[CES 2013] Move over Snapdragon S4 Pro, you are yesterday’s news. Qualcomm has now confirmed two new chips, the Snapdragon 800 and 600, which the company says offers 75 and 40 percent better performance when compared to the S4 Pro.

The latest chips move over to 28nm high performance for mobile technology, which means even lower power consumption rates while providinig excellent overall performance. Both chips feature a new architecture. The 800 features a quad-core Krait 400 CPU, with 2.3GHz per core and the 600 has a Krait 300 quad-core at 1.9GHz.

Other improvements include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800′s abilities to record, play and display in UltraHD, even form a phone. The chip also supports resolutions up to 2560×2048 and has audio improvements such as DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus.

So when do the first phones and tablets featuring the processors actually hit? The first Snapdragon 600 devices are expected in 2nd quarter 2013, and the 800 follows shortly after with an expected “mid-2013” release.

For more details about the new chips, head over to Qualcomm’s blog. What do you think, excited to get your hands on a new 600 or 800-based device in the near future?

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After the HTC J Butterfly emerged from Japan and arrived in the US as the Droid DNA, it is once again getting reborn as the HTC Deluxe for the international market. The core specs inside this “new” superphone will be the same as its Japanese and American counterparts. That means you still get a 1080p 5-inch full HD display (440ppi) and a quad-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. Other features include Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean out of the box, HTC Sense 4+, 2GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage (no card slot), Bluetooth, NFC, a front-facing 2.1MP ultra wide camera, and a rear 8MP f/2.0 camera. What’s unclear is whether or not this phone will have LTE, especially seeing how the international-friendly Nexus 4 doesn’t do the 4G LTE thing either.

Since this is just a leak, we don’t have any information on pricing or availability yet, so it is unclear which international markets (and carriers) will pick up the HTC Deluxe. I sure hope it comes to Canada.

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Continuing with the extra large superphone trend that led to phablets like the Galaxy Note II and LG Intuition, the HTC J Butterfly also has more to offer than just its super-sized Super LCD 3 display. Under the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor (1.5GHz), a full two gigs of RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSD expansion, 2020mAh battery, Wi-Fi tethering for up to 8 devices, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, HDMI out, and BEATS audio. It also ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box, overlaid with HTC Sense 4+.

The camera on the back looks like it’s going to be really good too, following in the footsteps of the flagship HTC One X superphone. There’s an 8MP CMOS shooter back there with a wide F2.0 aperture for better low-light performance. There’s also a front-facing 2MP camera for video chats and self portraits. All of this is housed in a phablet that’s just 9.1mm thick and 140 grams.

That’s all good news, except it comes with one giant caveat. It appears that the J Butterfly is being offered exclusively in Japan via KDDI. It’ll use their 4G LTE network that is capable of download speeds of up to 75Mbps. HTC might offer a variant to other markets eventually, but the Japanese model will ship in early December in your choice of black, white or red.

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High-end specs usually come at a high-end price, but it looks like you can circumvent that problem by going with a less recognized brand. Case in point is the newly announced Xiaomi Phone 2, an Android Jelly Bean smartphone boasting a 4.3-inch 720p IPS display and Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core processor. The thing is that it sells for just $310 outright. That’s about half the price as a Galaxy S III or new iPhone.

Even though Xiaomi may not be a household name, the Xiaomi Phone 2 comes packed with some respectable names inside. As mentioned, the processor is courtesy of Qualcomm. And you know that IPS display? It’s a Sharp panel. You also get an impressive 2GB of RAM to go along with the fairly standard 16GB of storage capacity. The rear camera is a bright and wide 27mm F/2.0 8MP shooter, whereas the front-facing camera is a 28mm 2MP unit.

Android Jelly Bean has been overlaid with Xiaomi’s MIUI ROM, which adds such features as enhanced security, phone finder, a Chinese voice assistant (Siri’s Android-flavored Chinese cousin?), 5GB of cloud storage and interactive themes. It looks like one of these themes, based on the images provided, is “inspired” by Angry Birds.

The Xiaomi Phone 2 is set to launch with China Unicom and China Telecom in October for an outright price of about $310, though they’ll likely offer subsidized pricing on contract too. The interesting thing is that while this won’t be made officially available in North America, the Xiaomi Phone 2 does support WCDMA 850/1900/2100, so it should work with AT&T if you unlock it. If you’re willing to go through the import process and chance it with an unrecognized Chinese brand, this phone looks like it’s quite the beast for a pretty amazing price.

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