HTC Sensation XL is an android 2.3 powered GSM and dual-band 3G supported smartphone. It comes with 4.7-inch WVGA touchscreen,1.5GHz single core MSM8255 processor, 720p HD video recording supported 8-megapixel camera along with beats audio system. The Beats Audio premise is the same as we’ve seen on other recent HTC phones, like the Rezound and the Sensation XE. HTC will offer the Sensation XL with a special, folding pair of Beats over-the-ear headphones in some markets. It has been released to market.
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HTC Homepage Discover Smartphones Tablets Help Sign up Share Sign up for more info Overview Specs HTC Sensation XL Feel every single beat Released October 06st, 2011 Size: 132.5mm x 70.7mm x 9.9 mm (5.22" x 2.78" x 0.39") Weight: 162.5 grams (5.73 ounces) with battery Display: 4.7-inch touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution Screen: 119 mm (4.7") HTC Sensation XL CPU Processing Speed 1.5 GHz Memory1 Total storage: 16 GB Available storage: up to 12.64 GB RAM: 768 MB (The available storage you can use will be lesser, since the phone's software occupies some storage.) Connectivity 3.5 mm stereo audio jack Bluetooth® 3.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headsets and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0) Sensors Gyro sensor G-Sensor Digital compass Proximity sensor Ambient light sensor
Key features
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 4.7" 16M-color capacitive S-LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
- Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.5
- 1.5 GHz single Scorpion CPUs, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset
- 768 MB RAM; 16 GB storage (~12.5GB user accessible)
- Beats audio enhancement and premium Monster iBeats headset
- 8 MP autofocus camera with dual-LED flash; face detection, geotagging, HDR mode, image autoupload
- 720p video recording @ 30fps, slo-mo videos (2x at WVGA)
- Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensor
- Front facing camera with video calls
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- Smart dialing, voice dialing
- Office document editor
- DivX/XviD video support
- HTC Locations app
- HTCSense.com integration
- HTC Portable Hotspot
- Ultra-fast boot times (if you don’t remove battery)
Main disadvantages
- WVGA resolution is low for a 4.7" screen
- Screen's outdoor performance isn't so good
- No dedicated camera key
- No microSD card slot
- No TV-Out
Retail box
The Sensation XL comes in a big box, befitting a big phone. When you open it up, you see the phone in the middle with the earplugs of the iBeats headset on its sides. The headset is courtesy of Monster and is slightly different than the retail version: it has a set of three chrome-plated music controls instead of a single button. The middle Play/Pause button doubles as a call key. The headset has the same eye-catching red cabling we saw on the Sensation XE headset, even though the XL doesn’t have the matching red accents (just the red Beats logo on the back). Still, it looks cool.
360-degree spin
The HTC Sensation XL isn't as extra large as its name might suggest. Measuring 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9 mm, it's not much bigger than handsets with 4.3" screens. And while the 162.5g of weight are on the heavy side, we've seen smaller phones that weigh as much. So, the phone is fairly compact for something bearing the XL tag.
Design and build quality
HTC have kept the design of the Sensation XL very clean. There are no different materials patched up together like on some other phones (*cough*Sensation*cough*). We especially like the big aluminum plate of the back that wraps around the sides too - it gives the phone a really premium feel. When you put it next to phones with 4.3" screens, the HTC Sensation XL is noticeably bigger, but not huge. It's still phone-sized compared to 5+ inch phoneblets.
Updated Sense 3.5 brings slight improvements
The HTC Sensation XL comes with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and a new version of the HTC Sense, v3.5. Gingerbread and the HTC custom skin on top should be familiar enough though some changes stuck out early on.Here's a video demo of the latest Sense UI running on the Sensation XL - the phonebook is one of the things that changed, so that's one thing to look out for.
Updated phonebook
The Sensation XL has HTC’s all-knowing phonebook with deep social networking integration. It manages to keep things neatly in order, even though it’s juggling everything from SMS to Facebook photo albums.The entire People app (the phonebook) is tabbed and with more tabs than the stock Android. Version 3.5 of Sense merges the Phone and People apps into one. So, you have the dialer, all contacts, groups (including favorite contacts there), as well as a call log.From a drop-down menu at the top, you can filter contacts based on where they came from - the phone's address book, Facebook, Twitter or your HTC Sense account.
