• Review: HTC Sensation

    Review: HTC Sensation

    Chandrakant 'ck' Isi, Sep 26, 2011 1835 hrs IST

    Lives up to its name.

    Great UI customisation; Effortless multitasking; 1080p video recording; dual-core CPU; Excellent build quality.

    Lacklustre video player; Limited viewing angles.

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HTC Sensation
MRP: 32,700
Street Price: Rs 29,600 (Flipkart.com; Letsbuy.com; Saholic.com)


Currently, dual-cores are ruling the droid roost. LG started off early with its Optimus 2X, but the product had many rough edges. On the other hand, Samsung did quite well with its Galaxy S II (GS2). It defeated every other flagship in the raw-power department. Now, we have received a true challenger to the GS2 - the HTC Sensation.

The unimpressive TouchWiz has been the Achilles heel of the GS2. On the other hand, HTC has been known for its expertise in UI customisation. If the company manages to strike a balance between eye-candy and performance, this device can dethrone the GS2 as the ruler of the Android kingdom.


Design And Build Quality
The phone comes with a detachable USB charger, earphones, and an 8 GB memory card. The first thing to grab your attention is its 4.3" screen, wrapped in well-crafted glass that's curved at the edges. The gadget measures 4.96" (l) x 2.57" (w) x 0.44" (d), and has been designed to highlight its dominant screen. Moreover, the chrome-finished earpiece that houses a notification light also stands out. As usual, this droid sports four capacitive touch keys, namely Home, Options, Back, and Search. Unlike the Incredible S, these keys don't rotate to match the phone's orientation. However, I'm not complaining, as long as the keys are backlit.


Review: HTC Sensation





The device's curved back panel is composed of aluminium and high-grade matte plastic with a rubbery feel, which provides a comfortable grip. Overall, this 148-gramme device has a great design and excellent build quality.


Review: HTC Sensation





Under the hood is a dual-core 1.2 GHz CPU with an Adreno 220 GPU to keep it company. It features 768 MB of RAM, an 8 MP rear and VGA front camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, a 3.5 mm jack, MHL-enabled micro-USB port, microSD card support up to 32 GB, and a bunch of sensors.


Display
The device's 4.3" S-LCD screen is covered by Gorilla Glass and has pixel dimensions of 540x960. It is capable of producing rich colours and high contrast. The sunlight legibility is ok, but the limited viewing angles are a big downer.


UI And Applications
The Sensation runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with HTC's Sense 3.0 UI on top of it. Its unique lock screen features a ring and four customisable shortcuts. Dragging the ring to the centre unlocks the phone, and you can also drag the shortcuts into the ring to access their corresponding apps quickly.


Review: HTC Sensation





The homescreen contains a typical HTC watch and other widgets. Swiping through its seven panes never gets boring, thanks to the super-smooth scrolling and plenty of eye candy. An overview mode can be activated using the pinch-to-zoom-out gesture or by tapping the Home key. Out of the numerous widgets, the company's Weather widget deserves a special mention for its excellent animation and level of integration. It not only simulates the weather condition on the screen in real-time, but also gives it depth with sound effects.


Review: HTC Sensation





The notification bar doubles up as a task switcher. Moreover, it's tabbed and enables you to access frequently used features without having to go through the menu. Also present is a task manager that comes in handy if you prefer not to have several apps running in the background.

The onboard browser features a minimalistic interface, which helps utilise the entire screen for the web page. It can play 720p YouTube videos without any problems, but 1080p videos play like a slide show.

The GPS receiver didn't lock onto any satellites for about 30 minutes, until I ran out of patience and turned on the A-GPS (Assisted GPS).

The device can handle all the latest games without any problem. However, I found the loading time to be more than that of the GS2.


Review: HTC Sensation


Gangstar: Miami Vindication in action.



All in all, the phone handles multitasking with ease, and manages to remain snappy all the time. Moreover, Sense 3.0 is simply the best looking customisation I've ever seen on any Android. It's also one of the few phones that can challenge the iOS's beauty.


Multimedia
The music player features a neat interface and is easy to navigate. You can jump to the next or previous track simply by using a swipe gesture.

Sound quality through the earphones is excellent, which can be enhanced further by activating the SRS effect. Additionally, there are plenty of equalisers too. FM radio is present; it features a simple interface and also supports RDS (Radio Data System), which allows you to receive extra information such as the song title, artiste, etc. Currently, it is supported by stations such as Radio Mirchi in Mumbai.


Review: HTC Sensation





Like many Androids, this phone doesn't have a dedicated video player. However, clips can be played directly through the gallery. SRS enhancement is available, but there's no support for subtitles. It can handle 720p short clips without a problem. However, it cannot play movie-length 720p videos. Third-party apps solve this problem to some extent, but the frame rate remains unacceptable. Moreover, there is no support for MKV videos.

The device is DLNA-certified, which enables users to stream content to compatible TVs and music systems. It also features an MHL port that can be used to hook up HDTVs using an appropriate adapter.

Camera
The onboard 8 MP camera comes with a dual-LED flash. Its interface is simple yet efficient. It sports a zoom slider on the right side, while a virtual shutter, flash toggle, and other options can be found on the left side.


Review: HTC Sensation


The Camera UI.



The image quality is just ok by 8 MP standards. The snapper fails to capture details - this could be because of the noise reduction filter going overboard.


Review: HTC Sensation


Image sample.



