HTC’s new J Butterfly is like a water-resistant One M8

HTC-J-Butterfly-2014

HTC today announced its first water-resistant smartphone in Japan. It’s a successor to the J Butterfly, and in some ways, it’s a lot like the flagship One M8. It’s made out of plastic rather than aluminum, however, and there are some component changes underneath the hood.

Although it looks like a cheaper version of the One M8, the J Butterfly is actually a better phone in a number of ways. It has the same 5-inch 1080p display, the same quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, and the same 2GB of RAM — in addition to what many would consider a much-improved Duo Camera setup.

The depth sensor on the J Butterfly isn’t accompanied by HTC’s oft-criticized 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera, but a regular 13-megapixel sensor instead — like the One mini 2 and the One E8. That means it should be capable of taking much sharper photos, though it may not be quite as good in low light.

HTC-J-Butterfly-RedThe other big advantage to the J Butterfly is that it’s water-resistant, but in order to make that happen, HTC did not give it front-facing BoomSound speakers. The company is giving all J Butterfly customers a set of high-end JBL earphones to use with it, however.

The J Butterfly launches with Android 4.4 KitKat, 4G LTE connectivity, and 32GB of internal storage with a microSD card slot. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for snapping selfies, and it’s compatible with HTC’s nifty Dot View case.

HTC hasn’t announced international availability for the J Butterfly — though we are expecting to see a similar handset for the U.S. and Europe — but the device will go on sale in Japan in late August.