The original HTC Sensation was a very good phone which was received generally well by the public. Now HTC is aiming to up the ante with a souped up version of the Sensation, aimed to target audiophiles thanks to the inclusions of Beats by Dr. Dre software enhancements and the included Monster iBeats earphones along with a few other changes.
The HTC Sensation XE is the first product of the HTC – Beats partnership followed by the HTC Sensation XL which we also have present in the office (review will be up in a few days). Check out how the HTC Sensation XE performed in our review below.
Unboxing
Box
The HTC Sensation XE comes in a big white box (the black XE comes with a black box) with a slide-able cover. You’ll see the phone packaged carefully in the middle while opening the box. Under the phone you can find the charger, iBeats earphones and microUSB cable packed inside corn starch bags. The box also includes a pouch to house your beats, some extra tips, instruction manuals and relevant warranty information.
Specifications
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 4.3″ 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of qHD resolution (540 x 960 pixels) with Gorilla glass
- Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.0
- 1.5 GHz dual Scorpion CPUs, Adreno 220 GPU and Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 chipset
- 768 MB RAM with 1 GB of internal app storage
- Beats audio enhancement and premium Monster iBeats earphones included in box
- 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, face detection and geotagging
- 1080p and 720p video recording at 30fps
- Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- microSD slot with memory expandable to 32GB (16 GB card included)
- Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensor
- Front facing camera for video calls
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB MHL port
- Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- 1730 mAh battery
Hardware
Hardware wise the HTC Sensation XE is pretty much the same as the HTC Sensation. The phone runs on a 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Scorpion processor (same as the OG sensation but overclocked by an extra 300 MHz), Adreno 220 GPU, 768MB of RAM and 1GB of internal storage for apps. You can expand the storage to an extra 32GB with a microSD card but HTC was nice enough to include a 16GB card in the box.
The screen is a 4.3-inch Super LCD display running at qHD (540 x 960) resolution. As other Super LCD displays, the Sensation XE’s screen offers decent viewing angles and realistic colors (unlike the contrast heavy AMOLEDs) but I did notice a bit of ghosting while scrolling through the menus. It might not be a big issue for some but it can cause hindrance viewing lists on a black background. There’s also another issue with the screen you should look out for – dust beneath the screen. Make sure your unit doesn’t have any dust below the screen, if it doesn’t, be extra careful and invest in a good screen protector.
The Sensation XE supports Quad-band GSM networks and can access 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA networks effectively. Unfortunately just like the Sensation, some units of the Sensation XE can suffer from the widespread deathgrip issue although not to the same extent as the original. People have been reporting losing a few bars when holding the phone in landscape mode or by the sides, we’ve tried it on our unit and we lost one WiFi and signal bar.
The camera on the Sensation XE is an 8MP sensor which takes great photos especially in Macro mode, thanks mainly to the awesome included software. Using the camera is idiot proof, even a kid could take brilliant pictures thanks to the simple UI and intelligent scene detection. The camera can also record video up to 1080p at 30fps. The video quality was decent but the mic on the other hand is plain awful. Some samples are later in the review.
Other standard components are also present including WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, microUSB MHL port and 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s also an accelerometer, proximity, ambient light sensor, GPS and FM radio.
Design
Looks wise there isn’t any difference between the OG and XE Sensations except for the color scheme. The XE measures in at 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3 mm and weighs 151g. The HTC Sensation XE is available in both Black and White, we of course have the white version The phone feels good in the hand and provides a good grip with it’s rubbery back.
The phone is not exactly unibody but it’s almost there with the back wrapping around the body. The face of the phone has the S-LCD screen running at qHD resolution with the red accented earpiece on top. Left to the earpiece are the proximity and ambient light sensors and there’s also a VGA camera to the left. There’s also a small notifications LED just below the earpiece. Below the screen are the four standard Android capacitive buttons namely the home, menu, back and search buttons.
On the left side of the Sensation XL we have the volume rocker and MHL USB port (usable as an HDMI connection through MHL cable) while there’s nothing on the right. On the top there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack and power button while we have a micropiece and a latch to remove the back on the bottom. On the back of the phone we have the 8MP camera with dual LED flash on the top with a speaker to the right and an aluminum strip with HTC engraved in the middle.
When you remove the back of the phone you lose all signal connectivity since it houses the antenna of the phone, this might be a nuisance for some. Now when you remove the aforementioned back cover you immediately spot the microSD card slot and battery, removing the battery shows you the SIM card slot. The 1730 mAh battery lasted us just over a day on heavy usage which is not bad at all.
Software
The HTC Sensation XE runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread out of the box with HTC proprietary Sense 3.0 UI on top. Lets be honest here, Sense is very heavy on the resources and one of the main problems on the original Sensation was that it couldn’t keep up, HTC has with the XE bumped up the processor by 300 MHz which makes the experience somewhat bearable. We would have preferred if HTC had bundled the XE with Sense 3.5 as they have done with the Rhyme and Explorer. Overall my experience with the XE performance wise was pretty okay, Sense lagged but not to the same extent as the OG Sensation.
Beats by Dr. Dre is also worth a mention here, the software should not be your main reason to buy the phone but it certainly makes the hearing experience better. Coupled with the included iBeats earphones the Sensation XE is one of the best sounding devices on the market but do note that the Dr. Dre drivers only work with Beats products and this does not include the in built speaker.
Camera Samples
Video Sample
Performance
As I mentioned before the HTC Sensation has a 1.5 GHz dual core processor by Qualcomm but as we know Megahertz don’t really infect real life performance and that is certainly the case here. The processor just can’t keep up with Sense 3.0 so expect some lag. Benchmark wise it scored 10,076 in CF-Bench which is less than the Samsung Galaxy S2 which has a 1.2 GHz Exynos processor. The XE scored 4255 in AnTuTu, 2.52 seconds (67 MFLOPS) and 1.71 (49 MFLOPS) in Linpack and 2287 in Quadrant.
Overall
The HTC Sensation XE is a very good phone minus the bloated skin, HTC has done the right thing by releasing this phone but not overdoing it since that would make their previous flagship – the OG Sensation obsolete after just 6 months in the market. The HTC Sensation XE is one of the top Droids in the market right now and with Beats technology out of the box, should be one of the top choices for audiophiles.
TechDeville gives the HTC Sensation XE 3 out of 5 stars.
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