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HTC has just revealed the HTC Butterfly S, a very nice-looking follow-up to the original HTC Butterfly. It’ll sport a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 chipset clocked at 1.9GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (with a microSD card slot), HTC’s UltraPixel camera, a 3,200mAh battery, HTC BoomSound with Beats, Android 4.2 with HTC Sense 5, and more.
For now, this thing is only slated to hit Taiwan in July, but we could be seeing it other places sometime soon. To be specific, we imagine this device will end up being known as the successor to Verizon’s DROID DNA here in the United States. Verizon’s DroidLanding Twitter account has “reactivated” itself as of yesterday, and that kind of timing would make a lot of sense (no pun intended).
Of course, we’re still waiting on an actual HTC One from Verizon, a device they promise is coming to us “this summer” but won’t give us a concrete date to look forward to. Get a quick look at the thing in the hype video above.
I am positivelly surprised about this. Never thought I would see the day of HTC choosing
battery life over design-thickness. Hopefully others manufactures do the
same and stop with this silly obsession.
like motorola?
And they got rid of the middle HTC button and brought back the multi-task button… Looks like HTC is really listening to their customers by getting rid of that logo and adding the multi-task button, making the battery huge, and adding a micro SD-card slot.
I’m super jealous of the lucky bastard who gets this device!
Verizon plz. I need to retire my Razr Maxx.
get the hd variant
Glad to see they’re putting a huge battery and SD slot in this. Too bad this probably won’t come to all of the US carriers. Also glad it’s coming with 4.2.
I’d like to see it come with more than 16GB though as we all know apps don’t install on the SD.
Agreed. It’d be nice to have 32 or more built in plus whatever you put in the SD slot. It seems to be too much to ask these days though.
Very nice but it unfortunately it won’t be coming anywhere near north america.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
I can definitely tell you that as of this moment not one single north american carrier has signed up to carry it. Now that could change in the future of course.
Sprint has. Check your source.
Link?
and can you blame them? The original One should have had these specs and they all just launched it. They bought a bunch of stock and now it’s obsolete because of this. Htc keeps saying they’ll focus on a flagship and then keep making other phones. Ugh.
What do you expect them to do? I mean they couldn’t keep the butterfly in stock in those particular markets, it was a very hot selling device, so they improved on it by making an S model for those same markets. Also, how is htc not focused on the one? HTC isn’t samsung where they have a diverse portfolio of products in addition to making phones, all they make are phones and thats it.
Well optimally they’d all be GSM and be compatible with the overseas versions so we wouldn’t have to wait so long for everything. So what I’d like them to do is to carry the Butterfly S and call it whatever they want just as soon as HTC starts making them, but they won’t. American carriers take forever to do prettymuch anything, so if we get this it’ll be in like December or sometime not remotely soon.
Obsolete? I suppose if you want just another black slab phone with great specs you could make an argument for this phone, but it certainly doesn’t “obsolete” the One. However simple minded it may be, many people consider looks when buying a phone and the butterfly is just another black android phone. Now if you want to talk battery life, you have an argument, but again, average people want thin phones. Even if this came to the US I doubt it would ever touch the One in sales, much less the S4
Well obsolete is obviously an exaggeration, but once the Butterfly S is released then most anyone who does their homework is going to prefer it over the One. I doubt it’s thick enough that anyone’s going to say they don’t want it.
the Butterfly is quite possibly a larger device which would not make it ideal for many users. Also, there is room for 2 flagship devices. I have always wanted HTC to have a sprint time flagship and a fall time flagship. They could have two different designs as well and that way you could continue to produce new phones while at the same time being able to focus on a flagship.
It might end up being 3 flagships with their 6 inch Notesque device coming out too.
I like both but prefer ONE actually. Size suitable for my hand , battery enough for my daily usage. Feels good in hand with metal body. the difference is still there.
especially when this release the ONE will be cheaper somehow.
a huge battery and Micro-SD expansion. Plus the back looks like plastic
so there’s a possibility it comes off. Replaceable battery maybe? Plus
this explains why Verizon was so tight lipped about carrying the One,
finally mentioning it will be available later this summer. This would
make sense if they were already planning a big promo for the DNA 2 or
whatever it will be called.
Quite sure battery is not removable. The only problem is HOW FAST IT CHARGES! if this still 1A limited , it’s going to charge for a looooooong time.
I wish that this was the phone coming to Verizon… I really would like an HTC One with an SD
Red and Black, sounds like a Verizon version. Verizon will get it and
probably call it the Droid One, since the original Butterfly was
identical to the DNA. Leave it to verizon to screw up the one
How did Verizon screw up the One? It’s not even out on Verizon yet. When and if it comes to Verizon it’ll be the same One you get from other carriers. And most importantly, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
Uhh yeah, if you read Goro ki maro’s comment again and actually pay attention to the context clues you’ll see that he’s merely speculating and not actually saying that Vzw screwed up the One. Goro didn’t say he didn’t want to buy it and for all you know he’s with another carrier. He’s free to make any comment just have you felt you needed to comment on his comment *as if Goro needed your blessing to not buy it if the device isn’t liked*. You [Spoken Word] crack me up…I needed a good laugh on this hump day.
My thoughts exactly… I was hoping for these specs on the One. The 5″
display, big battery, and expandable storage.. Why wouldn’t they have
made this their flagship device of the year? A$$ backwards.
there is room for 2 flagship devices. Spring flagship and fall flagship. 4.7 inch device and a 5+ incher.
