The international and unlocked version of the HTC Butterfly is now available for pre-order in Australia.

HTC Butterfly is the international version of the popular HTC J Butterfly available in Japan and HTC Droid DNA available in United States. Currently, the unlocked, SIM-free device is offered exclusively at MobiCity and is sold for AUD849. Shipping of the smartphone starts on January 18.

The above unlocked price makes the Butterfly far more expensive phone compared to the Google/LG Nexus 4, which costs only $299 or $349 on the Google Play Store. The iPhone 5 costs $649 for its 16GB unlocked variant and most third-party retail sites have the Samsung Galaxy S3 listed at $520 to $550.

Hopefully, Australian carriers will offer the device in a more affordable contract. The official release date of the Australian HTC Butterfly has not yet been announced but it already appeared in retail websites below for pre-order.

The HTC Butterfly has a 5-inch screen display with 1920x1080 pixel resolution, Super LCD 3 with Gorilla Glass 2, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 SoC with a quad-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU and Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM. HTC Butterfly has a 16GB internal memory supported by a microSD slot.

The smartphone also sports a 8 megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, 2.1 megapixel front facing camera. Connectivity is covered with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS + GLONASS, NFC. Moreover, the smartphone is packed with a Androidv4.1 Jelly Bean OS out of the box.

Europe is still waiting for the device to hit UK as HTC has reportedly been struggling to keep up with its production due to the very high demand.

IBTimes AU combs the internet for some of the online retailers offering HTC Butterfly. Below are some of the websites you can check out to buy the smartphone.

Amazon - Online retail giant Amazon offers a few units of HTC Butterfly.

MobiCity - MobiCity offered the device for AUD849 inclusive of shipping fee. MobiCity also offers accessories for your smartphone.

eBay - Online bargain website offers HTC Butterfly. Consumers can transact with one another to arrive at a better bargain price.

Shopbom.com.au - This Australian shopping website offers links to a myriad of retailers offering the device allowing the consumers to compare prices.

Android-Enjoyed.com - This website offers a plethora of Android smartphones including the HTC Butterfly. The device costs AUD800, which is slightly lower than MobiCity's offer.