HTC A9 (Aero) and Butterfly 3 may be outed at September 29 event

The last time HTC teased a smartphone unveiling event, we assumed it would be for the much-rumored A9 (codenamed Aero), which is supposed to be the ailing Taiwanese manufacturer's next high-end offering. Instead, the 'big' reveal yesterday was the decidedly mid-range Desire 728. And so the A9 still isn't official.

That could all change on September 29, however. HTC has started sending press invites for an event on that day, which will happen in its native Taiwan.

The invite mentions something along the lines of "dual flagships", which means we may in fact see not one, but two smartphones getting unveiled on that occasion.

Taiwanese media speculation has it that the Butterfly 3 will certainly make its debut, and it might be joined by the ever-elusive A9. That's not a given, though, as we may also see anM9+ with an enhanced camera. This is an intriguing prospect since absolutely nothing about such a device has been leaked so far. It's now rumored to get optical image stabilization and faster focusing.

As for the Butterfly 3, it's expected to hit stores in Taiwan sometime in October for around TWD 20,900 ($637 or €570 at the current exchange rates). This price would be in line with that of its predecessor, the Butterfly 2. The Butterfly 3 should make its way to Japan too.

Source (in Chinese) | Via

HTC Butterfly 3 has its specs leaked by a benchmark

HTC should launch the Butterfly 3 in the second half of this year, according to past rumors. The device may be exclusive to certain Asian markets, but it will be an interesting offering nevertheless - through specs if nothing else. Previously, we have heard that three color options will be offered in Japan.

And now we get a pretty complete list of specs for the Butterfly 3, thanks to a benchmark listing. Someone in possession of a prototype ran CompuBench, and that lists the most important hardware details for all devices that get put through the paces.

So, the HTC Butterfly 3 apparently runs Android 5.0.2 Lollipop at the moment, and it has a 5.1-inch (and not 5.2" as rumored at one point) QHD touchscreen, a 20 MP rear camera with LED flash, a 13 MP front snapper, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of built-in storage.

Running things will be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC, coming with a CPU with 1.9 GHz maximum clock speed. It will be an octa-core part in a big.LITTLE configuration, with four Cortex-A57 high-performance cores, and four Cortex-A53 power-saving ones.

We still don't know anything about the design of the Butterfly 3, but its predecessors were all made out of plastic, so the same could happen once more.

Source | Via

HTC Butterfly 3 rumored to arrive in three color options for Japan

HTC has been working on the Butterfly series for the select Asian markets. As per recent rumors, the next generation handset Butterfly 3 is expected to debut in Japan. The dates are not confirmed but expectations are for the handset to show up in the second half of this year.

The Butterfly 3 is expected to be sold by KDDI in Japan in three color options - red, white and blue as shared by upleaks. It is not surprising since the Butterfly 2 was also released with the same color options and with water as well as dust resistance.

No details about the specifications of the Butterfly 3 has surfaced so far. Based on the release dates of the Butterfly and Butterfly 2, we expect the third generation Butterfly device to be announced sometime in August.

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