HTC Sensation Review: Purebred Smart

At a time when all manufacturers produce top-end smartphones based on the same proven recipe with minimal changes, HTC decided to go its own way - did not chase either millimeters or grams, and the chipset did not choose the most popular yet. But the result was a very high quality product. Looking at him, many will say: “I will buy it!” And taking it in hand, they will understand that this is a gadget thought out in all respects. And let the name Sensation sounds too ambitious, this time the device fulfills it for almost one hundred percent.


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What is what?

Within a month from the start of sales, Sensation can be bought exclusively in the MTS communication shops at a price of 26990. For this money, in addition to the smartphone itself, the buyer will also receive a year of unlimited Internet SmartBIT. But, of course, "unlimited" still has limitations: 7.5 MB / hour and 50 MB per day. In addition to HTC, the phone itself is also branded with the MTS logo on the outside and the special red theme of the mobile operator inside. How much this tube will cost outside the MTS salons is not clear yet, but I think it's still less than it is now.

Design

The solution with a three-section cover for HTC itself is not new - let's remember, for example, the Mozart model, but this design has not yet existed, so the Sensation's appearance is still very recognizable against the background of numerous imitators of the latest iPhone.



As for ergonomics, as I have already said, the developers did not crawl out of the skin and wedge the components into some particularly thin body, and this smart name cannot be called super lightweight. But at the same time the tube is perfectly in hand. In my opinion, almost the reference balance of the diagonal, thickness and weight is observed here: there is no feeling that you grabbed the “shovel”, the hand is not pulled back, but you can not be afraid to accidentally drop the device, since this is still far from a feather.

Connectors

Sensation has only two connectors on the case - a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a micro USB port. The first one is located as comfortably as possible - from above, and the second one - on the left side, which personally annoys me a bit, as in this case it is sometimes difficult to place the gadget among other things on the table. But this small slip can be forgiven, especially since it is a difficult micro-USB, and with the help of an HDMI adapter capable of outputting a FullHD picture to external displays. The only problem is that this adapter will have to be purchased separately, and it is not yet known at what price, since on the htc-online.ru website it can only be pre-ordered.

Display

I already wrote above that Sensation never seems to be a shovel, but at the same time, its screen diagonal is 4.3 "! The chip here in the ratio of the parties. The new flagship has a cinematic 16: 9, while last year’s Desire HD has a classic 4: 3. I like the new solution better, and the Sensation's resolution will be higher - 540 x 960 pixels. The brightness of the S-LCD display, of course, cannot be compared with Super AMOLED, but it still gives a juicy and contrasting picture. But in the sun, although it loses its color, it does not completely blind, the text remains quite readable.

Iron

HTC chose a Qualcomm MSM 8260 chipset with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 768 MB of RAM and an Adreno 220 graphics chip for its flagship. In the synthetic Quadrant test, this iron set running Android 2.3.3 gains about 1,800 points, which is not much lower than NVIDIA Tegra 2 on a similar system. But I personally do not care about some tsiferki there, the main thing is that it works quickly and without failures! And it works: for a couple of weeks of testing, there were no glitches, the gadget worked like a clock.

Connection

The only complaint I have had is a missing connection to the network once. Communication with the Internet suddenly broke, and that's it! It only helped to turn off the radio module. And, I must say, such a glitch happened not only for me, but for one of my colleagues with another Sensation instance. I do not know if this is a regularity or an accident, but with the exception of this incident, I have no questions about wireless connections.



And by the way, about the rumor on the Internet that the new flagship HTC has the same problem as the iPhone - with a falling signal level when the palm is covering the antennas hidden in the lid. If you look at the scale in the information line from above, then when the device is in the hands, there are exactly the same number of divisions when it simply lies on the table. But then irubtsov advised not to look at the scale, but at digital indicators. And then there really is a noticeable slight drop in the signal level - by 10 dB.

Cameras

Sensation is equipped with two cameras: eight megapixel - behind and with a 0.3 megapixel eye - in front. There is little to say about the latter: Google will not screw the video call function to the smartphone Gtalk, and up to 2.3.4 you can only use it as a mirror. But the main camera began to shoot much better than its predecessors, but still rather mediocre compared with cameras in devices from other manufacturers.


Night is great on a tree near Mayakovka in full resolution


Sunny Kolomenskoye in full resolution


Vigilant antislab-house helicopter in Kolomenskoye in full resolution


Chertanovsky Perekrestok in full resolution


Optimus Prime in full resolution


Air hockey in full resolution

In addition, smart taught to record video in FullHD format at a speed of 30 frames per second.

Soft

HTC is famous not only powerful, but also thoughtful smartphones, thanks to the proprietary shell Sense. At this time, the company also did not lose face and equipped a mobile phone with a third version of this software, which is quite similar to Sense for tablets.



New: a carousel of seven desktops, a control panel that is drawn from above, freaky weather widgets and wallpapers, a pre-installed task manager, simple tools for editing photos and videos, and some other trivia. Well, in the branded MTS version there is a corresponding tab in the application menu.

Battery

Once again, I will say that 1520 mAh for a modern smartphone is extremely small. Well, really! Nine hours of battery life - this is no good! I make a discount only on the fact that competitors on Android away from the outlet can work a little more, and sometimes less.

Competitors

The main competitors of Sensation are the dual-core Samsung Galaxy S II and, of course, the iPhone 4. The first one impresses with the powerful Orion processor, which makes all the currently existing smartphones in the tests, and the incredible Super AMOLED Plus screen. But the second time again gets trumps from the sleeve in the form of a stable iOS operating system and a huge pile of high-quality and cheap applications.

Summary

Maybe Sensation is not equipped with a super-bright screen and does not gain maximum points in various benchmarks, but this is generally a very, very thoughtful smartphone. It is pleasant to take it in hand, it does not slow down, it has a beautiful and logical menu ... In short, it feels like a purebred gadget. Personally, I would not mind to give him 26,990.

TTX

OS: Google Android 2.3.3 + Sense 3.0
Chipset: Qualcomm MSM 8260
Processor: 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM
RAM: 768 MB
Main memory: 1 GB + microSD up to 32 GB (8 GB included)
Screen: Super LCD, 4.3 "(16: 9), 960 x 540
Communications: 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0
Connectors: micro USB, 3.5 mm, HDMI (via adapter)
Cameras: 8 megapixels, dual flash, autofocus + 0.3 megapixels for video calls
Navigation: GPS, GPS
Battery: 1520 mAh
Dimensions: 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3 mm
Weight: 148 grams
Price: 26990 rub.