HTC has just let loose the goods on its first Android smartphone with a 1080p display, boasting a whopping 440 pixels per inch and literally putting Apple’s Retina screen – as well as every other display – to shame.

Coming to Japan only in December, HTC’s J Butterfly is a new Android smartphone featuring a massive 5 inch screen that goes above and beyond other big screened handsets by offering a 1920×1080 display, packing in 440ppi, higher than the 330ppi of the iPhone 4S and 326ppi of the iPhone 5.

The average human eye probably won’t be able to tell the difference, but this level of quality is insanely impressive, producing better detail that should make text and images look even better on the screen and be much more readable than any other currently available screen.

A big screen isn’t the only thing that’s impressive, with a quad-core processor, Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean,” 4G LTE connectivity, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, 8 megapixel rear camera, 2.1 megapixel front camera, 2020mAh battery, 32GB storage, and a microSD expansion slot.

HTC’s J handsets have never reached Australia, but it’s possible we’ll see the technology rebranded under the “One” brand, or even pushed into a new line-up with the “Butterfly” name for this model.

In any case, we’ve contacted HTC’s local people to find out when – or more likely if – this handset will ever reach Australia. A Full HD 1080p capable smartphone will probably arrive by 2013, but we’re hoping we see it closer to the end of this year, rather than the middle of next.