HTC Sensation - a mixed sensation [Review]

At Rs. 30,700, the Sensation is a good handset, but it's plagued with a few niggles that detract from the overall feel of using a flagship device. What we really love is the initiative from HTC to include a higher resolution display that many manufacturers have not done. However, this alone doesn't sell a phone and the Sensation has a very strong competitor in the Samsung Galaxy S2, that display resolution and interface aside, is a better overall product.

Pros

    * Good overall build quality
    * High resolution display is killer for text and browsing
    * Packed to the gills with features
    * Dual core processor makes it quite snappy while future proofing


Cons

    * Display should have had a better blackness level and contrast
    * Battery life is lower than we expected
    * The antenna is weak, and the Sensation tends to lose signal easily
    * It feels solid, but some parts of the build seem sloppy







Performance: Fast but far from perfect

How does the Sensation feel? It's fast, as one might expect with a dual core 1.2 GHz processor and 768 MB of RAM. However, having fast innards does not guarantee great all-round performance and the Sensation was about to prove this point. For one, the ringer volume is a little on the weak side. Sure it's adequate for those times when the phone is close by, but compare it to the Galaxy S2, and the Sensation falls flat. The loudspeaker is also extremely directional and squeaky. It is similar to the speaker on the Desire HD. Coming to earpiece volume, the Sensation is quite loud and audible unless the speaker is in a noisy environment, or you are. The handsfree unit is quite decent - less bass, but a decent mid-range and good vocals, and it is also quite clear and loud on calls.

The 8MP clicker with dual LED flash is quite frankly a disappointment. It's not bad, don't get me wrong, it's just that the camera component has stagnated from the Desire HD days. It's no better, and in lower light might be a little worse with a bit more smearing of textures and colour. The flash is reasonably powerful, but nowhere near the illumination of a Xenon unit. And the camera has a bit of lag - not shutter lag as much as lag in the display when panning around. Videos are decent, but not up to the Galaxy S2. And that worthy's camera had no lag whatsoever.

Coming to call clarity and our signal tests, please also read the section directly below this. The Sensation has a weakish antenna. Sadly, this fact was slowly discovered a couple of days after using the phone, as the problem was not immediately apparent. It wasn't as if calls disconnected or voice quality and volume levels differed. Voices at times take on a slightly mechanical tone, but this could be attributed to a sudden signal dip or disturbance of some other sort. When it happened for 2-3 days repeatedly it could be attributed to the phone. Note that this is not a serious issue, as voice clarity is not affected, just the tone, and this problem is sporadic, not omnipresent.

However, while travelling in the Delhi metro for example, the signal got cut at least twice as many times as it did on the same route with the Galaxy S2, and this testing was done two days running to ensure it wasn't an unlucky fluke. The Nokia E72 disconnected thrice, over a stretch of 19 kms or so, while the Galaxy S2 disconnected 5 times. The Sensation disconnected at least 10 times. While there is no hard evidence that this wasn't a network issue, I tend to feel it is the antenna in the phone. To put this into perspective, the Sensation doesn't have a very weak GSM antenna, and we've seen poorer phones, but for a phone in this price segment, this has to be one of the poorer performers in this aspect.

Battery life is decent, but not great. We'd place it at around 15-20 % worse than the Galaxy S2 that would die within a day with heavy usage. It seems with touchscreen phones and faster processors we're resigned to having poor battery life, so we're trying not to complain.

Problems: Trouble in paradise

So I'm enjoying myself browsing using Wi-Fi on the Sensation courtesy our office's 4 mbps line, and moving outside beyond Wi-Fi range for a quick break I suddenly discover to my dismay that the Sensation is not automatically switching to GSM-based Internet. In fact even turning both Wi-Fi and mobile networks on and off in succession did nothing, and I had to restart the phone. This happened only twice in the 4 days that I've been using the phone, but I felt this was worth reporting.


Good news - the Sensation doesn't suffer from the death grip. Bad news - I call it the stifling grip. Grip the Sensation around the top of the phone and Wi-Fi signal strength gets reduced by a bar. GSM antenna strength does not register a drop, but if you're in an area of weaker signal, your GSM Internet connection is likely to get disrupted. I said likely because I noticed this once or twice by pure accident, we don't try grabbing phones in different positions to kill their antennas, but maybe, just maybe given the recent crop of problems a "death grip" test should be included, what say?

Additionally, removing the back cover causes the Wi-Fi signal to die. This is because the Wi-Fi unit uses the battery cover as a part of the antenna. While this isn't a huge problem assuming you don't insist on using your phone without its battery cover, it is yet another one of those little nits we have to pick.
   

Our take

The Sensation is a nice phone. It's got a high-resolution display for text and browsing, a good keypad, and fast internals that make it reasonably future proof. However, it is not without fault, and while some are minor, others are a little more serious, and affect usability. After the testing and this review was done, we were mildly disappointed, probably in part because HTC has spoiled us with lots of good offerings in the past. Issues with signal reception, the psuedo-death grip, and battery that dies within a day with moderate to heavy usage are annoying issues and one that detract from the experience of using a flagship device. We wouldn't recommend the Sensation to people with the Galaxy S2 around, but if browsing is a major reason for you purchasing a phone, the Sensation has one of the best resolution displays in the business for that, and is better than the S2 in this regard. However, give the Galaxy S2 the Sensation's build quality and its display resolution, and it would be a killer device. Similarly, imbue the Sensation with the battery, AMOLED display, keypad and profile of the Galaxy S2, and it would be nigh unbeatable.

Specifications: Platform: Android 2.3; Display: 4.3-inch, S-LCD, 540 x 960 pixels; SoC: Qualcomm MSM8260 1.2 GHz dual core; Adreno 220 GPU; 768 MB RAM; 1 GB ROM; battery: 1520 mAh; weight: 148 grams