HTC powerful Butterfly 3 phone flutters into the global market

The high-end smartphone that was initially just for Japanese consumers is about to go on sale around the world.

HTC Butterfly 3 (AFP)

HTC's Butterfly 3, the high-end smartphone that was initially just for Japanese consumers, is about to go on sale around the world.

The Butterfly 3, revealed on Tuesday at a special event in HTC's native Taiwan, has a 5.2-inch qHD display, an octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM for some seriously speedy performance.

But as well as flagship processing power, the phone packs some serious photography credentials. The rear-facing unit offers 20 megapixels of image quality while the front-facing 'selfie' camera is of the 13-megapixel variety.

To put that into some sort of perspective, even 12 months ago there were mid-to-top-tier handsets on sale that couldn't offer that sort of performance from the main rear-facing camera.

Though pricing is yet to be confirmed, expect the handset to carry a premium price of roughly $600 off contract.