The all-new HTC Sensation XE is yet another Android smartphone from HTC that comes bundled with a pair of Beats headphones. Hence its name, this smartphone extends the Sensation series of HTC, and is likely promising to deliver a 'sensational' experience by appealing to our senses. Audio would likely be the sense of choice here, looking at the bundle with Beats by Dr Dre headphones. So let us now see in detail, just how much of a 'sensation' is the HTC Sensation XE going to actually deliver.
Just hot off the shelves to be released in October 2011, the HTC Sensation XE weighs 151 grams, measuring 126.1mm x 65.4mm x 11.3mm and sports a 4.3-inch touch screen. The touch screen delivers a qHD (quarter HD) resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, thus yielding an image quality of 256 ppi (pixels per inch). This is a commendable image quality, though not quite top-notch like the Retina Display of the iPhone 4S at 326 ppi. Overall the size and weight feel good in the palm of your hand sporting its trademark black colour with red highlights, though it could feel a tad heavy or bulky for some users with smaller hands.
Touchscreen Vga
The HTC Sensation XE packs a blistering dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1.5GHz, probably making this the fastest dual-core smartphone released to date, ahead of several others running at 1.2GHz such as the HTC Evo 3D and Samsung Galaxy S II. Running on the latest Android OS v2.3.4 (Gingerbread), it packs the usual array of features thanks to its proprietary HTC Sense UI, including multi-touch sensitive controls, accelerometer, proximity and gyro sensors. Speed is definitely a hallmark for this smartphone, though storage is not its strongest point, offering a mere 4GB coupled with 768MB RAM, accompanied by an expandable microSD card slot that supports up to an additional 32GB.
Also armed with a 8 megapixel camera, a VGA front-facing camera, and full HD 1080p video capturing at 30fps, the HTC Sensation XE does not fall short in this arena too, keeping up to par with the just-released iPhone 4S. Download speeds are also quick going at a trend-setting 14.4Mbps on HSDPA (3.5G), and along with the standard set of connectivity options such as Bluetooth 3.0, microUSB 2.0, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, battery capacity has also been boosted with a larger 1730mAh battery, which HTC claims to give a talk time of 7.5 hours.
Saving the best feature for last here, the outstanding feature of the HTC Sensation XE is certainly going to be its audio, thanks to HTC's teaming up with Beats by Dr Dre. The popular headphones under the Beats line here are known for their big booming bass, so adding in the Beats audio effect feature that can be turned on and off with the bundled Beats headphones certainly gives a sensational audio experience. The only snag here would naturally be that you would have to use Beats headphones and not others to enjoy this audio effect.
In summary, the HTC Sensation XE is a high-end Android music smartphone that certainly packs quite a 'beat', tying in its speedy feature set with its musical edge from Beats.