Key difference: The HTC Butterfly is a high-end phone by the HTC Corporation. The HTC Butterfly is sold in four variants: Droid DNA; J Butterfly HTL21; Butterfly X920d; and Butterfly X920e. They are all powered on a Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor. The HTC Droid has the Quadcomm MDM615m, while the Butterfly variants have the Qualcomm APQ8064 chipset. They all have 2 GB of RAM. The Sony Xperia ZL is very similar to its counterpart the Xperia Z. The phone sports 1.5 GHz Quad-core Krait, 2GB RAM with up to 16 GB internal memory storage capacity and up to 32 GB expandable storage available.

The HTC Butterfly is a high-end phone by the HTC Corporation. The phone has been quite popular all over the world; however, most people don’t know exactly how popular the phone has actually been. This is mainly because not many people know that the HTC Butterfly and HTC Droid DNA is actually pretty much the same phone, with only a few differences. The differences are only there to make the phone more regional specific.

The HTC Butterfly is sold in four variants: Droid DNA in the United States on the Verizob Network; J Butterfly HTL21 in Japan on KDDI's au network; Butterfly X920d in Taiwan, South East Asia and India; and Butterfly X920e in China and Russia.

All the variants have most of the same features. They are all powered on a Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor. The HTC Droid has the Quadcomm MDM615m, while the Butterfly variants have the Qualcomm APQ8064 chipset. They all have 2 GB of RAM and Adreno 320 graphics processor. They all have an 8 MP primary camera and a 2.1 MP secondary front facing camera. The display is a 5 inch Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen with Corning Gorilla Glass 2. At the time of the launch the phone was the second phone in the market to feature a 1080p display. The phone has Android version 4.1, but is upgradable to Android 4.2.

The HTC Droid DNA differs from the other variants, in that it supports wireless charging, but lacks a MicroSD slot. The Droid DNA and the J Butterfly both support CDMA and LTE connections, as well as UMTS. However, only the Droid DNA comes with quad band UMTS radio. The X920d and X920e, on the other hand, do not even have LTE support. There are also some subtle differences regarding color accents, buttons and logo placement. However, these are minor and so not affect the phones.

The Sony Xperia ZL is very similar to its counterpart the Xperia Z; however, it differs in some aspects and is also believed that it will be offered for a lower price compared to the Z. Sony has managed to make the ZL even smaller and more compact compared to the Z. The ZL maintains the 5-inch display in the dimensions 131.6 x 69.3 x 9.8 mm. The ZL offers the same processor, internal storage capacity, RAM and software, which is a 1.5 GHz Quad-core Krait, 2GB RAM with up to 16 GB internal memory storage capacity and up to 32 GB expandable storage available. The ZL is also available with 4.1 Jelly upgradeable to v4.2.  The ZL is also slightly heavier than the Z but it does not make that big of a dent on the design.

The major difference is ZL does not offer the dust and water resistance that is boasted by the Z. However, it does offer shatter-proof sheet and scratch-resistance glass on the front.  The back isn’t the glass that is available in the Z but has a matte or textured finish, making it easier and more comfortable to hold. The ZL also has slight differences in button and SIM slow placement. The SIM and microSD card slots are placed on the bottom lower of the back panel, while in the Z the slots are placed above the power button on the right hand side. The ZL also offers a dedicated camera button which is not available in its big brother. The ZL also lacks contact points which are available with the Z. The contact points allow the phone to be connected to a charging dock that is sold separately. The placement of the front camera also differs. The front camera in the Z was located on left-hand corner, while in the ZL it is located in the right-hand corner. However, this does not make a difference when using the phone for video conferencing. Two new features that the ZL boasts is infrared/IrDA functionality and one-touch mirroring. The IR feature allows the phone to be used as a remote with any device that supports IR and one-touch mirroring allows the phone to send, receive and play audio and video files by touching another device that supports the feature. The ZL has yet to be launched and the price has also not been fixed for the device.

The information for the detailed table about the two phones has been taken from the HTC website, the Sony Mobile website, engadget.com and GSMarena.com.

Image Courtesy: htc.com, sonymobile.com