Introduction
Today HTC introduced the second member of its Beats droid family, making both geeks and audiophiles tremble with excitement. The HTC Sensation XL is one multimedia beast with its Dr. Dre-inspired audio, impressively spec'd camera and huge display and it's also keen to give users the proper smartphone experience with the tried and tested Gingerbread and Sense combo.
HTC Sensation XL at a glance:
- General: GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
- Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
- Dimensions: 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9 mm, 162.5 g
- Display: 4.7" 16M-color WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) S-LCD capacitive touchscreen; Gorilla glass
- Platform: 1.5 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM 8255 Snapdragon chipset
- RAM: 768MB
- OS: Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread)
- Memory: 16 GB storage (12.64GB user-accessible)
- Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with face detection, touch focus and image stabilization; HD (720p) video recording at 30fps, dual LED flash, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera; 28mm f/2.2 lens
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio
- Misc: Sense 3.5 UI, Beats audio enhancements and headphones in the package, 1600mAh battery, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor, ultra-fast boot times
Granted, the single-core CPU won't give you boasting rights with your geeky friends and screen density could be pushed a bit higher. But with this one it's not so much about having the best specs on the market - it's about having specs that make sense. It's a statement that the company values user experience over PR material.
The Sensation XL processing power should be enough to handle 99% of the Android market apps seamlessly and even if it's not the best of multi-tasker around only a small portion of the users will actually feel the difference. So why not put something in there that everyone will see and appreciate - like a larger screen, for example.
And if you happen to be among those in need of the ultimate processor, boy does HTC have the phone for you. But now we'd be focusing on the Sensation XL multimedia beast. Join us on the next page for our hands-on impressions, garnished with a load of live shots.
HTC Sensation XL hands-on
According to HTC, the Sensation XL comes with even deeper Beats integration than the Sensation XE. Extending the audio enhancements to games and movies as well, HTC has made sure that the Beats audio improves the overall sonic experience and not just the music player.
HTC will be offering a limited edition Sensation XL package, which will come with the White Solo Beats headphones included in the retail. We are not sure what kind of premium will be charged for that limited edition, but we really doubt it will come cheap.
The White Solo Beats headphones will be available with the Sensation XL in some markets
More often though, the smartphone will come with the UrBeats model that we saw announced with the Sensation XE. There will be a white version of the UrBeats headphones as well and since that will be the only Sensation XL color version available at launch, we suspect that will be the one included in most retail packages.
More often though, the smartphone will come with the UrBeats model that we saw announced with the Sensation XE. There will be a white version of the UrBeats headphones as well and since that will be the only Sensation XL color version available at launch, we suspect that will be the one included in most retail packages.
The regular Beats handset, which will ship with the smartphone elsewhere
Leaving the audio enhancements aside, we are finally able to notice that the HTC Sensation XL is one sweet-looking droid. You really can't go wrong with such huge screen on the front and aluminum on the back. The 9.9mm slim waistline benefits looks big time, too.
The HTC Sensation XL is certainly a looker
The Sensation XL is said to have unibody design, but just like some of the other recent HTC smartphones this is not entirely true. It's the Sensation kind of unibody, where you can slide out the back panel and not the proper kind, like the one used in the HTC Legend, for example.
The unibody design actually has detachable back panel
Still, this doesn't take away anything from the Sensation XL excellent looks - you probably aren't even going to be able to tell that the back is removable at first glance.
Compared to the Sensation XE, the Sensation XL does feel larger, but it's not as overwhelming as the 4.7" screen might suggest. The XL is not meant for the tightest pockets, but it's not impossible to carry either.
The HTC Sensation XL sized up against the Desire Z and the original Sensation
When held in hand the Sensation XL does feel pretty heavy, but at 162.5 grams that's hardly a surprise. That's not necessarily bad, though as the heavy body give this solid impression that you cannot help but love.
The Sensation XL and Sensation XE side by side
At the back of the XL we found the other bit that HTC put some serious work into. The 8 megapixel snapper comes with wide-angle lens with an aperture of F/2.2. The bright F/2.2 lens should be able to collect about 70% more light than its conventional F/2.8 competitors. Plus the Sensation XL packs a backlit sensor, which improves light gathering even further so it should be doing quite well in the dark.
There's also a new panoramic photo mode, which we tried and found pretty cool. You can still see the occasional artifacts, where individual shots meet, but it’s way harder to notice than usual.
The video recording might not be too impressive at 720p@30fps, but the Sensation XL does stereo sound recording in videos, which is still a rarity among smartphones. And when it's not busy capturing movies, the second microphone is used for noise cancelling so your call quality should be excellent at all times.
UI and benchmarks
As we already mentioned, the HTC Sensation XL comes with the Android Gingerbread and has the latest version of the company's proprietary Sense UI installed on top of it. Changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary and any previous HTC user will feel at home when using this one.
To find out more about the Sensation XL UI, check out this walkthrough provided by one of the HTC representatives at the launch event.
As you can see everything runs nicely smooth on the 1.5GHz Scorpion CPU, but no one would have expected anything different. We also managed to subject the Sensation XL to a few benchmarks so its could show its true worth.
Amazingly it outdid both the Sensation and the Sensation XE in the browser-based benchmarks. Not only that but the results were quite convincing. At BrowserMark (higher is better) the Sensation XL scored 78750 vs 52019 for the Sensation XE and a mere 39673 for the original Sensation.
The HTC Sensation XL threw another surprise at the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark (lower is better), where it scored another convincing victory against its namesakes. The scores there were 2688 (Sensation XL), 3336 (Sensation XE) and 6428ms (Sensation). Obviously, HTC did some serious optimizations to the JavaScript engine inside this one - there's just no other way to explain those scores.
Luckily we were also able to install Quadrant on the Sensation XL and see how it did there. We didn't have the Sensation XE Quadrant score, so we replaced it with the Samsung Galaxy S II, which is the current leader in this category. The Sensation XL 100% win record was finally shattered as its 1792 score was easily outdone by both the Sensation (2357) and Galaxy S II (3538).
Finally we tried a real-life benchmark on the HTC Sensation XL by testing its Flash playback capabilities. Unfortunately, the smartphone failed to play either 720p or 1080p Flash videos smoothly. In fact the frame rate it could manage was so low that those weren't even watchable.
One of the more interesting bit concerning the Sensation XL software package is the newly introduced HTC Sync client. Launched alongside the smartphone itself, the new client allows easy syncing of your iTunes library on both PC and Mac.
First impressions
So ends our brief encounter with the HTC Sensation XL. We know it's too early to be passing any final verdicts, but our instincts tell us that this one won't be as successful as the Sensation XE.
But that's not because it's a bad device. On the contrary - we really like the big fella, but with a screen this size it will be rejected by many people as too large. Plus many will choose the future-proofing that the dual-core CPU inside the Sensation XE offers. That one comes with the Beats enhancements too, so it's almost looking like a win-win offer.
Except that it isn't quite so simple. Screen estate might be all that the Sensation XL has against the XE, but that's a pretty powerful weapon to have. The difference between 4.3" and 4.7" diagonal might not look huge on paper, but it feels pretty major in real life. Movies, picture and even the UI itself look more impressive on the XL than they do on the XE, despite the higher resolution of the latter.
So, if you don't mind carrying its oversized body around, the HTC Sensation XL might be another smartphone to put on your shortlist for the holiday season. A full review will be required before we find out if it's worth actually forking out the cash, though.
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