HTC to launch first full-HD smartphone with 440 ppi display

HTC will launch a new smartphone with a full-HD 5-inch screen, the J Butterfly, in the Japanese market from December.

The screen, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, at 440 pixels per inch (ppi), is the main attraction of the HTC J Butterfly. The company said it can display HD images without any modification.

The phone is 143 millimeters tall and 71mm across, weighs 140 grams, and has a 1.5GHz quadcore processor and a 2,020mAh battery. HTC has yet to release estimates of how long the battery lasts powering the new screen.

With the smartphone market booming and makers scrambling to set their Android handsets apart from the pack, screen manufacturers have been racing to take advantage. LG said in May it had developed a five-inch 440ppi HD screen that would likely be released by the end of this year, and Sharp has said it will begin this month mass production of a similar five-inch HD screen that can display 443ppi. Apple's Retina display has 326ppi.

Au, one of Japan's main three mobile operators, announced the HTC J Butterfly as part of its winter collection at a press conference in Tokyo. The phone will run on au's high-speed LTE network and support tethering of up to eight other devices on the au network.

It will also have several features that are native to Japan, including the ability to show special TV broadcasts for mobile phones, compatibility with Japan's touch card payment system, and the ability to receive alerts from the government about earthquakes and other emergencies.

The phone is similar in appearance and features to the company's slightly lower-spec HTC J phone for the Hong Kong market, which has 4.3-inch display and a dual-core processor.

Takashi Tanaka, the president of KDDI, which operates au, briefly introduced the phone to reporters but said he didn't quite understand its advertising slogan: "We predict you'll fall in love with it at a single glance."