HTC Sensation XE Review: It is a Beats by Dr. Dre Android Phone

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HTC has decided to get all hippity-hop happy with its latest smart phone, the HTC Sensation XE. It's a refreshed version of the brilliant HTC Sensation that packs Beats audio tech, as well as a faster processor and improved battery life.

HTC Sensation XE: Beats by Dr. Dre

The HTC Sensation XE comes with a set of in-ear Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. Plug these boisterous bad-boys in, and the phone switches to a different audio profile, doing some clever processing trickery to tune your music specifically to the earphones.

We suspect that will boil down to making your tunes sound a bit bassier, but we're ready to be impressed -- some existing Beats audio products have delivered better audio quality than their garish colour schemes would suggest, so maybe this mobile can give your tunes a little extra punch.

HTC Sensation XE: Beats Headphone

Impressively, those headphones will come with a cable remote that lets you control music playback, or answer calls via a built-in microphone. No more fishing your mobile out your pocket to answer calls.

HTC Sensation XE: Processor

The HTC Sensation XE packs a more powerful processor than the existing version of the Sensation. While the current model has a dual-core 1.2GHz chip, the HTC Sensation XE ups the voltage with a dual-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz. The previous version was impressively fast, so we can only assume that this new iteration will blow our heads clean off our shoulders with its snappy performance.

HTC Sensation XE: Display

It comes with large 4.3 inches of S-LCD capacitive touchscreen which has 16M colors and 540 x 960 pixels resolution. Display also has other features like Multi-touch input method, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Gyro sensor, Touch-sensitive controls and HTC Sense UI which makes easy to handle touch screen.


HTC Sensation XE: Battery

We're told the HTC Sensation XE packs a bigger battery, that should improve its chances of survival away from the mains. Smart phone batteries are rubbish in general and most modern mobiles need to be charged every day, so we're interested to see if the Sensation XE can do any better.

HTC Sensation XE: Design & Build

As you can see in the photos above, the HTC Sensation XE has been given a little lick of paint. We suspect the blood-red accents and Beats logo will be divisive, but we did think the all-grey casing of the first Sensation was a bit dull, so we appreciate that it's been jazzed up.

HTC Sensation XE: OS & Memory

The Operating System of HTC Sensation XE is powered by Android v2.3.4 Gingerbread OS and it has powerful 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm MSM 8260 Snapdragon with 768 MB RAM memory. Phone is equipped with 4 GB (1 GB user available) internal space and also has microSD card slot to upgrade memory till 32GB for mass storage of Data.

HTC Sensation XE: Camera & Video

With the 8 mega Pixel camera of HTC Sensation XE users can record High Definition videos (1080p@30fps) with stereo sound recording and captures crystal clear photos. It also makes users free from carrying camera while outing. Camera features 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch-focus, image stabilization, face detection and instant capture. Phone also has VGA camera at front side for doing video calls.

HTC Sensation XE: Multimedia

It is a totally entertainment phone is able to play various format of media player like XviD/MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV and MP3/AAC+/WAV/WMA player. It also has TV-out (via MHL A/V link) features to connect phone with TV. Phone also has Stereo FM radio with RDS, 3.5 mm headphone connecter, Loudspeaker, Beats Audio and Beats headset.

Conclusion:

With a more powerful processor and the promise of better battery life, the HTC Sensation XE could be much more than just a cheap branding tie-in.

HTC Sensation XE Specs & Price >