Butterfly's worth a flutter

HTC Butterfly is a sleek and fast Android-based smart phone that features a 5-inch Full HD screen and impressive quality camera.

Butterfly is really fast thanks to its Qualcomm S4 Pro 1.5 GHz quad-core processor and a hefty 2 gigabyte RAM of working memory.

Butterfly runs on the intuitive Android 4.1 operating system and HTC further enhances the ease of use with its own HTC Sense 4 Plus user interface.

Butterfly has an outstanding 5-inch Full HD super LCD 3 screen with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, protected with scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The 440 PPI (pixels per inch) display is really good for watching video, viewing photos and reading e-books on the go. 

The large screen allows e-books, Web pages and Facebook page to be read with large enough font, making it easier to read even for my ageing eyes. But the screen is quite hard to read under bright sunlight.

Butterfly has good cameras both at the front and back of the phone. Both are bright with f/2.0 lens and 28mm wide-angle focal length. The front camera has 2.1 megapixel resolution while the main camera uses an 8 megapixel Backside Illuminated (BSI) sensor.

The f/2.0 lens and BSI sensor allows the Butterfly to capture clean and sharp photos even in low-light environment. The camera also has good performance thanks to dedicated HTC ImageChip. The test found Butterfly captured both snapshots and video clips with impressive quality.

The test found that Butterfly had very good performance. The screen was very responsive and scrolling of the screen was smooth and fast. Games also ran fast and smoothly.

I was happy that Butterfly supports TrueMove H’s 850 MHz HSPA 3G connection.

I tested the smart phone on the TrueMove H 3G network. Application downloading and installations could be done impressively fast. I managed to check feeds and update my Facebook status while riding a bus without delay. Updating my Foursquare locations and posting snapshots to my Facebook wall from the phone were also done fast without problem.

Butterfly can also function as an ultimate MP3 player. It uses an exclusive built-in amplifier for Beats Audio technology to enhance the sound quality for both headphones and the built-in speaker. 

The built-in speaker is loud, allowing you to share the music with friends.

I tested the music player with my Sony premium in-ear headphones and was impressed by the deep bass, sharp vocals and detailed instrumental sounds. The Music Player also plays by folder, which makes it easier to selectively play groups of songs without having to create a playlist.

The Butterfly looks sleek with its curved corners and the back rim in the front offers a nice contrast with the white or red back cover. Both choices of colour look really sleek.

HTC provides an intuitive way to set up your Butterfly in line with your own style. It allows you to visit http://start.htc.com/butterfly to set your setting on the Web for applying to the phone conveniently.

On the page you can set your Yahoo!, Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange and other mail accounts as well as a Dropbox cloud-storage account for later applying to the phone.

You can then select one of eight themes for the phone depending on your style: Family, Games, Music, Photos, Social Networks, Sports, Travelling and Work.

For example, if you select the Music theme, your Butterfly will download and install the Soundtracking, 8tracks, TuneWiki – Lyrics for Music, and Tap Tap Revenge 4 apps. It will also set browser bookmarks to visit popular music websites including MTV, Billobard, AllMusic and Vimeo.

When you select a theme and finish adjusting it, you will be prompted to log on with your HTC account or create a new one. 

Then, when you select the Apply settings from Web choice on the Butterfly, you will be prompted to use the same account to log on, and the phone will adjust to the theme and download the apps accordingly.

HTC Butterfly has a suggested retail price of Bt22,900.

 

 

 

      Key specs

_ OS: Android 4.1 with HTC Sense 4+

_ CPU: Qualcomm S4 Pro 1.5 GHz quad-core

_ RAM: 2 GB

_ Storage 16 GB expandable with microSD card for up to 32 GB additional storage

_ Networks: HSPA/WCDMA: 850/2100 MHz, GSM/ GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

_ Camera: 8 megapixel camera with BSI sensor and f/2.0 aperture and 28mm lens; 2.1 megapixel front camera; 1080p HD video recording for both cameras

_ Display: 5-inch super LCD 3 with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 in Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution

_ Connectivity: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack; Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, micro-USB 2.0

_ Battery: 2020 mAh

_ Dimension: 143 x 70.5 x 9.08 mm

_ Weight: 140 g with battery