Battery life isn't quite as good as the Galaxy S II's, either. The Sensation's 1520mAh capacity is slightly smaller than the Samsung's, but we suspect the Super LCD screen draws more power than AMOLED, too. As a result, the smartphone lasted for eight and a half hours of use (a few calls, and a healthy mix of Wi-Fi web browsing, email, background widget updates, YouTube streaming and mixed app use) before the 10% battery warning kicked in this with the array of battery-saving measures all disabled, though.
The price for an unlocked HTC Sensation had yet to be announced at the time of writing, but Vodafone is offering it as an exclusive for 199 on its cheapest 25/month, two-year contract, and for nothing on a 35/month two-year contract - its corresponding Samsung Galaxy S II deals cost 100 more up front, incidentally.
Verdict
The HTC Sensation looks great, feels great and performs extremely well, but despite its broadly comparable specification, it just isn’t in the same league as the spectacular Samsung Galaxy S II. So, while it’s a highly capable and desirable Android smartphone, the Samsung is still the one we’d spend our money on.
Connectivity: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 3G 900/AWS/2100 Display: 540 x 960 pixels, 4.3 inches OS: Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense Camera: eight megapixels rear facing, 0.3 megapixels forward facing GPS: A-GPS Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core 1.2GHz Bluetooth: 3.0 Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n Storage: 1GB internal (plus 8GB SD card courtesy of Vodafone) RAM: 786MB Dimensions: 126 x 65 x 11mm Weight: 148g Battery: Lithium Ion 1520 mAh
