Tag: Smartphone

HTC Sensation XE review (Running Android 4.0)

Last year HTC experienced a massive loss in the smartphone market due to poor sales and a lack of brand awareness. This was in part due to the massive success of the Samsung Galaxy S2 which pretty stormed the Android market for 2012. However, one phone that I believe really went under the radar was the HTC Sensation which boasted very similar specs to the Samsung Galaxy S2 and had a more sturdy design, but yet didn’t sell as HTC would have liked. HTC then brought out the XE and XL versions, both with Beats and both with beautiful form factors.

Today I’m going to review the HTC Sensation XE after it’s Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade and show you a phone that was massively underrated last year.

HTC Sensation review

When HTC announced 5 new phones at MWC earlier this year there was some criticism that there wasn’t a dual-core model there in the lineup. With LG and Samsung there with handsets featuring dual-core CPU’s the expectation was that HTC should at least be following the competition, lets face it, HTC are more accustomed to being leaders rather than followers.

However, maybe the critics should have had a little more faith that HTC had something up their sleeves as less than two months after MWC, HTC were holding their own press even here in London to announce the new HTC Sensation. Not only does it include the much coveted dual-core CPU but includes a 540 x 960 resolution QHD display which is the first to have a Gorilla Glass screen that’s curved on all edges.

Other new features such as HTC Sense 3.0 and the 8 mega-pixel camera with instant capture technology and 1080P video recording means that not only is this certainly HTC’s flagship handset but it’s also one of the best specified on the market today.

I’ve been using the sensation for a little over a week, so if you want to find out what I think of it you’ll have to read on!

HTC Wildfire review

Having been announced less than a month ago I was initially surprised to see the HTC Wildfire arrive in the office here so soon. Granted, we’ve already seen the Wildfire go on pre-order sale (SIM-free) at some retailers and some UK carriers announce that they too will stock it but we still thought it was some way off.

The HTC Wildfire appears to be HTC’s attempt to break in to lower end of the market. HTC’s recent wave of handsets have been at the upper-end at around the £400 mark for the HTC Desire and a little less for the HTC Legend. The Wildfire then is much less expensive than the HTC Desire which is widely regarded as the Wildfire’s bigger brother. This is a smartphone with a ‘feature phone’ price tag.

If you saw my HTC Wildfire unboxing video a few days ago you may have noticed that I said we’ll be doing something a little different with this review. Whilst the top section of the review will follow our normal format and will keep everything factual with just a little of my opinion in there the lower portion of the review will introduce comments from James, Tracy and possibly a few other members of the team, we’re going to try making it a broad view.

(a word of caution, there are a LOT of images but you can click on any one for a full-sized view.)