HTC Sensation review
First things first, there are going to be a lot of comparisons in here (for obvious reasons) to the Galaxy S II. I know this the Sensation thread so I'll try and keep the focus on that and not the Galaxy.
I know there are lots of reviews and comparisons out there but I think I may pick up on a few points that they missed. I'll also mention here that it comes with an 8GB MicroSD card pre-installed.
Build quality & design
The Sensation is a lovely feeling phone, make no mistake about it. After careful consideration of how to describe it, I'd say that its construction is pretty much the iPhone 4 of Android phones. It feels very good in the hand, not only that, but it feels much smaller than it actually is in a strange way, it's very well designed. It feels much more like you are holding a Desire than a Desire HD for example.
The Desire HD had a few small design niggles, the power button on the top was completely flush with the chassis, which meant you couldn't feel it very easily and made it awkward to press if you were using the phone one handed. Thankfully HTC have changed this and the Sensation has a proper power button that sticks out a bit and feels very sturdy to press, it has a satisfying 'click' (feel, not sound).
The Galaxy S II in comparison is still a very well built phone, though I fear I may have given it a little bit too much credit previously. It is absolutely solid and to me it feels good, but it does have a slightly more square shape compared to the Sensation and is definitely not as nice to hold. The Sensation (having now got one and not trying the security wired one in the shops) is very, very nicely made. Its like the Desire HD and Desire combined, and ergonomically the Desire was pretty much spot on. The volume buttons also have a 'click feel' to them now as well, something else the Desire HD lacked.
The charging port as I'm sure you all know, is mounted on the side, which is probably going to mean using the phone with car docks may be a pain, but I'm sure Brodit or someone will make one so the phone slides in sideways or something. The camera lense is recessed too, so you won't scratch it.
The capacitive buttons all work well here and the glass of the screen almost feels soft and I'm sure a lot of people will like having a dedicated search button (although long pressing the menu button does the same thing on the Galaxy S II).
Onto the notification LED, sadly, it isn't that good. It is positioned behind the earpiece grill and if the phone is flat you can't see it very well. However you should still notice it, especially in a darker room. If you are sat up at your desk and are 'over' your phone or if it is in a holder, you'll see it very easily.
The loudspeaker is a lot louder than the one on the Desire HD but slightly quieter than the Galaxy S II. It is perfectly acceptable though so you should have no concerns there.
Screen
I very, very much like the screen. I really like AMOLED screens but I find web browsing on them can be a bit of a chore on some sites due to small text being a pain to see or if you can see it, it can be a bit too sharp and distorted. SAMOLED+ improved on this over the original SAMOLED but the problem is still there.
The qHD LCD on the Sensation is much easier on the eyes (unless you have it on max brightness, which is VERY bright). Obviously blacks are grey and the colours don't pop as much, but the slightly higher resolution and crispness is very nice on the Sensation.
The contoured glass (like the Nexus S) is very nice, it has a premium quality about it and looks the part -
The automatic brightness switching is more seamless here, you tend to notice it juddering a tiny bit on the Galaxy S II and some other phones. The only thing really letting the qHD down are the viewing angles, they are as poor as you would expect from an LCD, nothing new there. Head-on though, everything looks great and thats how you use it most of the time, right?
Software
It's here that (as you would expect) everything is firmly in the Sensation's favour. I have heard some negative points about Sense 3.0 but in all honesty, it blows TouchWiz out of the water. Functionally, they are the same apart from widgets, but its like comparing a Vauxhall to an Aston Martin.
The new lock screen 'ring' is a super design. It basically gives you 4 optional shortcuts and then a circle below them. You can drag the circle up to unlock the phone or drag a shortcut into the circle to instantly launch that application. It sounds fairly run of the mill as custom lockscreens have it, but it looks and works superbly, it is very fluid and extremely responsive.
It also can display things like the weather and pictures by default on the lock screen, and if you have a message or missed call the entire thing is displayed on there, it really is useful. The TouchWiz lock screen in comparison is a total car crash.
On the whole, Android runs smoothly on the Sensation. There is the odd juddery moment but nothing really of note. Sense 3.0 is very animation heavy with the carousel homescreens but it doesn't seem over the top and the way it all spins into focus when you unlock it is very nice indeed.
Other than the control widgets in the notification tray and a handful of other neat touches, HTC Sense is still HTC Sense, but much improved. The new messaging software is really nice and the new layout is a very nice design, comparatively, the TouchWiz one looks dreadful, the same goes for the phone software.
I'd say the Galaxy S II is marginally more responsive in general but its close.
Browser, GPS and media performance
The Sensation browser seems to load things roughly 1-3 seconds slower or faster than the Galaxy S II. Some things load a tiny bit faster and others are slower, but all in all there isn't much in it. Both phones handle Flash in the browser with ease. The Samsung's hardware accelerated scrolling is definitely smoother but there isn't a huge difference here. I believe this is down to the higher pixel count on the Sensation screen (which benefits many web pages) so it is to be expected that its a tad slower.
Media playback is smooth and fairly similar on both, nothing much to note there.
The GPS locks as fast as the GPS on the Galaxy S II (so near on instantly), no worries there.
Camera & Video
I haven't got any great comparison sample shots unfortunately but I'll give you my current opinion and get some proper ones over the weekend.
The cameras are fairly evenly matched, one isn't clearly better than the other however the Samsung does perform slightly better in low light. The 1080p video is surprisingly good however it doesn't have continuous autofocus so you have to touch the screen to get it to refocus, not a big deal really but some people may prefer the Galaxy S II method. There are strong suggestions online that the Sensation HD video actually outperforms the Galaxy S II but I'll have to verify that for myself. All-in-all, you can't easily seperate them so this shouldn't have too much of an impact either way.
Battery life
Having only had the phone since this morning I can't give anything too accurate here, however, its currently running down a full charge from earlier with a rough standby rate of just under 1% per hour, so that is more than acceptable. I'll post more on this in future but it looks more promising than some places have suggested.
Death Grip
There are lots of videos out showing this 'device crippling' problem, but I think they are being grossly over-exaggerated, I can only get the wifi or mobile signal to lower if it is very weak in the first place and that is by totally covering the phone. This is something that nearly all phones have issues with. Putting it flat on your palm will not do anything like totally cripple your wifi, unless maybe you are right at the very edge of the wireless range, like at the end of your garden.
You really shouldn't worry about this, I'm not sure what is going on with several tech blogs condemning it but it doesn't seem to be a problem for me.
Conclusion
Apple said at WWDC this week that the software is the 'soul' of a device. Well, they're right. HTC Sense is much more pleasant to use than TouchWiz, which (as I actually said in my Galaxy S II mini review) feels very tacky and some of the colour schemes are just bizarre. I genuinely believe that for all the small hardware shortcomings the Sensation has, this just about makes up for it.
Anyway, I'll expand on this with more detail for things like camera/video in future but that gives you a rundown of my initial thoughts. As I said in an earlier post, I am having to eat my words a little bit because this isn't a bad phone at all, infact, its right up there with the Galaxy S II and for the general public I think nine times out of ten people would ignore small hardware issues and always opt for HTC Sense, it's that good.
If there is anything specific you would like me to test, please ask.
And to quote Paul O'Brien on Twitter (the Modaco founder) -
Inclined to think SGSII = nerds phone and Sensation = normal persons phone. Except I like the Sensation a lot and i'm not normal.
http://twitter.com/#!/PaulOBrien/status/79283142028034048
I agree.
