The HTC Sensation has had its official unveiling in mid April, finally heralding the arrival of a dual core smartphone from this popular Taiwanese manufacturer. Let us take a little look at its specifications and decide whether or not it is worth waiting for when there are already the first dual core Android phones on the market.
You will immediately notice the 4.3 inch Super LCD display of the HTC Sensation, which is not only large but also blessed with a high qHD resolution of 540×960. This gives it a native aspect ratio of 16:9 which is comfortably within the widescreen requirements of most movies and TV shows, allowing you to watch your media clips without having those annoying black bars taking up a portion of the screen real estate.
Flipping the Sensation to reveal its rear will showcase the eight megapixel camera and dual LED flash setup. The flash is particularly bright which means you will not necessarily miss a Xenon alternative that might be found on a more dedicated camera phone. The camera can not only shoot high quality stills but it can also record full HD 1080p video thanks to the speed of its dual core processor, so expect it to match up to recent arrivals like the LG Optimus 2X in this category.
The Qualcomm dual core chip which lives inside the HTC Sensation is noteworthy because it is clocked at 1.2GHz rather than the 1GHz speed that is found on the Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU housed in other recent Android smartphones. In fact this 1.2GHz speed boost is so coveted amongst consumers that Samsung has announced that its Galaxy S2 handset will be arriving with an equivalent chip in certain European territories rather than the 1GHz processor that was originally slated for the phone.
All this extra power will not be going to waste as HTC has worked to make sure that its famous Sense interface can take full advantage of it. HTC has said that Sense has been tweaked more significantly than in any other update, with one particularly interesting alteration being made to the lock screen. Rather than just protecting the phone from accidental interaction, the lock screen can now be equipped with four app shortcuts which will let you select the one you want and boot it up immediately after you slide up the lock screen interface.
One thing which may slightly disappoint users is the thickness and relative weighty nature of the HTC Sensation. It is nowhere near as slim as the Samsung Galaxy S2 or Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, both of which measure less than 9mm at their thinnest points. It is, however, slimmer than the equivalent BlackBerry phone, the Torch and should still be easy to pocket thanks to its curved edges.
When the HTC Sensation arrives it will almost certainly be seen as the most cutting edge smartphone on the market, if only because of its hardware and not necessarily because of its design.
