HTC launches its full-HD phablet Butterfly in India for Rs 45,990

It seems like post the success of Samsung's Galaxy Note, all the other players have warmed up to the idea of phablets. Just yesterday we wrote about Spice and Karbonn's phablet offering, prior to which we had written about one from Micromax (read here and here for more on those devices). Now, Taiwanese manufacturer HTC has launched its own phablet in the form of the 5 inch HTC Butterfly. The device was announced last month and is priced at Rs 45,990.

Here is a look at its specifications.

While the device runs on the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system (with HTC Sense 4+), the most striking part about the device is its display. The phablet sports a 5 inch Super LCD 3 full-HD capacitive touchscreen display (1080 x 1920 pixels resolution) with 440 pixels per inch (ppi) pixel density (which is more than amazing) and Corning Gorilla Glass 2 protections. In comparison, Apple's iPhone 5 has only 326 ppi pixel density while Samsung's Galaxy SIII has 306 ppi and Galaxy Note II has 267 ppi.

The company claims that it is the first smartphone to feature a true 1080p full HD display, which will deliver superior sharpness, white balance, and colour accuracy for everything you see on it. It is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and has 2GB of RAM that basically means seamless use of multiple apps simultaneously. The internal memory of the device is 16GB that can be further expanded up to 32 GB with a microSD card, in addition to 25GB of free Dropbox cloud storage from HTC.

It has an 8 MP (f/2.0) autofocus rear camera with LED Flash and backside illuminated sensor (BSI) that can record full HD videos (1080p) at 30 frames per second and a 2.1 MP front-facing camera that can also record full HD videos (expect high quality video chats).

The camera also comes with additional features like instead of choosing between photos and video, 'HTC VideoPic' allows you to capture video and still images at the same time. And by simply holding the shutter button, 'Continuous Shooting' takes multiple photos at up to four frames per second. 'Auto Portrait' makes it easier to take photos of yourself and your friends with automatic face detection and a countdown timer so you can focus on your pose (and not the shutter button).

On the connectivity front, the device has Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi (with Wi-Fi Direct), 3G, and a microSD slot and a microUSB port. The smartphone measures 143mm x 70.5mm x 9.08 mm and weighs 140 gm. HTC has provided a 2,020 mAh battery in the device, which also comes with Near Field Communication (NFC).

All in all, it is a very decent device. However, the only thing that pinches us is the price at which it is available. We can understand that it is still lower than the price of iPhone 5 that can go up to Rs 60,000 for the costliest model, but then HTC is no Apple. While we couldn't find any other full HD smartphone/phablet to compare Butterfly with, but it should compete with Samsung's Galaxy SIII (Rs 32,220) and Note II (Rs 37,400), Apple's iPhone 5 (starts at Rs 45,500) and Nokia Lumia 920 (Rs 37,199), among others in the Indian market.

What do you think of the device? Would you be willing to pay the exuberant price to get your hands on one of these? Share your comments.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)