HTC Sensation XE is a superb addition to HTC smartphones equipped with a pleasing range of functionalities. The handset has been successfully marking the telecom market with greatest hits through its incredibly amazing attributes.HTC sensation XE plan have crop up as a wonderful advancement for the mobile lovers.
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Design and Build
The XE is a very good-looking phone that’s well sized and comfortable to hold. Its unibody aluminium construction imparts not just flair but sturdiness too.Let’s just get this out of the way, the Sensation XE is a carbon copy of the old one and there’s no two ways about that. There are some cosmetic changes like the red speaker grill and the capacitive shortcut buttons which now sport a red backlight. The red motif is continued at the back as well around the camera lens and you have the big Beats Audio logo at the bottom. The phone is available in two colour trims, white and black. The white one looks a bit like a training shoe while the black looks meaner and aggressive. The XE has packed on a few pounds due to the larger battery and now weighs 151g. All the ports are where you expect them to be, the power and 3.5mm audio jack sit on top while the volume rocker and USB port are on the sides. For inserting the SIM and battery, the entire outer chassis snaps off, speaker grill and everything. Red capacitive buttons go well with the screen. The screen also has a lacquer finish which makes the colours pop a little. HTC have gone with the same S-LCD screen with a 960 x 540 pixel resolution so it’s not ‘retina’ sharp but better than say, the S II.
Features & Interface
The Sensation XE comes with Android 2.3.4 and rather disappointingly, Sense 3.0. Hopefully HTC will release an update for it along with ICS. The XE uses the same Qualcomm MSM8260 chipset, only this time; it runs at its default 1.5GHz instead of 1.2GHz. That, and coupled with 768MB of RAM, the phone is incredibly quick and fluid. AnTuTu gave us a score of 4742 whereas Linpack revealed a single threaded score of 55.7 and a multi-thread score of 72.1. There isn’t too much of a difference in the interface between the old phone and this one since it’s more or less identical. It would have been nice had HTC thrown in a Beats skin or theme to go with the rest of the phone, but they haven’t. Thankfully, we didn’t face any death grip issues or trouble with the screen this time around so we’ll take for granted that HTC has sorted out the Sensation's problems.
Media
Connectivity
Recapping what we stated in the Sensation review, the XE is a quad-band GSM phone with full 3G HSDPA and HSUPA support. Other connectivity options are Wi-Fi ‘n’ and Bluetooth 3.0. The stock browser does a decent job of rendering web pages and zooming in and out is smooth and relatively lag-free. Other Internet related apps, include Facebook, News and Weather. HTC also bundles their own suite of apps like HTC Hub, HTC Likes and HTC Watch. The latter doesn't work in India as it keeps showing you old trailers.
Camera
The 8MP shooter is backed up by a dual-LED flash which makes it a decent option for low light photography. It features the same settings seen on the old one like some fun to use effects, White Balance settings, scene modes that include Back light, Beach and Snow settings etc., ISO options up to 800, Geo-tagging and Face detection. Macros turn out pretty darn good. We did manage to pull off some really good macros with this without too much effort so you can get creative with this phone. Video recording supports a no-compromise 1920x1080 at 30fps. The frame rate is smooth overall with very slight jitter creeping in intermittently, but nothing too drastic. It even does a good job in the dark, just make sure you don't use the zoom and you should be fine. Alternately, you can view these videos directly on an HDTV via MHL or you could stream it via DLNA.Polaris Office is a productivity app for working on Word or Excel files. Reader app comes with a bunch of classic titles.Images are detailed even in low light, with accurate colours and minimal noise.The 1.5GHz processor also makes light work of image enhancement apps like Retro Camera or Vignette. Video recording at full HD is sharp too. The dual-LED flash, which also doubles as a flashlight, is luminous with a wide firing range. Put it on in a dark room and it’ll light up the entire place.
Battery Life
The XE is fitted with a larger 1730mAh battery which gave us a pretty decent 8hrs in our loop tests. This included 1.5hrs of calls, 2hrs of audio, 2hrs of streaming over Wi-Fi and 2.5hrs of video playback. Our video drain tests revealed similar performance of 7hrs and 20min which is an upgrade from the Sensation.The XE will easily last you through the day under heavy usage. If you decide to be frugal, you can even eke out 1.5-2 days from a single charge.
Verdict
At a street price of Rs. 33,990, it’s about Rs. 3000 more than its predecessor i.e. HTC Sensation. But, for that extra money, you do get a bigger battery, more onboard storage for apps, a slightly faster CPU and Beats in-earphones, which in itself is worth roughly Rs. 6,000, so all in all, it’s a pretty good deal HTC is offering. In the end, the Sensation XE is an improvement over its predecessor in many ways and you get a lot more for your money than you did with the old one. But the two things that we feel are holding it back are the pricing (given the competition) and the fact that it does not have Sense 3.5.
