HTC Sensation 4G Review - A Sensational Smartphone
by Brian Klug on July 1, 2011 12:38 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Android
- Mobile
- HTC Sensation
- MSM8260
Connectivity - WiFi and Cellular
The Sensation includes 802.11b/g/n WiFi and uses a Broadcom WLAN stack (likely the ever-popular BCM4329 yet again), I saw it connect at 72 Mbps just like I’m used to seeing for single spatial stream smartphones running 802.11n. Actual WiFi range is good, and largely on par with the iPhone 4 and other devices widely accepted as being decent. I watched Sensation RSSI hover around plus or minus 1 or 2 dBm from an iPhone 4 throughout my house connected to an 802.11n AP.
What’s odd about the Sensation is that to get those numbers required holding the phone portrait. The Sensation doesn’t appear to have a very isotropic antenna, as holding it screen-up yielded less signal than if I held the Sensation with the display facing me.
Before (left) and after (right) having the top portion cupped in the hand - note RSSI changes by 15 dB.
Back with the Desire HD, there was some outcry about the device having its own form of deathgrip, thanks in part to the WLAN antenna being integrated into the battery door and surrounded by metal. Things have improved somewhat with the Sensation, but you can still drop 15 dB by cupping the top plastic area where the WLAN antennas are patterned.
Throughput is likewise decent in our 100+ MB PDF local download test, though it isn’t as super as some other phones of late.
Cellular connectivity on the Sensation is courtesy of the MSM8260’s onboard baseband, which is HSPA+ capable and supports HSDPA 14.4 / HSUPA 5.76 on 900 / 1700 / 2100. There’s quad-band GSM/EDGE support for 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 as well. Remember that the x in MSM8x60 denotes which mode is present - 2 for single mode UMTS, 6 for multi mode UMTS and CDMA. The baseband on the MSM8260 is effectively the same modem as what was in MSM8255.
I ran 249 tests on the Sensation connected to T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. On the Sensation, that shows up with a big bold “4G” logo. When you’ve fallen back to EDGE you get a sans-bold “2G,” and on GPRS just a G. I don’t think there’s much of an argument to be made for HSPA being “4G” until most of the carrier is running dual carrier HSPA or MIMO. Even then, without much faster backhaul and compatible phones, things aren’t going to change much. T-Mobile’s coverage isn’t exactly perfect in my area, but I ran tests whenever I saw HSPA in both Tucson and Phoenix Arizona, and Los Angeles California. Those are all HSPA+ enabled markets, and since the Sensation isn’t a 64QAM device it isn’t like things were faster in one than the other.
There’s a clustering of results at the bottom between 0.5 and 3 Mbps, but there are impressive tests going all the way up to just shy of 10 Mbps. I’ve seen just over 11 Mbps tethered and parked within close line of sight to a T-Mobile cell site. When signal is good, T-Mobile will get you an awesome occasional 9-10 Mbps. When you’re not within line of sight to the tower, (in average coverage), you’ll get that 1-2 Mbps or so. Keep in mind, this is when you’re actually connected to HSPA+ — I did spend considerable time just stuck on EDGE in parts of some markets, and likewise in the wrong parts of town and my house. T-Mobile seems to be pushing the adoption of higher and higher HSDPA and HSUPA categories on its network, including moving to higher order modulation and dual carrier, which deserves applause, but at the same time more cell sites seem a necessity.
The most sensitive cellular region on the Sensation seems to be at the bottom of the back case, which is what we’re used to almost always seeing for smartphones because of how the FCC tests. In addition, the Sensation seems to have Rx diversity, with one antenna up in the top plastic region, one at the bottom. The good bits of the FCC reports are still locked down until around October, but there honestly aren’t too many question marks to fill in with regards to the Sensation.
| Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB - Lower is Better | ||||||||
| Cupping Tightly | Holding Naturally | Holding in Case | On an Open Palm | |||||
| HTC Sensation | 15.0 | 10.0 | 8.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| Samsung Droid Charge | 10.0 | 10.0 | 5.0 | 0.0 | ||||
| HTC Thunderbolt - LTE | 5.3 | 2.5 | - | 4.4 | ||||
| HTC THunderbolt - EVDO | 6.5 | 0.8 | - | 7.2 | ||||
| Verizon iPhone 4 | 16.5 | 15.5 | 9.0 | 7.9 | ||||
| LG Optimus 2X | 13.7 | 9.3 | - | 5.9 | ||||
| Nexus S | 13.3 | 6.1 | - | 4.3 | ||||
| Droid 2 | 11.5 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| BlackBerry Torch | 15.9 | 7.1 | - | 3.7 | ||||
| Dell Streak | 14.0 | 8.7 | - | 4.0 | ||||
| Droid X | 15.0 | 5.1 | - | 4.5 | ||||
| AT&T iPhone 4 | 24.6 | 19.8 | 7.2 | 9.2 | ||||
| iPhone 3GS | 14.3 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 0.2 | ||||
| HTC Nexus One | 17.7 | 10.7 | 7.7 | 6.7 | ||||
Attenuation from holding the phone isn’t a big deal with the Sensation. If anything, I think HTC is due for some well-deserved kudos for trying something different with its latest crop of antenna designs. I’m impressed with how the Desire HD maintained a metal package and hid antennas in plastic RF windows that double as covers, and the Sensation is even more interesting with them being built into the two plastic triangles which snap into the back cover. Of course, if you take the metal exoskeleton off, you lose all signal, but that’s to be expected. I’ve actually taken the cover completely off sometimes and seen EDGE hang on.
