HTC has just announced the new J Butterfly HTL23 with KDDI in Japan. It comes with high end specs like the One M8 but in a more plastic-like phone body. Coming in Rouge, Canvas and Indigo color, the new J Butterfly has a 13 megapixel + 2 megapixel dual camera module, offering HTC’s Duo Camera features like UFocus and Duo Effects.
The latest HTC J Butterfly has a super powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz quad core processor (MSM8974AC), 5-inch Full HD S-LCD3 display, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and microSDXC card slot. For selfie photography lover, the 5 megapixel front facing camera is definitely good to have. You can also find the same dual-tone flash LED, which will give you a more accurate artificial flash light. The built in WiFi supports a/b/g/n/ac wireless network, while the 4G LTE has a 150Mbps maximum speed.
Like what Japanese smartphones usually have, the J Butterfly is protected with IPX5/IPX7 waterproof and IP5X dust proof. Check out this post for a detailed IP rating explaination.
The HTC J Butterfly HTL23 will be available by end of August in Japan. Will HTC introduce this model to other markets? When the first HTC J Butterfly was announced 2 years old, it was later launched as Droid DNA for Verizon Wireless. It is possible that the updated Butterfly will be re-introduced again in US.
It’s not a good idea to release this elsewhere as the HTC E8 has much the same specs for less. Dual camera, waterproofing, and slightly bigger battery are the only big differences.