When HTC announced the original Butterfly it was a bit of a shock, it was one of the best phones that HTC had ever released thanks to the Full HD display and the S4 Pro chip inside, but they kept it quiet. Soon after we realized why they kept it quiet as the device was destined only for Verizon. Fast forward to now and HTC are launching the Butterfly S, a slightly improved version of the S and bizarrely, almost a slightly improved version of the One. Aside from the screen size – 4.7-inch for the One and 5-inch for the Butterfly S – the two devices share pretty much everything else on the inside. Except that the Snapdragon 600 inside of the Butterfly S is clocked a little bit higher at 1.9 Ghz, rather than the 1.7 Ghz found inside the One.
You’re probably thinking that, just as with x86 Desktop CPUs, 200 Mhz can’t surely make that much of a difference, right? Well, perhaps not in the real world, no. Let’s say for instance, two HTC users get together and one has the Butterfly S and the other an HTC One – will either one of them be noticeably faster? Probably not. In benchmarking terms though, that 200 Mhz difference translates into cold, hard statistics and so the Butterfly S comes out on top, as G for Games discovered when benchmarking the two.
The Butterfly S score is on the left, coming in at 12,968, and the HTC One on the right lagging behind a little at 12,253. Those scores make for a device that’s just that little bit faster than the One, sure it’s not going to blow the One out of the water but it is interesting to see a quick comparison like this. It’s not just the 200 Mhz extra clock speed that the Butterfly S has over the One either, the Asian handset comes packing a 3,200 mAh battery. Which has to be the best battery that HTC has ever shipped in a smartphone. Is the Butterfly S a flagship for HTC now? No, that’s the One but, the Butterfly S displays a significant change in how HTC are treating different markets. The Butterfly has become a popular line for HTC in Asia and it’s good to see them keeping up the pressure on both Sony and Samsung in the Far East.