ago, not 35mm.
Also, what malls are you in? I’ve never seen anyone get hassled for having a SLR (D or 35MM) in a mall.
North star mall san antonio texas around christmas time I did some shooting with a t2i canon for a college project after I finished my last pic lol one of the guards at the mall came over and spoke to me about it said I needed special clearance to do that but being that by the time they found me I was already done and got all my pics sooo I just left the mall went to a different mall then after….
Ah, see, there’s your problem. TX. Where they like freedom, unless a business owner doesn’t. ;)
Seriously, though, they may have a photography studio there with a special lease or something. Sucks they weren’t nicer about it, though. :(
Yup that particular mall isn’t that photogenic anyways… Not around christmas time…. The Outdoor mall is better anyways higher ends stores a lot of landscaping completely upscale they don’t even have a food court. Come around christmas I know where my shots will be taken… They don’t trip about it either its an entirely public setting.
I think he meant 4 Ultra Pixel….that’s what’s on the HTC One…Now if they would include a 8 Ultra Pixel sensor instead of a 4 Ultra Pixel sensor it might get more attention from the average consumer.
qualcomm, should totally keep up this processor naming thin that way i can say “over 1000! impossible!!!!” :O
Boomsound or it isn’t a worthy upgrade.
Boot loader unlocked, no stupid game, that no one likes, taking up over 30mbp, I’ll work with what’s left. Long as they price it right.