HTC announces a 5-inch 1080p phone in Japan

That talk we’ve heard before of a 5-inch 1080p HTC Nexus phone? It’s one massive step closer to reality. The Verge was in Tokyo today for the launch of the HTC J Butterfly, a 5-inch phone with a Full HD 1080p Super LCD 3 display, which is headed to KDDI AU (the second largest carrier in Japan).

They’ve had a hands-on look at HTC’s latest creation, and reckon the 440 ppi pixel density and the colour reproduction of the curved-glass display is “astonishing”, par excellence.  The rest of the phone’s specs match the ridiculous screen, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, all running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Interestingly, HTC are still sticking to their preferred dedicated hardware buttons for home, back and app list, so it remains to be seen how this would be changed if a Nexus version were to be produced.

Update:  Android Police has come through with a detailed spec list:

• Qualcomm APQ8064 SoC (1.5GHz quad-core Krait, Adreno 320 GPU) + MDM9615 baseband processor
• 16GB local storage (not known if user-expandable)
• 2GB RAM
• 8MP rear camera
• 2.1MP front camera
• 2020 mAh battery
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

The HTC J Butterfly also appears to have a skin much like the HTC Rhyme, and is listed as coming in black, white and red versions.

What does this mean for us here in Australia? HTC have said that this display will be making its way onto other phones sold around the world. Those rumours of a 5-inch HTC monster phone seem to have panned out, and it’s only a matter of time before we see something similar hit our shores. Personally, I can’t wait to see a phone like this come to Australia.

Now that we know it’s real, does a 5″ 1080p HTC phone pique your interest? Sound off in the comments!

Sources: The Verge, Android Police