Smart and voice dialing
We had no issues with reception and in-call audio quality with the HTC Sensation XL.The on-screen dialer features a keypad, a shortcut to the call log and a list of contacts beneath (you can hide the keypad). The HTC Sensation XL has both Smart Dialing and Voice dialing. The Sensation XL knows some accelerometer-based tricks – turning the phone over will mute the ringer of an incoming call while placing it down starts the loudspeaker automatically when you are in the middle of a call. The other feature is Quiet ring on pickup – once you move the phone, the ringer will quiet down (but not cancel the call).
Text messaging
Android and the HTC Sensation XL are capable of handling all sorts of text messaging – SMS, MMS, email. Social networking is covered by several apps and widgets, and there’s Gtalk, which can connect you to Google’s chat network and compatible networks too (like Ovi Chat). The notification area will display a line of an incoming SMS or just the number of messages if there’s more than one. You can set the status LED to alert of unread messages too.
HTC Mail app almost as good as Gmail
The HTC Sensation XL comes with two email apps – the traditional Gmail app and the generic HTC Mail app, which merges all your email accounts into a single inbox. The Gmail app has the trademark conversation style view and can manage multiple (Gmail) accounts. Batch operations are supported too, in case you need to handle email messages in bulk. The standard HTC Mail app has been updated too. Emails are organized into three tabs and can be sorted by date, sender, subject, priority or size (both ascending and descending). You can browse all folders for the email account or view all inboxes combined.
Beautiful image gallery
The HTC Gallery stacks photos like the vanilla Android gallery does (it used to display a list of thumbnails). The Albums app automatically locates images and videos, no matter where they are stored. Images and videos stored in different folders appear in different sub-galleries that automatically get the name of the folder – which is an effective file management solution. You can also select which folders the gallery should display. Video player has spotty codec support Video files can be accessed in the All videos subfolder in the Gallery. There's no dedicated video player. The video files are displayed as a grid and can be shared over MMS, email, or YouTube, Facebook and Flickr, even apps like Dropbox if you have it installed. The video playing interface on the HTC Sensation XL offers a full screen toggle (stretches the video to the screen's aspect) and you can scrub through videos. There's no subtitle support though. The video player was hit or miss when it came to playing videos. Non-HD resolutions would play trouble-free for all formats supported (MP4, DivX, XviD, MKV, WMV). Even some HD videos managed to play but only just - we managed to get a 720p WMV video play smoothly, a 720p MKV played (but there were rendering issues, probably encoding specific) and 720p DivX/XviD simply failed. Beats Audio and HTC Enhancer presets are available in the video player.DLNA connectivity comes handy too – the Sensation XL can stream the videos wirelessly to your TV. There's no TV-Out functionality of any kind, which means you're stuck watching the videos on the Sensation XL's 4.7" screen, you can't hook it up to an HDTV.
Beats Audio enhances the music player
The music player has been updated a bit - the initial screen has two big buttons for My Library and My Playlists, with links under them to help you discover new music (album and singles chart, newly released albums and singles and so on).The standard view for My Library is the Artists section, but you can easily switch to one of the other six categories (Albums, Songs, Playlists, Genres, and Genres) through a drop-down menu. Another dropdown at the top of the initial screen lets you switch between the music library on the phone and DLNA media servers.
Good FM radio
The HTC Sensation XL is also equipped with an FM radio, which has a pretty simple interface. It automatically scans the area for the available stations and allows you to mark some of them as favorite. It also supports RDS and allows loudspeaker playback.Unlike the first Sensation, the FM radio app on the Sensation XL starts and turns off a lot faster (about a second or two).
The 8MP camera
The HTC Sensation XL packs an 8MP camera that does stills of up to 3264x2448 pixels and records 720p video @ 30fps. There’s a dual-LED flash / video light too. The camera interface is very space efficient - even more so after the Sense 3.5 update. Most of the controls are on the right side of the viewfinder, with the virtual shutter in the center. The still/video toggle and front/back camera toggles have been combined in a single menu and the Effects button has been moved to the top left corner - this freed up space for the Scenes and Settings button. There’s a gallery shortcut (a thumbnail of the last photo taken) in the bottom left corner and a virtual zoom lever along the bottom. By default the viewfinder image is cropped so that it fills the entire screen, but you can switch that off (note that cropping reduces the resolution).
