J butterfly joins HTC's premium Android lineup

Today, HTC introduces a new smartphone in its premium Android lineup. Called J butterfly, the device features similar specs to the One (M8) flagship, but without making use of the latter's 4 MP UltraPixel main camera, employing a 13 MP unit instead. Pixel fans, rejoice!

That said, J butterfly retains the Duo Camera technology HTC baked in One (M8). It allows the smartphone to capture depth information to achieve a bokeh effect in photos, which is typical of DSLRs. On the front, there is a 5 MP camera, that is also taken from One (M8), designed for selfie-lovers. So far, J butterfly is shaping up to be what some had hoped One (M8) would be.

On the front, there is also a 5-inch Super LCD3 display with a resolution of 1,080 by 1,920. But, sadly, the BoomSound speakers are nowhere to be seen; HTC is trying to make up for it with JBL'S High-Performance In-Ear Headphones. The company is launching Dot View cases for J butterfly.

Inside, there is a 2.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, with 2 GB of RAM and a 2,700 mAh battery to back it up. J butterfly ships with 32 GB of internal storage and a microSDXC card slot, the latter of which can be used to extend the capacity by up to 128 GB.

As far as connectivity goes, J butterfly offers 4G LTE and WiMax 2+ cellular network support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 as its main highlights. It is also water and dust-proof. It comes in at 145 x 70 x 10 mm and 156 grams.

HTC, as you might expect, is slapping its own Sense user interface on top of Android (KitKat), which I find to be quite attractive on One (M8). That means the usual software add-ons are included in the mix.

Sadly, unless you live in Japan, you cannot buy J butterfly. But, if the past is of any indication, HTC may launch an international version of the smartphone, which moniker will most likely start with "Butterfly" (the last one in the series is called Butterfly S). The only thing that I have a problem with is the design, which is clearly not optimized for the (small) 5-inch display without the BoomSound speakers on the top and bottom.