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
WiFi Hotspot
The Sensation includes HTC’s own WiFi hotspot software, and nothing much is changed between it and previous versions. It’s still limited to 5 users maximum, and you can view and manage each one’s connectivity. I don’t remember them being options before, but the Sensation also lets you change the WiFi channel and DHCP server settings in the advanced menu alongside the standard power timeout options. I tested the Sensation’s hotspot capabilities pretty extensively and found that things work out perfectly well. Thankfully there aren’t any bugs to speak of, which is more than I can say for the hotspot software on some other recent smartphones.
Speakerphone
Speakerphone on the Sensation isn’t quite as loud or as high quality as we’d like it to be. To be honest, this is probably the only really glaringly bad part of the whole device. I used the phone for navigation a lot while driving the 400 miles to and from California, and then on a trip or two to Phoenix, and the speakerphone volume just isn’t high enough. Listening to music at maximum, it isn’t adequate. For calls, it’s disappointingly quiet and grainy. I’m not sure what happened here or if something needed to go with the phone for it to fit into this form factor, but clearly the speakerphone took a back seat during testing and design, or there’s something flat out wrong.
There’s a grille on the plastic back of the Sensation, then another metal grille. There is a small rubbery ring around the thing as well, so it isn’t like sound is disappearing into a void between the metal case and the plastic back. It just isn’t loud enough.
Voice Calls and Audio Codec
We’re still trying to create an even better way of characterizing and presenting voice quality for smartphones. Until then we’ve provided a recording of the Sensation calling the local ASOS weathe report station by connecting the headset jack to line in. The Senation’s headset audio quality and earpiece volume also are good. The Sensation, like most modern phones, also has ambient noise cancellation which I tested by calling a friend in a very loud environment. Background noise around me was hard to detect on his end. HTC is no doubt using the Fluence noise cancellation audio chain onboard MSM8260.
I listened to lots of Google Music on the Sensation using my pair of Shure SE535 earphones, and found things overall pretty good. The Sensation uses TI’s very low power TLV320AIC3254 stereo audio codec.
Qualcomm's GPS
Last but not least in this section is GPS performance. The Senation uses Qualcomm’s Gen 8 GPS which supports standalone and assisted (A-GPS) mode. I tested and verified that I get a fix from cold start both with cellular connectivity and without WiFi or cellular connectivity. It works and it works well.
Note that airplane mode is on.
In addition, the GPS on the Sensation locks astoundingly quickly. It’s almost instantaneous, which is especially impressive after using the Droid Charge for weeks before, which often took either a few seconds or a full 30 to get a 3D fix.
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iwod - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
It looks like in Browser Benchmark, iPhone 4 with iOS 5.0 will properly rise to the top. And it is great to see after a year of its introduction, iPhone 4 is still playing very well with it competitors.About Screen Size, Brian would you and Anand makes notes which size of screen you prefer.
For iPhone 3.5", I think a lot of us want a bigger screen. But what size? 4", 4.3" or even larger?
Brian Klug - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
I think 4.3" is really the upper limit for smartphone displays. I've got the Infuse 4G here beside me, which is 4.5", and that already is almost challenging to hold sometimes, and occasionally awkward to type on. Factor in the fact that it has just a WVGA display, and those pixels are positively gigantic.Personally, I prefer 4 or 4.3". Anything above that is starting to just get excessive. I can only imagine what that rumored 4.7" HTC WP7 device is going to look like.
-Brian
Chaser - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
After an iPhone 3G, Droid, Evo, Galaxy S and G2x this phone finally gets it right in so many ways, It never ceases to impress me.Sense 3.0 with Gingerbread makes it perfect!
dtomilson - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
Being a tech blog I have always found Anandtech to publish articles on the same phone is the same phone is the same phone (Android). Any updates coming on the beta of Mango that has been released? How smooth it is and how much better it performs given the lower specced hardware the current-gen devices use..karnovaran - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
Brian, there has been much debate on XDA about screen quality differences resulting from the Sensation panels being manufactured by two different companies: Sharp and AUO (Acer). I'd love to know which panel you were reviewing.Can you tell us which panel you have? The way to check is by downloading terminal emulator from the market and running the following command: dmesg That will spit out a bunch of information, just hit menu and email it to yourself then search for "panel". Thanks.
Brian Klug - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
I always run dmesg on devices just so I can see a bunch of different things/hardware ;)Just grepped out panel and found the type:
<6>[ 1.603759] mipi_novatek_panel_type_detect: panel_type=PANEL_ID_PYD_SHARP
-Brian
quiksilvr - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
Ahh T-Mobile. It's almost tragic. They have awesome phones but...what's the point? Once the merger happens you have to change the phones and there isn't a full guarantee that our prices will remain the same for monthly bills.Conficio - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
So apparently the T-Mobile phone does not yet have the boot lock removed and knowbody knows if that will be some software update.Hence question what are then the "unlocked" HTC sensation phones that float around in on EBay etc.?
I ask, because I'm about to get an HTC Sensation (buying it outright) but I want to be able to operate the phone with other carriers SIMs (internationally). So is the T-Mobile phone locked to their network?
Conficio - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
How much of the htcsense.com features work over Wifi. Does remote Wipe or location tracking work?In other words, does the location get determined by the phone and sent back to htcsense.org or is it determined by the carrier?
Brian Klug - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
I don't know about location, but I'm assuming that if it uses the Android location framework, it will work. Remote wipe and lock does indeed work over just WiFi, in addition to just cellular.-Brian