Photo quality comparison
The HTC Sensation XL enters our Photo Compare Tool to join the other 8MP shooters. The tool’s page will give you enough info on how to use it and what to look for. The ISO chart shows the slightest trace of a pink spot but otherwise the XL does pretty well in synthetic resolution. The next chart makes the noise pretty visible in its flat grey color - also the patches to the right show how lightly the noise reduction threads. The final chart show pleasing (if oversaturated colors).
720p video
The interface of the camcorder is similar to the still camera’s and there are lots of customizable options with this one. You can set the video resolution, recording limit and add effects.Autofocus works here too, but only before you start shooting – then the focus is locked and won’t change unless you tap an area on the screen, which will cause the camera to refocus on that area.
Video quality comparison
We entered the HTC Sensation XL in our Video Compare Tool database too and put it head to head with other 720p mobile camcorders. You can spot that the compression is heavier in the shades than in well-lit areas. In the dark, color noise is apparent and fine detail is lost. The third chart shows there's more to be desired from the video's resolution - and that frames are oversharpened.
Well-stocked connectivity
The HTC Sensation XL has a complete connectivity set. There’s quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and blazing fast dual-band 3G: 14.4Mbps downlink and 5.76Mbps uplink thanks to HSPA. The local wireless connectivity has Wi-Fi b/g/n and full DLNA support (both client and server, for images, videos and music) and Bluetooth 3.0. The Connected media app handles all sorts of DLNA connections – it plays media to and from devices on the network with just a couple of clicks. Apps like the Gallery and music player have such functionality built in too.
Excellent browser
The HTC Sensation XL has the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread web browser with Sense UI 3.5 polish. The browser goes into full-screen when the web page finishes loading and has very minimalistic UI, which leaves almost all of the large 4.7" screen to the page's content. There's an URL bar at the top of the screen flanked by a back and refresh keys. Once you zoom in and pan around the page, even that bar disappears. Still, there are plenty of options - you have to press the menu key to reveal them.
Great organizer with Office document editing
The usual set of organizer apps are aboard the HTC Sensation XL, with a mobile Office app to boot that can both view and edit documents. The Polaris app has support for viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, including the Office 2007 versions and it can create Office 2003 Word and Excel documents but not 2007 docs or any presentations. Oddly, you can edit existing PowerPoint presentations and Office 2007 docs. There is also a PDF viewer to handle PDF files. The on-screen keyboard does cut down the available space in half but if you zoom out you can still fit a reasonable amount of text.
Facebook and Twitter
Facebook and Twitter fans will appreciate the preinstalled Facebook and Peep apps, which let you post on the world’s largest social networks. The latest Facebook app is available, which enables things like Facebook Chat (there's a separate app for that too) and Facebook Places (which lets you to check into the likes of Foursquare).
Android Market, HTC Hub and HTC Likes
The Android Market uses several side-scrollable tabs - categories, featured, top paid, top free, top grossing, top new paid, top new free and trending. This organization reminds a lot of the Apple's App Store.There are all kinds of apps in the Android market and the most important ones are covered (file managers, navigation apps, document readers etc.).
HTCSense.com integration
HTCSense.com offers some premium features for free (a bit like HTC Locations). The Phone locator can be used to locate your phone if it’s stolen and you can lock it or even erase all the data from it. And don’t worry – HTCSense.com will back up your Sensation XL contacts and messages (though contacts should already be safe and sound in the Google cloud).
Google Maps and HTC Locations to navigation
The HTC Sensation XL has a built-in GPS receiver, which managed to get a lock in about a minute (with A-GPS switched off). If all you need is a rough idea of where you are (within 150 meters) you can use the Cell-ID and Wi-Fi network lock, which is very fast. Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and we’ve covered it many times before. It offers voice-guided navigation in certain countries and falls back to a list of instructions elsewhere. You can plan routes, search for nearby POI and go into the always cool Street View.
Plotting a route with HTC Locations
It doesn’t do voice-guided navigation for free like Ovi Maps though – but still, you can use the list of instructions and tap the next and pervious arrows to see the next turn. Not ideal but it’s a great addition, especially since it’s free. You can always pay for a voice-guided navigation license too - it's cheaper than buying a dedicated GPS unit. You get a 30-day trial to see if it's worth it or not.
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