The HTC Sensation is the company’s latest ‘multimedia superphone’ but you’d be forgiven for being underwhelmed at first.
The 4.3in, 960 x 640 screen is striking, but the chassis lacks the premium feel of rivals.
Things get much more exciting in action. The animated, colourful screen looks great: scroll to the left and right and you’ll find seven pages of customisable content.
Rent movies on your phone
The HTC Sense interface is rapid. The 1.2 GHz dual core processor clearly plays its part, making for a smooth experience when it comes to navigating the phone’s features.
And they’re myriad. You’ll find front and back cameras (and you can shoot HD video), 1GB memory expandable by SD card, the Android Market for apps such as Spotify and iPlayer, Flash web browsing, DLNA streaming and HTC Watch, a movie rental service.
With prices from £2.49 to £4.49 to rent, or closer to £9.99 to buy (which seems expensive), it’s a great perk and something that rival Android handsets don’t offer.
Struggles with video
That said, the video quality (it supports the most popular formats) of the Sensation could be better. It struggles to find detail in dark scenes and edges are drawn more sharply by rival handsets. We think the comparatively huge, 16:9 screen could be put to better use.
Sonically it’s in much better shape, (though there’s no FLAC, WAV or lossless file support), sounding lively, detailed and clear, if lacking the weight and bass presence of the best handsets we’ve heard.
We like this new HTC but it’s not quite the Sensation we hoped it might be.
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