The Sensation 4G does not disappoint. The first thing I want to talk about is the build quality. No its not as good as the iPhone but it definitely ranks right up there. The phone has a unibody construction and feels very sturdy in the hand. I like my phones to be more heavy then light. My only complaint with the build quality is the handset often creaks towards the bottom and on the sides because of its construction. This is not a deal breaker and not unique to my phone. With that said, I?m still very pleased.
The screen is high resolution, which uses a 540 x 960 resolution. Honestly, I can?t tell any difference on this resolution than from using a standard resolution display. I?m not too crazy about the Gorilla glass either. For some reason it feels cheap and I don?t want the phone I?m going to use for the next 2 years to feel cheap in any way. Colors seemed very bright and vivid and only looked washed out when I viewed them from a different angle. Overall the screen is fine but definitely didn?t blow me away.
A huge factor for me is call quality. This is crucial and the Sensation is not excelling in this department. Call quality wasn?t bad it just wasn?t great. HTC could have definitely improved it a lot. It?s barely passable because the internal volume of the phone is quite low. T-Mobile?s WI-FI calling is pretty nice but the Sensation doesn?t hold a strong WI-FI signal so you?ll want to be careful not to step out of the WI-FI range. Call volume was a tad lower with calls made via WI-FI. Callers often sounded muffled at high volumes and the speakerphone isn?t even worth calling a speakerphone however it still gets the job done.
Battery life on the phone does not disappoint. I was able to heavily use the phone and still have a tad of juice left. I mostly made calls, and texted and browsed the web on a full charge at 9am and lasted all the way past 11pm at night with 5% of juice remaining. The Sensation 4G should have no problem getting the power user through the day.
The Sensation 4G uses a 1.2 Ghz Dual Core Snap Dragon Processor which is very speedy. Web pages loaded instantly and most of the time felt very smooth. I did notice some lag on some heavy sites but this can easily be fixed by turning off add-ons via the settings menu.
We all know T-Mobile doesn?t use true ?4G? but their HSPA+ speeds will not disappoint. I was able to pull 9.60mbps down and 2.22mbps up which is fantastic. Of course this will vary as I was down the street from a 4G tower in a rural area. I was able to download pictures; huge video files less than 10 minutes and stream YouTube videos without any buffer.
Sense 3.0 is a huge improvement and my favorite part would be the new lock screen. I am really enjoying using it so far. With an update or two, Sense 3.0 on the Sensation should feel very snappy and fast. Don?t get me wrong its fine right now it just can lag a few times. I am confident that HTC will bring an update to address that.
Last but not least is the camera. The 8mp camera takes excellent indoor and outdoor shots. Photos were crystal clear and colors looked natural. I enjoyed playing with the camera?s effects. The camera also shoots 720p and 1080p. 1080p videos were clear but seemed to lag very bad while shooting. 720p videos seemed much better. Once again, I?m hoping HTC can improve several aspects of the phone via a few over the air updates.
Overall I?m very pleased with the phone but feel HTC could have taken it further. I dread using the speakerphone because of its awful quality. I also am not crazy about the slight creaking the unibody construction makes. I am very impressed by Sense 3.0 and the hardware inside the phone. I am hoping that HTC continues to work on the somewhat buggy software the phone shipped with. I look forward to keep using my new Sensation.
***Please keep in mind this is totally subjective to my experience. Please don't bash me because of my opinion. I respect yours so please respect mine.
The screen is high resolution, which uses a 540 x 960 resolution. Honestly, I can?t tell any difference on this resolution than from using a standard resolution display. I?m not too crazy about the Gorilla glass either. For some reason it feels cheap and I don?t want the phone I?m going to use for the next 2 years to feel cheap in any way. Colors seemed very bright and vivid and only looked washed out when I viewed them from a different angle. Overall the screen is fine but definitely didn?t blow me away.
A huge factor for me is call quality. This is crucial and the Sensation is not excelling in this department. Call quality wasn?t bad it just wasn?t great. HTC could have definitely improved it a lot. It?s barely passable because the internal volume of the phone is quite low. T-Mobile?s WI-FI calling is pretty nice but the Sensation doesn?t hold a strong WI-FI signal so you?ll want to be careful not to step out of the WI-FI range. Call volume was a tad lower with calls made via WI-FI. Callers often sounded muffled at high volumes and the speakerphone isn?t even worth calling a speakerphone however it still gets the job done.
Battery life on the phone does not disappoint. I was able to heavily use the phone and still have a tad of juice left. I mostly made calls, and texted and browsed the web on a full charge at 9am and lasted all the way past 11pm at night with 5% of juice remaining. The Sensation 4G should have no problem getting the power user through the day.
The Sensation 4G uses a 1.2 Ghz Dual Core Snap Dragon Processor which is very speedy. Web pages loaded instantly and most of the time felt very smooth. I did notice some lag on some heavy sites but this can easily be fixed by turning off add-ons via the settings menu.
We all know T-Mobile doesn?t use true ?4G? but their HSPA+ speeds will not disappoint. I was able to pull 9.60mbps down and 2.22mbps up which is fantastic. Of course this will vary as I was down the street from a 4G tower in a rural area. I was able to download pictures; huge video files less than 10 minutes and stream YouTube videos without any buffer.
Sense 3.0 is a huge improvement and my favorite part would be the new lock screen. I am really enjoying using it so far. With an update or two, Sense 3.0 on the Sensation should feel very snappy and fast. Don?t get me wrong its fine right now it just can lag a few times. I am confident that HTC will bring an update to address that.
Last but not least is the camera. The 8mp camera takes excellent indoor and outdoor shots. Photos were crystal clear and colors looked natural. I enjoyed playing with the camera?s effects. The camera also shoots 720p and 1080p. 1080p videos were clear but seemed to lag very bad while shooting. 720p videos seemed much better. Once again, I?m hoping HTC can improve several aspects of the phone via a few over the air updates.
Overall I?m very pleased with the phone but feel HTC could have taken it further. I dread using the speakerphone because of its awful quality. I also am not crazy about the slight creaking the unibody construction makes. I am very impressed by Sense 3.0 and the hardware inside the phone. I am hoping that HTC continues to work on the somewhat buggy software the phone shipped with. I look forward to keep using my new Sensation.
***Please keep in mind this is totally subjective to my experience. Please don't bash me because of my opinion. I respect yours so please respect mine.
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