The HTC Sensation is part of HTC’s first wave of Beats powered Android smartphones to hit the market. Packing specs similar to the WP7 powered HTC Titan – the HTC Sensation XL is a phone primarily focused on the audiophile crowd. Packing a 4.7-inch display with a 800 x 480 resolution and a single core 1.5GHz processor – the HTC Sensation is no slouch but how does it perform in real life? Lets find out in our review below.
Unboxing
Box
The HTC Sensation unlike the Galaxy Note comes in quite a big box like most of the previous HTC smartphones we’ve review previously. The packaging is standard HTC, you slide off the top cover which reveals the box. Opening the box presents you with the phone and iBeats earphones packed inside a tray, removing which allows you to access the charger and USB cable along with the standard booklets and warranty information on the bottom of the box. The aforementioned iBeats earphones are the same as packaged with the recently reviewed Sensation XE and come with a nice pouch and multiple sized tips. There’s also an XL limited edition package available in selected shops for a limited period of time which replace the iBeats earphones with the Beats Solo headphones for the same price.
Specifications
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 4.7″ 16M-color capacitive S-LCD touchscreen running at WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
- Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.5 UI
- 1.5 GHz single Scorpion CPU with Adreno 205 GPU onboard Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset
- 768 MB of RAM with 16 GB of onboard storage
- 8 MP autofocus camera with dual-LED flash; face detection, geotagging, HDR mode, image autoupload and a 1.3MP front facing camera
- 720p video recording @ 30fps, slo-mo videos (2x at WVGA)
- Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
Hardware
The HTC Sensation XL is meant for the mid range market so don’t expect any crazy hardware. The XL supports all four bands of GSM and both 3G bands, it’s unfortunately not available in CDMA as of writing. It supports HSPDA and HSUPA for blazing fast connectivity as long as your carrier has the service available. The 4.7-inch S-LCD display is very good for watching movies, playing games, web browsing and reading books but the low WVGA resolution might be annoying for a few people. Like the previously reviewed HTC Sensation XE, the Sensation XL too suffers from some ghosting but you can only notice it on black backgrounds. The screen’s resolution is pretty low for the screen equaling to just 199ppi, text is pretty much impossible to read if you zoom all the way out which totally nullifies the main advantage of having the bigger screen size. A 720p resolution on the XL would have been amazing.
The Sensation XL runs on a pretty fast 1.5GHz Scorpion processor which offers very good performance and makes you never feel the need of a dual core. The Adreno 205 GPU is not fast as the Galaxy S II’s Mali or NVIDIA’s Tegra series but it gets the job done. There’s a total of 768MB of RAM on the XL which is pretty standard for HTC phones, we would have preferred 1GB instead to help cope with the heavy skin that is HTC Sense but 768MB gets the job done and won’t bug you much unless you multitask more than 10 apps at a time.
The camera on the XL is an 8MP shooter which takes excellent pictures and records in 720p resolution at 30 frames per second. You have to hand it to HTC, they’ve really improved their cameras over the years. Video quality is pretty good but the Mic is of bad quality due to which the sound crackles a lot. There’s also a front facing 1.3MP camera for video calls and self shots.
Other standard components include WiFi b/g/n, GPS, FM Radio, Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, a standard 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port for charging and data transfer along with Bluetooth 3.0.
Design
First time holding the HTC Sensation was kind of awkward, it looked huge in press photos just like the Titan but in real life it’s not much bigger than a standard 4.3-inch smartphone. Measuring in at 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9 mm the Sensation XL is just slightly bigger than a Galaxy S II. Weighing in at 162.5g, it’s kind of heavy but with the extra weight comes the sturdy aluminum build. So in short, don’t be worried by XL tag that comes with the phone as it’s size is pretty average at best.
The HTC Sensation XL is a noticeably cleaner phone as compared to the Sensation XE which is made of a mix of materials. The aluminum build of the back which wraps around the phone gives the Sensation XL a very premium finish. Front of the phone houses the screen in the middle, the four capacitive buttons on the bottom and the 1.3MP front facing camera, proximity and ambient sensors along with a notification LED on the top. Right side of the XL houses volume rocker while the left side holds just the microUSB connector, unfortunately there is no dedicated camera button to compliment the excellent 8MP shooter on the back.
Top of the Sensation XL houses the 3.5mm headphone jack, power button and a secondary microphone for noise cancellation which works brilliantly. Bottom of the phone houses the primary microphone and the back cover latch. Back of the phone houses the 8MP camera with dual LED flash and a loudspeaker. The back cover wraps around the phone just like the Sensation XE, there are ribs on the back of the cover to ensure there’s no space between the phone’s internals and the aforementioned cover. The plastic bottom houses the wireless antennas which are suppose to reduce the widespread deathgrip issue present in the iPhone 4 and recent HTC handsets including the Sensation and Sensation XE (not to the same extent though).
The battery included with the Sensation XL is a 1600 mAh unit which is smaller than the XE’s 1730 mAh battery but the latter powers a dual core processor as compared to the XL’s single core. The battery lasted us just over 1.5 days with average use and almost a day with heavy usage which is pretty decent for a phone with a 4.7-inch screen.
Software
The HTC Sensation XL comes with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with HTC’s Sense 3.5 UI on top which is a big improvement over Sense 3.0. In case you didn’t know the original Sensation came with Sense 3.0 and suffered major performance issues, users were forced to install ROMs with either the older Sense UI or without Sense altogether for a more stock look. Overall we’re very much satisfied with Sense 3.5 and can’t wait to see what Sense 4.0 on ICS has in store for us.
Camera Samples
Overall
The HTC Sensation XL is a great Android handset, packing great multimedia capabilities thanks to it’s 4.7-inch S-LCD display and included iBeats earphones. The low resolution of the screen and just 16GB of onboard memory with no way to expand the storage kind of disappoints but alas the overall package is great.
TechDeville awards the HTC Sensation XL 3/5 stars.
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