By Star Chang, posted Dec 6, 2012 at 6:12 PM, 915 views,

HTC Confident of Taking on Apple and Samsung in China with 5-inch Full-HD Phablet (Video)

Two month ago, Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC announced a new high-end smartphone for Japan market, the HTC J Butterfly (known as HTC Droid DNA in U.S.), and it seems that it is getting ready to release it in China too. HTC plans to take the iPhone 5 head on with this flagship phablet, setting the launch date of the smartphone to earlier than the new Apple smartphone in China, where it is scheduled to be released on Dec. 14. The 5-inch HD smartphone’s specs are said to be better than Samsung’s flagship Galaxy Note II, which is wildly popular in Asia. It is considered a key tool for the Taiwanese company to expand its global market share for the fourth quarter this year, especially for the Chinese market …

HTC Butterfly packs with the specs that similar like HTC Droid DNA, most notable is the 5-inch 1080p Full HD display with a pixel density of 440ppi. The device comes with 2GB of RAM, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 pro quad-core CPU, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, HTC Sense 4+, 8-megapixels rear camera and 2.1-megapixels wide-angle front camera. There will be no 4G LTE version for Chinese phone user, only WCDMA will be available. HTC China stated that this HTC Butterfly going to available on mid-December with the price of $4,799 yuan (US$770 , contract free). There are three colours available – brown, white and black. And there will be a red color special edition, which bundle with a secondary handset known as HTC mini, which can collect by bluetooth for voice calling.

HTC is likely to face strong competition from Apple and Samsung in China market. As HTC continues to lose market share to Apple and Samsung, the troubled Taiwanese manufacturer is looking toward China to help stabilize its dropping sales. HTC was No.9 in China in terms of market share at 2.6 percent, compared to Samsung’s 24.9 percent share. In China, HTC will follow a similar sales model as it has done in Europe and the U.S., offering devices “around the same price as Samsung’s Galaxy and Apple’s iPhone,” rather than low-end handsets. HTC Butterfly is the first Full-HD smartphone (or phablet ? ) to be released in China, but the price isn’t consumer friendly, just watch out for the domestic brand which has a similar specification that is going to sell at a lower price.

SOURCE: HTC China, PConline, CNMO.com (Chinese content)