The Sensation is HTC’s flagship smartphone and as such embodies the very best of what the company has to offer. It will be competing in the ultra high-end of the Android smartphone spectrum, going against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S II, LG Optimus 2x and Motorola Atrix. With an impressive specifications list, the phone seems to have the right weapons for the battle. Now let’s see how well it uses them.
The Good
The design is good, and so is the build. The phone looks premium and the materials have a high-quality feel to them. It makes the Galaxy S II feel like it was made using recycled plastic. The curved glass is a nice design touch and also protects itself when the phone is kept face down. It’s Gorilla glass, so it’s not like it’s going to get scratched anyway.
The Sensation is also relatively compact. For a phone with such a large display it doesn’t feel huge. In fact, it’s almost the same size as the Nexus S.
The qHD resolution is nice. Thankfully, HTC did not choose to simply increase the display size this time. For a 4.3-inch display, 540 x 960 resolution is more of a necessity than a luxury.
The new Sense UI is nice. When it is not being frivolous with superfluous animations and gloss, it turns out to be quite functional and convenient. The new lock screen in particular is very good as it lets you launch your favorite apps without having to unlock the phone first. We also liked the application menu, which scrolls page by page and has tabs for downloaded apps and most used apps. HTC’s Gallery app is also far better than the default one in Android.
The quality of the 1080p videos turned out to be pretty good. The camera is also quite fast while shooting stills, with the time from starting the camera to focusing to capturing the image being around 3.2 seconds.
The Bad
We feel disappointed to say this about a phone with a dual-core processor but Sensation feels sluggish. The LG Optimus Black we reviewed last week felt smoother. Heck, the two year-old iPhone 3GS feels smoother in comparison. All that powerful hardware makes itself useful in demanding games but otherwise the Sensation behaves like a middle-of-the-road Android smartphone. It may not be apparent in the video below but it is very much in real life. It’s a different thing if applications aren’t optimized for the dual-core hardware but we expected HTC to at least fine tune their UI to feel smooth.
Apart from the resolution the display is pretty average. The panel has poor viewing angles and changes color with just a slight tilt to their side. The image quality itself is underwhelming and to make it more appealing HTC has boosted the reds but that doesn’t always work out well. The display also has a low response time, which makes things look blurred when they are moving. This is most noticeable in Sense UI itself, particularly in the Gallery and Settings app. The Galaxy S II display, despite its lower resolution, feels miles ahead of the display on the Sensation, with stunning colors and contrast.
It’s not a unibody design. If you saw HTC’s previous phones with a unibody design such as the Legend or the Mozart, you’d notice that the metal went all around the device. That’s how unibody design should be, with one large piece acting as a frame for the rest of the hardware. The Sensation uses a large battery cover that comes out completely and becomes separate from the body. The battery cover is made from metal and uses cut-outs for the plastic antennas. But the fact that it is separate doesn’t make the phone unibody, just the cover.
Average still camera. The images are noisy, the edges are over-sharpened and the details aren’t impressive. The colors are the only thing that’s good. Also, in low-light, focusing is an issue as the phone does not use the flash while focusing.
No continuous auto-focus in video. It focuses once before starting but not while recording.
The Sensation continues HTC’s tradition of shipping with poor loudspeakers. It just feels wrong to call it loudspeaker as being loud is the last thing it does. The sound quality is comparable to the iPod touch speaker than anything else.
We had issues with video playback. Standard definition AVI files stuttered while playing while HD versions didn’t play at all. MP4 worked fine in all resolutions, including 1080p but only for short clips. When we tried full movies they didn’t play properly. Lack of support for Dolby and DTS surround meant files with such audio had no sound. Also, no luck with MKV and MOV files of any resolution.
The death grip issue is very real and very serious. All it takes is a light touch to the plastic portion near the top on the back cover and the Wi-Fi signal goes down. If you are in good coverage area, the phone will remain connected but otherwise the phone will lose the connection. This makes using the phone in landscape mode with both hands impossible unless you use some kind of a case. And for those saying this issue is only present in handsets with two contacts in the battery cover and not those with three, our handset had three contacts.
It’s expensive, that much would be apparent to anybody. But unlike the Galaxy S II, it’s also poor value. Why should anyone pay Rs. 29,899 for a phone that feels sluggish, has an average display, pathetic loudspeaker for a multimedia phone and connectivity issues?
Verdict
The HTC Sensation feels like a half-baked product. Not only does it fail to perform on par with phones in it class, it is outclassed by cheaper devices like the Nexus S or the iPhone 3GS. While these devices don’t have the lengthy spec-sheet of the Sensation, they offer a better user experience without costing a bomb. As such we would suggest you avoid the Sensation. If you must have a high-end Android device, it’s best to go with the Galaxy S II for now.
Video Demo:
