Remember the rumors that circulated some time ago about a new 5-inch phablet to come from HTC? Well, HTC has finally come clean, at least in Japan. The J Butterfly was announced yesterday (it was yesterday in Japan), packing the best specs I've seen yet in a phone. Highlights include a 5-inch 1080p SLCD3 display, a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 2 GB RAM. Most of you are no doubt wondering if and when the rest of the world will see this device, but so far HTC has been tight-lipped about this.

HTC's new beast of a phone features the following specs that promise to give you butterflies in your stomach:

• 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro
  
• 2 GB RAM
  
• 16 GB of internal storage with MicroSD expansion slot
  
• 8 MP camera (before you say "meh" keep in mind that HTC generally makes excellent cameras, and there's more to picture quality than megapixels)
  
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (if a Nexus version of this phone comes out globally, it will come with Android 4.2)
  
• 5-inch 1920x1080 SLCD3 display at 440 pixels per inch (I'll explain more about SLCD3 in a later article). By comparison:
  
  • iPhone 5: 4-inch IPS LCD, 1136x640, 326 ppi
    
  • Optimus G: 4.7-inch IPS Plus LCD, 1280x760, 317.6 ppi
    
  • Galaxy S III: 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD with pentile matrix, 1280x720, 306 ppi
    
  • Galaxy Note 2: 5.5-inch Super AMOLED HD with RGB matrix, 1280x720, 267 ppi
    
  • Incidentally, here's a pretty cool pixel density calculator for those interersted.
• 9.1 mm thickness
  
• 2020 mAh battery (I wonder how long this will last, pushing an unprecedented number of pixels via the Adreno 320 GPU)
  
• 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 (LE), NFC
  
• LTE and CDMA/GSM/UMTS/GPRS radios (notice I put the "CDMA" in bold underline - this tidbit comes from Engadget)

Those of us who don't live in Japan needn't worry - we'll likely get our own version of this beastly phone. As I mentioned before, there have been rumors of a Verizon 5-inch HTC phablet for some time now, as well as a possible Nexus version, but it might sport a few different features from the Butterfly J.

As you've probably come to expect from my new hardware announcements, the usual photo gallery with commentary ensues below (photos via PhoneArena):

1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6.
7.

• The red variant, as featured on the article header
  
• The white variant
  
• Check out this glimpse of the new Jelly Bean Sense UI, with a closeup of the phone and browser icons
  
• Back view, with a closeup of the 8 MP camera
  
• Here we see an example of how much sharper the 1080p SLCD3 display is than the previous king of the hill, Apple's Retina display (obviously, PhoneArena borrowed this photo from The Verge, which has an impressive gallery of its own)
  
• This oblique view of the black variant shows off its red trim and thinness
  
• The black variant front view (notice how each variant has a matching default wallpaper)

And now, a first-look video:


An initial hands-on video by The Verge: