HTC Sensation Reviews

[Ns1]

And more durable, as well.

Plastic backs don't break -- glass hitting the ground breaks.

I got a few old LG phones that would disagree with you.

 

[sciwizam]

Updated the OP with a new review from Pocket-int.

 

[sciwizam]

Engadget link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/27/htc-sensation-review/

 

[dpodblood]

Both look like great phones, but for my money I would have the GS2. Main reasons being the AMOLED+ screen, the faster internal memory, and the aesthetics. The GS2 is just a sexy looking phone IMO, while the sensation is a bit nerdy looking.

 

[Anubis]

Everytime I consider an android device with each new release I'm re reminded of the inconvenience of it's app storage. I'm not sure how people live with 1gb.

we dont install every app known to mankind?

 

[dpodblood]

1 GB would probably be fine for most basic apps, but when you start getting into gaming, especially new games coming out designed for Tegra that space is going to get used up quick.

 

[vshah]

After all it's just the same Cortex A9 based CPU.

no, it isn't. sensation has a qualcomm soc, which uses qualcomm's snapdragon processors. these are custom designed cpu's that use ARMs instruction set, but not the ARM A9 design.

in terms of app storage, the 512 i have on my nexus (actually more like 360) is just a bit tight. I can't see myself ever installing triple the number of apps I have now. Most larger apps install the core executables on the device, and then larger data (like textures for games) are downloaded to the sd card.

 

[dpodblood]

Loading textures onto an SD card would make loading times absolutely miserable.

 

[vshah]

Loading textures onto an SD card would make loading times absolutely miserable.

get used to it, because that's what pretty much all 3d games on android do. you probably haven't noticed because it doesn't really slow things down at all...even reckless racing which has among the nicest gfx on android loads a racetrack in 3-4 seconds

 

[poofyhairguy]

we dont install every app known to mankind?

Hard to do with Amazon's daily offering...

 

[dpodblood]

get used to it, because that's what pretty much all 3d games on android do. you probably haven't noticed because it doesn't really slow things down at all...even reckless racing which has among the nicest gfx on android loads a racetrack in 3-4 seconds

I don't see how it can happen if you don't even have an SD card installed.

 

[ponyo]

Hard to do with Amazon's daily offering...

Yup. If you download a free app a day, you're looking at 365 apps in a year. I had my Tab for a week and already used 662 megs of app space with 1.2 gig app space free. I don't even have lot of apps. If you only have one gig, that's going to fill up real quick.

 

[zerocool84]

Yup. If you download a free app a day, you're looking at 365 apps in a year. I had my Tab for a week and already used 662 megs of app space with 1.2 gig app space free. I don't even have lot of apps. If you only have one gig, that's going to fill up real quick.

I have a Nexus S and I have gotten every app Amazon has had free every day but I just don't have the crap I don't want installed on my phone. I do agree though that Android phones need more internal storage like the Galaxy S 2 has. Even the Nexus S doesn't have that much internal storage.

 

[Anubis]

Hard to do with Amazon's daily offering...

lots of the stuff that is free i have less then no use for. no need to DL it, also if you wanted you could simply "purchase it" and never install it, you would have it tied to your accnt and available when you wanted without ever installing it

 

[vshah]

I don't see how it can happen if you don't even have an SD card installed.

in that case the game will probably refuse to install in the first place.

 

[tonygeor]

Android phones should move to 16gb of internal storage as a standard for apps...and leave the SD card for the users music, pictures, etc

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

no, it isn't. sensation has a qualcomm soc, which uses qualcomm's snapdragon processors. these are custom designed cpu's that use ARMs instruction set, but not the ARM A9 design.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARM_cores

Cortex-A9:

Texas Instruments OMAP4430/4440, ST-Ericsson U8500 / U5500, Nvidia Tegra2, Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8672/MSM8260/MSM8660, Samsung Orion / Exynos 4210 , STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310, Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform,[50] Trident PNX847x/8x/9x STB SoC,[51] Freescale i.MX6,[52] Apple A5

 

[Monster_Munch]

I do agree though that Android phones need more internal storage like the Galaxy S 2 has. Even the Nexus S doesn't have that much internal storage.

Even the Galaxy S 2 only has a 2Gb partition for apps. The rest of the internal storage acts like a virtual SD card so you can transfer music and movies to it.

 

[SunnyD]

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARM_cores

Cortex-A9:

Texas Instruments OMAP4430/4440, ST-Ericsson U8500 / U5500, Nvidia Tegra2, Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8672/MSM8260/MSM8660, Samsung Orion / Exynos 4210 , STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310, Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform,[50] Trident PNX847x/8x/9x STB SoC,[51] Freescale i.MX6,[52] Apple A5

Thanks for posting that... I was going to say - ARM doesn't make chips period. They design ISAs and block layouts for OEM's to use. You'll never see an ARM A9 CPU. You WILL see ARM A9 compatible derivatives all customized with different block hardware, but the ISA is the same and compatible between chips.

 

[vshah]

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARM_cores

Cortex-A9:

Texas Instruments OMAP4430/4440, ST-Ericsson U8500 / U5500, Nvidia Tegra2, Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8672/MSM8260/MSM8660, Samsung Orion / Exynos 4210 , STMicroelectronics SPEAr1310, Xilinx Extensible Processing Platform,[50] Trident PNX847x/8x/9x STB SoC,[51] Freescale i.MX6,[52] Apple A5

that wiki page is incorrect. scorpion is more like a heavily modified A8 than an A9. and the snapdragon SOC definitely doesn't use an A9 cpu, it uses a scorpion CPU

http://www.bdti.com/InsideDSP/2007/11/14/Qualcomm

Overall, Qualcomm has made a huge investment in creating a custom implementation of the ARMv7 architecture. By way of comparison, Texas Instruments customized just the layout for the Cortex-A8 for its OMAP3 chips, and it has been reported that the process took 45 engineers working for a period of years. If so, Scorpion’s development probably represents an investment on the order of tens of millions of dollars. And what’s the payoff?

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Thanks for posting that... I was going to say - ARM doesn't make chips period. They design ISAs and block layouts for OEM's to use. You'll never see an ARM A9 CPU. You WILL see ARM A9 compatible derivatives all customized with different block hardware, but the ISA is the same and compatible between chips.

ARM has two options for licensing their designs. The first is you licese the complete cpu core like a Cortex A8 or A9, Apple, TI, Nvidia (Tegra x), go this route. The second is you just license the ARM ISA and design your own implementation like Qualcomm did with Scorpion or Nvidia is doing with Denver.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

ARM has two options for licensing their designs. The first is you licese the complete cpu core like a Cortex A8 or A9, Apple, TI, Nvidia (Tegra x), go this route. The second is you just license the ARM ISA and design your own implementation like Qualcomm did with Scorpion or Nvidia is doing with Denver.

right, so if you buy the ARM ISA license, your CPU will still be similar. True it's not a full A9 core, but it'll run comparatively well. That's why you see those Anand benches showing those CPUs all scoring similar #s.

Even when you looked at the OMAP 3460, Hummingbird 540, Snapdragon 8200/8255, they all get very similar CPU scores. You can get a little boost with custom kernels and what not, but there's a reason why most of these phones get roughly the same CPU subscore in quadrant...

Edit: I just played with a Sensation 2 days ago in Taiwan and its UI felt slow. The Quadrant score was ~1700ish. I compared this to my 2792 I got on my 1.2ghz Nexus S. I flashed a new ROM today and hit 2990. But I'm sure with my I/O score worth 1500 points, I can bet the lack of ext4 on the Sensation is really holding it back.

Once the Sensation bootloader is unlocked I'm sure it will do fine. Interestingly enough every Sense phone I've played with in Taiwan feels slow as crap except the Incredible S.

 

[ponyo]

Even when you looked at the OMAP 3460, Hummingbird 540, Snapdragon 8200/8255, they all get very similar CPU scores. You can get a little boost with custom kernels and what not, but there's a reason why most of these phones get roughly the same CPU subscore in quadrant..

Edit: I just played with a Sensation 2 days ago in Taiwan and its UI felt slow. The Quadrant score was ~1700ish. I compared this to my 2792 I got on my 1.2ghz Nexus S. I flashed a new ROM today and hit 2990. But I'm sure with my I/O score worth 1500 points, I can bet the lack of ext4 on the Sensation is really holding it back.

Once the Sensation bootloader is unlocked I'm sure it will do fine. Interestingly enough every Sense phone I've played with in Taiwan feels slow as crap except the Incredible S.

Lol. You think your Nexus S hit close to 3000 on Quadrant because of 200 mhz overclock and ext4? It's because Quadrant has an error and will give full perfect score if it can't complete the test or has error. Subtract about 1200 from your score and that's your true score.

 

[you2]

Gotta say the pocketnow sg2 vs sensation review really makes the sensation screen look bad. At least in the review it has a stronger yellow tint than the sg2 blue tint and it looks horribly washed out. But maybe it is just their video and it looks better in person ?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Lol. You think your Nexus S hit close to 3000 on Quadrant because of 200 mhz overclock and ext4? It's because Quadrant has an error and will give full perfect score if it can't complete the test or has error. Subtract about 1200 from your score and that's your true score.

Ok so what is it giving me a full score for? I'm not raving about the 3k score. I'm saying the ext4 gives it a huge boost. The CPU portion isn't much different from the other 1ghz processors.

My point wasn't that my score was phenomenal or anything. I'm saying that CPU scores are roughly equal because the CPUs are based on similar architectures. Whether they license the entire ARM core or just the ARM ISA....

Basically, Qualcomm 8255 or Exynos or Tegra 2 will all perform about the same. Sometimes the benches favor other cores, but other benches may be better. Remember when Linpack Snapdragon scores would crush OMAP scores in the Droid 2 Anand review? Yeah, but take a more fair benchmark like BenchmarkPi or something and the two were roughly equal.