HTC’s new offering Butterfly smartphone was unwrapped last year on December 11 and boasts a 5-inch Super LCD 3 screen with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, which is higher than that of Apple’s iPhone 5. The big question here is whether it will be able to grab the potential customers of iPhone 5. Well, if not, it will surely challenge the Cupertino giant with its own pros. Let us find out which will be the best buy for you if you wish to have either.
Display
The HTC Butterfly sports 5-inch Super LCD 3 screen offering resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and equipped with pixel density of 441 ppi. The Apple’s iPhone 5 on the other hand comes with smaller screen of 4-inch and provides a resolution of 1136 x 640 pixels. It offers pixel density of 326 ppi.
The screen of HTC Butterfly is clubbed with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 technology to give striking look to the touchscreen where as the iPhone 5 comes with Corning Gorilla Glass and oleophobic coating to give it extra protection against scratches, smudges and also of any accidental damage of display on daily use.
Operating system
The HTC Butterfly runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system and is upgradeable to the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. The Apple’s iPhone 5 runs on iOS 6 mobile operating system.
Both the mobile operating systems are equally good in terms of performance but the iterations of iOS 6 does not differ much from the previous version. However, the May system of Apple has been re-introduced in it that suffered a lot in the earlier version with misguided and wrong information.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is much different from the previous Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. It is much smoother equipped with easy navigation between the home screen and the apps.
Processor
HTC Butterfly is powered by 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 (Krait) CPU and 2GB of RAM where as the iPhone 5 is packed with a quad-core A6 chip and 1GB of RAM.
The processor of Butterfly allows surfing Internet and streaming HD videos concurrently.
Connectivity
Both the smartphones support Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP.
Camera
HTC Butterfly is mounted with 8-megapixel of rear camera and is packed with features like Auto-Focus (AF), BSI Sensor and f/2.0 with 1080p video recording. On the front side the device is equipped with 2.1-megapixel of camera.
Apple’s iPhone 5 to comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera and features simultaneous HD video and image recording, touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection, panorama and HDR. It comes with 1.2-megapixel front camera for video calling.
Storage
HTC Butterfly may not win here. It does not offer better storage options. It just comes in 16GB on-board storage version where as the iPhone 5 comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB internal storage versions. However, the HTC Butterfly facilitates expandable memory via microSD card where as the iPhone 5 does not support any such expansion of memory.
Battery
The HTC Buttery is fueled with 2020 mAh li-polymer battery and the company claims it will give longer battery backup to the device. The Apple’s iPhone 5 comes with 1440 mAh li-polymer battery and the company claims it to give 225 hours of standby time. The battery of previous version iPhone 4S supported 200 hours of standby time.
Price
The HTC J Butterfly is priced tagged at $788 SIM-free, without contract.
The iPhone 5 is available on carriers for as low as $199 under contract and its SIM-free price goes up to $849.
T-Mobile has come up with contract-free and subsidy-free option for the device. You can get iPhone 5 from them for a down payment of just $99 and pay the rest in monthly installment plans of $20 for up to 24 months. This will be a SIM-free phone so you are free to choose any other carrier if you don’t want to stick to the T-Mobile network. The $99 tag is for the 16GB version. The 32GB and 64GB models will cost you $199 and $299 respectively.
Verdict
HTC Butterly is poised to challenge Apple’s iPhone 5 with its taller screen and slimmer, curvier and exotic look. Users will also take into account its HD movies streaming to television sets wirelessly besides surfing the Internet. Well, Apple has got its own reputation and many have blind faith on the latest product of the company. What about you? Would you be buying HTC Butterfly now after knowing the differences and similarities of the two phones or go with Apple’s iPhone 5. Do share your own views in the below comment box.
