HTC Butterfly Singapore Set – Review

I had the opportunity to check out the HTC Butterfly, and my first impression was wow, the screen doesn’t look that big, and the design and build quality looks impressive. Picking it up, the HTC Butterfly is light and slim, and the back surface is a soft plastic surface that feels solid in the palm of my hand. More information on phone availability over here.

Positive Aspects of the Phone

Probably only tech-geeks and Android enthusiasts may drool over a high processor speed or the latest Android update, while everyone else, really care about a high quality display. Just look at the market share the Galaxy Note 2 has obtained. The red accents are an aesthetically pleasing contrast to the black. The glass screen melts over the edges of the phone for a smooth swiping area, for a seamless, profesisonal look. There are two LED notification lights; the typical front and the second being the back notification light which is a smart introduction by the design team.

Also, unlike previous HTC phones, the HTC butterfly is equipped with a microSD slot, to allow for storage expansion. On top of that, there’s a promotion with Dropbox to offer you an additional 25gb of free storage. Of course, now with Kim dotcom Mega service offering up 50gb, cloud storage has many more options as well.

It was the first time I experienced a 1080p display and the colour saturation and image quality looks way better than my Samsung Galaxy S3. Photo browsing is a joy with images and videos appearing very sharp. Overall speed of the phone is good with the Snapdragon S4 processor and the HTC Sense UI 4+ isn’t that bad. HTC Butterfly comes with impressive audio quality and they paid attention to the internal speakers, which are very very good. Last but not least you will figure that the camera is one of the best on the markets and that taking pictures and videos can be so much fun with the Butterfly. Here’s a sample video from the phone:

Negative Aspects of the Phone

I was surprised the HTC Butterfly comes without 4G LTE. It has been an expected feature and is actually available on the HTC Butterfly USA counterpart, the Droid DNA. The Nexus 4 without LTE launched at a time when 4G was just made available, was forgivable. I am not sure why HTC left out such an important feature.

Next up, the HTC Butterfly comes with a non-removable battery. That might annoy some people but I don’t its that bad actually. HTC bumped up the battery specs to at least a 2020 mAH battery which is sufficient for normal use.

Conversely, the single annoyance which you probably won’t notice in the store, is the micro-USB cover. The cover is a pain to get off and is worth ripping off before you even turn on the phone. Give it a go at the demo store at your Singtel / M1 / Starhub resellers and you will understand what I mean. Most of my other devices don’t have a micro-USB cover and I don’t see them malfunctioning over the course of a couple of years.

Overall

Well, HTC had limited success with the HTC One X, largely due to Samsung stealing the limelight with the Galaxy S and Note series. The Butterfly is the torch-bearer for high definition phones currently in Singapore, and we will see a ton of 1080p resolution phones. The Butterfly has all the specs to compete with the Nexus 4 and Galaxy S III/Note II, with a special feature to separate itself from the pack, except for the lack of LTE. I love the look, and I love the unibody construction. Overall, it does has a lot going for it and at not too expensive a price too.

GadgetReactor thanks HTC for provision of the loaned HTC Butterfly unit for this review.