Screw it up? Looks like it has more than 2 darn buttons and an SD slot… Sounds like IMPROVED!
perhaps this will be called the Droid DNA Maxx if it does come to verizon
I wonder what the argument these handset makers have for continuing to use physical buttons. Seems like that should be screen space and then leverage Android’s on-screen buttons. I also wish this had been released with the Snapdragon 800. There is an article floating around with some benchmarks and with such a leap forward in performance it is hard to get excited about phones being released with the 600 at the moment.
I hope hTC will have these in unlocked and dev edition.
Now HTC, was it so hard to put a 3-button layout on the HTC One like you just did here with the Butterfly S? In my opinion, this should have definitely been their flagship device to compete with the S4. Great thing I’m still under contract until next year, so I can have many choices for my upgrade.
if they also disable quick charge on this like they did with the one it’s going to take 4+ hours to fully charge
so any word if it has that cool front facing wide lens that the One has ???
finally a htc flagship with a decent battery!
has anyone been able to find a hands-on video of this phone, in english?
Someone please write this down: HTC FINALLY puts a decent size battery in one of their phones. History making. Now if they would improve that “ultrapixel” camera…
Edit: OH; I see Jarl already wrote this down…
Why do I hear no one bitching about this being a “plastic” phone. The only gripe about the GS4 was its “plastic” construction. I own a GS4, and love the plastic construction, the phone is still awesome. So I will ask this, is it ok for HTC to use lesser materials and sacrifice its metal construction to make a better phone?
They will all claim it’s of higher quality, even though it’s exactly the same. Just wait..
I think the question comes in to the quality of the plastic (how thin, is it glossy, etc.). I’m sure the US variant will be similar to construction of the Droid DNA, and although that’s made of plastic, it’s a study and strong kind of plastic that has a good feel in the hands. The GS4, imo, didn’t have a good sturdy feel when I was testing it…
This. HTC has been heralded for great build quality for years. Their polycarbonate built phones are rock solid.
its about how it feels. If it feels like crap people will think its constructed with crap materials. HTC feels amazing in your hand. Whether its more durable than a gs4 or not is a different story, but it doesnt *feel* like crap. It feels more durable when you are holding it.
The irony is, people buy a phone-case and screen-protector the minute they got their new phone yet they are so particular about how it feels rather than the usability.
a lot of people do yes, but a lot of people walk around with their phones naked. So that’s why it matters to some. Even if its not a deal breaker, its something that could sway an otherwise undecided buyer.
Speaking from experience i’ve had both cases and screen protectors on my htc evo and evo LTE, i took them off after about a month and never had any issues n it felt so much better.
On my nexus 4 however i have a thin case (no screen protector) because i heard all of the horror stories. I love going caseless.
The S4 feels great in the hand. My only complaint is that the phone is very slippery and I’m afraid I might drop it because of that. I can’t compare it to the HTC One because I’ve never held that phone.
i cant say i’ve felt the S4, but i have felt the S3. I’m not going to say the S3 feels bad or anything. It feels fine. But some people are discussing the differences between feeling fine and feeling really nice. And how it fits in your hand and everything is important but the topic of the discussion is build materials. Like ok most forks are forks and get the job done n fit in your hand fine, but there’s a difference between a plastic spork from kfc and your favorite dinner fork from your parents house. Now obviously those are extreme examples. I don’t think samsung has bad materials, they just do feel immaculate. I just bought a Galaxy note 8. Its cool, i like it a lot. But construction/materials is nothing to brag about.
I have the S3 and S4. The S4 feels much better in hand because of the flatten sides. And I really don’t think it would have made much of a difference if Samsung decided to go with metal rather than plastic. It wouldn’t have added anything and would have made it harder to access the battery and SD card slot.
Not only that.. People are also more OK with HTC naming the new smaller HTC ONE the “HTC ONE mini” compared to Samsung naming the smaller S3/S4 the “Galaxy S3/S4 mini”..
HTC has always used strong, sexy, durable, and sturdy plastic aka polycarbonates.
Compare the S4 build to the One X… the One X feels so much better
Simple. I have no problem with plastic, but I don’t like the way Samsung use it. feels like they even cost down to make that back plate.
If Samsung try bitching “plastic is not xxxxx”, guess who’s getting hurt.
If Samesung wants to make an awesome looking plastic phone that looks fresh instead of rehashed, no one is stopping them. I wouldn’t complain.
Samsung uses “hyperglaze” and makes the phone feel 1000X more cheap where as HTC uses a more premium finish on their plastic.
HTC or LG for the next Nexus
So dope! :O
Love that huge battery.
>>>>
Phone looks awesome hope it does end up coming to to north America. And all these people complaining that HTC should stick to one flagship are crazy cause Samsung has 4 galaxy s4 variants and they all sell well.
HTC BUTTERFLY S http://the–gadget–info.blogspot.in/2013/06/htc-butterfly-s.html
This can be the phone that puts HTC over the top in the US…specially with the ONE grabbing so many of apple and samsung customers.
I hope Verizon does get it and they keep the SD slot! This will be the best move Htc and Verizon can make. It would make no sense to release the ONE on Verizon this late and the upgrade from 4.7” to 5” display will separate the DNA from the ONE.
Fingers crossed….if not Galaxy S4 will be my next phone, 5” display and SD slot has me sold.