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leexgx - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
but is not 800-900MB not enough space thought with an 8-16-32 SD card as well (i be hard pushed to use 800MB of internal storage) samsung need all that space as they have there own app store that has 3-4 games that use a lot of space, most other phones have 800-900Mb free space nowadays, i guessing most samsung phones do the 2gb/6gb split with 8gb internal spaceif you was talking about cheaper phones like the HTC desire or some random 1.6-2.1 OS phones with 500-800Mhz cpus (that are still been sold what's very lame as they are Crap) i would agree with you 110-50MB of space is not enough even with A2D (that's only on 2.2+ devices)
i agree with the sound of the load speaker seem to be lacking on 2 HTC phones i have seen
samsung need to fix there GPS issues there is Zero reason that GPS should be flaky at best (the jumping between to points every 1-2 seconds)
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i agree GPS should be tested and if the phone has less then 1gb internal storage it should be reported as it makes the phone have limited use
bubblesmoney - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
Having less internal memory on android phones is actually limitting the number of purchases on the android market. People like me would have probably bought almost all the games by gameloft and many other apps for work. But thats not possible now because of the crap apps 2internal memory policy on android and the equally crap stock app2sd move feature.The microsd cards are ok, but that does not replace the need for proper internal memory. I already have a couple of 4gb cards, a couple 16gb cards and a couple 32gb cards. Would have preffered a hot swappable card feature without needing to pull the batteries. But I guess the USB on the Go feature on the SGS2 is an alternative. My cards are mainly stuffed with office documents and presentations, teaching videos etc apart from a few songs. But still need good internal memory for apps (some games and other professional apps and loads of teaching apps for my child). Presently i am using one phone for me and another for apps for my child. If the internal memory was ok then i wouldnt need to keep switching between two phones depending on what app i want to use. Not everyone is interested in rooting and playing around with firmware. But the present internal memory hardware situation and crap app2sd stock situation doesnt leave one with much alternatives on android for people who need more internal memory.
ph00ny - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/864/sc2011070611392...As for GPS, i've done multiple tests including a tunnel pass and they've been spot on. Walking sessions showed the exact side of the road that i was on (google maps showed accuracy of ~10m) and during the tunnel test, it was able to get gps signal as soon as i was out of the tunnel.
dtomilson - Sunday, July 3, 2011 - link
Let's see some Mango chatter. Let's see a new and innovative mobile OS that has cool new features that no other OS does. Other blogs have raved about it, has Google paid you not to?kmmatney - Sunday, July 3, 2011 - link
I'm still waiting for a good real-life battery assessment for a phone. How long does the battery last if the phone is sitting around doing nothing? Can I squeeze 2 days out of it if I forget my charger on a short business trip? How much charge does it lose sitting on a nightstand overnight? I'm a current iPhone 3GS user, and can get up to 3 days of battery out of my phone if I need to. I have no idea if I can do that just by reading this review.JasonInofuentes - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
So, battery life assessments are really particular to the user and even down to what day it is. Let's cover your specific questions first.-Battery life sitting around doing nothing: Well, what good is the phone to you if you're not doing anything with it? And, what is nothing? If you mean screen off and not handled (as I'm guessing you mean, does that mean it's also not updating e-mail, and other apps? If you have absolutely no applications periodically pulling data and you leave any of these phones untouched until they die then they will last . . . a really long time.
-2 days on a business trip: What do you do for a living? Again, if you don't have any apps downloading data periodically, you only ever use your phone as a phone and maybe a few e-mail sessions, then any of these phones should hopefully last that long.
-Sitting on a night stand overnight: See the first answer.
Don't look at these battery life measurements as an absolute, look at them as a guide. If you spend a lot of time downloading data on 3G, then make sure to get a phone that does really well in the 3G test. If 3G isn't your thing but you're on WiFi downloading data a lot, then grok the WiFi graph and pick something near the top. And if you're main use for the phone is voice calls, there's a great list of voice call data available to you. Not sure which you are? Well, it sounds like battery life is your bread and butter so just pick one from the top of the list and go for it. You've got at least two weeks to decide if it's for you and my experience is that the honeymoon period when people get new phones is about 5-7 days, at that point they'll either be happy or dragging their charger around with them.
zhongzyk - Monday, July 4, 2011 - link
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kaikaicc - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
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crb119 - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
so is this better than iphone4..........in terms of software avilability...ahat about skype video????.....winst - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - link
Hello,Why so much emphasis on phone features and such, but little or no information
on the fundamentals , being able to make a decent phone call in various conditions ?
winst