The phone is capable of recording 1080p video at 30 fps. Unfortunately, these clips can only be saved in the 3GP format. Being able to shoot 1080p videos is good, but it's hardly any improvement over 720p recording. The resulting clips contain a reasonable amount of detail, and 30 fps minimises the jelly effect.


Telephony And Messaging
HTC's People app is your phonebook, and takes care of every detail from the landline number to the Facebook profile. It features multiple tabs for displaying All Contacts, Groups, and Call History.

The call quality and signal reception was very satisfactory throughout testing. Sound quality during the telecon was also good on both sides.

The phone displays messages in threaded fashion. While composing a message, you can copy and paste text. The portrait keypad is ordinary, but the landscape one has gone through some good customisation. Well-spaced keys and a relatively big 4.3" screen make it one of the best virtual keyboards seen on a mobile phone.


Review: HTC Sensation





The generic email client can handle multiple accounts. It differentiates each account with colour coding, which makes sorting of emails easy.

Battery
The 1520 mAh battery managed to keep the device up just for 5 hours under heavy use. Then again, this is true for every dual-core Android. Hence, considering the screen size and CPU power, you can't really blame the poor battery.

Verdict
The Sensation is HTC's answer to Samsung's flagship GS2. Quality-wise, this phone scores over its rival. Moreover, TouchWiz stands no chance against the Sense 3.0 UI.
On the other hand, its video player is not up to the mark. In terms of raw power, I found the GS2 handled complex games with more ease, thanks to the GS2's superior Mali 400MP GPU.

Thus, it boils down to a matter of personal preference. If you want a well-built phone with a beautiful interface, get the Sensation. Those interested in raw power and running benchmarks should take Samsung's route.

Features: 5/5
Design And Build Quality: 4.5/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Value For Money: 4/5
Mojo: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

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Discussion Board
(10) Comments
Raghu
,Kolkata, on Sep 27, 2011 10:41 PM
Hi Chandrakanth.. I was actually hoping to see the review of HTC Sensation XE. I think with its 1.5 Ghz. Dual Core Processor, sound enhancements due to Beats Audio and a bigger battery it would definitely be a contender for the best smartphone in the market.
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varun
,mumbai, on Sep 28, 2011 05:37 PM
it will not come in india ...
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Groovy
,Hoshiarpur, on Sep 28, 2011 05:42 PM
The Sensation appears to have the following flaws - 1. Weak GPS link (takes pretty long to get a lock). 2. Poor sound output of the speakers for both incall audio and music. 3. Very little inbuilt memory (1.1GB only). With such little storage, the user tends to store the programs on the storage card (8 GB included) but this is quite slow as compared to inbuilt memory (as on SGS2). Any comments or suggestions? Waiting for HTC to address these issues. (Heard that Sensation XE comes with 16GB inbuilt memory)
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Sreekanth
,Mysore, on Sep 28, 2011 01:49 AM
I too have the same toy as that in the "Image sample." :). I bought it for Rs. 150/- I know I paid high but how much did TT pay for it? 1. I have to say that this is one of very few reviews which definitely sorts out the confusion of buying Samsung GS2 or HTC Sensation. Definitely HTC scores in the build quality. 2. <<but 1080p videos play like a slide show>> But what can be it attributed to? I believe there is something that the screen resolution is doing some damage there! A total pixel count of 5,18,400 - Some down-scaling is definitely needed when an 1080p is supplied as this is the native resolution. And I also suspect if there is something that the GPU/CPU doing any damage?? And I noticed from the same review written by CK that the Samsung GS2 played well the 1080p videos <<The player even handles full-HD videos with ease>>. So that proves chances are high that the relatively inferior screen resolution of GS2 is also not the reason. So, may be the CPU/GPU seems to be playing a very vital role here. What do you think folks? 3. The PPI of Sensation is far superior than the GS2. So, all and all the review is right in the judgement that if you want a better performance then go for Galaxy 2, but given a choice my selection would be HTC Sensation for its aluminium styled and solid body, Sense UI, and Better resolution.
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Chandrakant Isi
,TechTree, on Sep 29, 2011 12:53 PM
I bought it for Rs 60, and would have probably bought 3 for Rs 150 :) Regarding the video playback, I feel it has got to do with the GPU rather than the pixel density of the screen.
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SOURAV TARAFDAR
,ASANSOL, on Sep 28, 2011 05:45 PM
It's an awesome phone.it got so many features that it might take some days to know all the features.i am using right now SAMSUNG WAVE 2.But i will always want to use HTC SENSATION MOBILE PHONES.The most amazing fact about that till now it haden't launch a keypad phone but only touch screen phone.Its amazing to have a HTC MOBILE PHONES.
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CookieMonster
,Bangalore, on Sep 26, 2011 08:52 PM
1.2 Ghz Snapdragon CPU < 1Ghz Cortex A9 used in tegra 2 <1.2Ghz Cortex A9 in SGS II This dual core cpu is based on an old architecture with an old GPU. Can't really hold a candle to the tegra 2 / exynos processors. All dual core CPU's are not created equal!!
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Dre
,chicago, on Sep 27, 2011 08:05 PM
All of what you've said is irrelevant if there is no significant noticeable difference in real world testing. Performance is the only thing that matters.
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MaxCool
,Mumbai, on Sep 26, 2011 08:22 PM
Hi Chandrakant I would like to know how do u download Gameloft games by Credit Card or is there any other payment option available through any carrier eg.Airtel,Vodafone,Mtnl etc .
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Rajat
,Delhi, on Sep 26, 2011 07:54 PM
Very nice review. Only thing I was disappointed to know was lack of support for mkv and 720p files. :(
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