With what seems like a new flagship Android smartphone being launched every other week, it’s tough for consumers to keep up. Every manufacturer tries to differentiate their products by focusing on features that they feel potential customers will want badly enough to justify purchasing a new handset. The HTC Sensation 4G, the latest flagship Android handset to launch in Canada with Bell Mobility, is a positioned as a “super powerful and super fast” smartphone that “has it all”. But is this the case? Click on through to find out.

Hardware

Everyone loves a slim, streamlined body, and the Sensation 4G doesn’t fail to disappoint. As soon as we picked it up, we could tell that the Sensation was designed with the utmost of care. The build quality was excellent, and there were no loose parts that squeaked or rattled. Even the power button/screen lock and volume rocker didn’t wiggle to and fro when we applied pressure with our thumbs. The removable backside of the phone is made out of a piece of milled aluminum with stylized inlays for a bit of flair, while the large display is covered by an elegantly curved piece of scratch-resistant glass. Nestled above the display is a large speaker grille, which hides an LED for notifications. To the right of that a front-facing VGA camera, and on the back is a small external speaker, which lies to the right of the 8 megapixel camera and dual-LED flashes. For such a large device, the Sensation felt very comfortable in our hands, while its tapered edges allowed us a very secure grip. The only aspect of the phone’s design we don’t like is the placement of the micro-USB port. It’s located on the left-side of the phone and is aligned with the display which makes typing very difficult while charging the battery.

HTC Sense 3.0

The Sensation 4G runs Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) with HTC’s Sense 3.0 UI overlay. While we very much appreciate the inclusion of Sense, we are still displeased that we’re not presented with the option to disable it and run Android as Google intended it to be. Nonetheless, we were very pleased with many of the features of Sense besides the facelift it provides, including its bevy of useful widgets such as Friendstream (a social media aggregator) and the inclusion of toggles for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc., in the drop-down notification drawer.

Performance

Powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and backed by 768MB of RAM, the Sensation was able to handle every task we threw at. Though it did show some signs of strain while loading websites that were jam-packed with Flash, other such examples of sluggishness were far and few between. Graphic-intensive games ran very smoothly, and applications were quick to load.

Display

We found the Sensation’s 4.3” qHD (540 x 960) display to be a bit of a mixed bag. While it was bright, vibrant, and very sharp, its viewing angles were so shallow that unless we were perfectly squared up with the screen, everything looked dull and washed-out. We’re sure that many people wouldn’t pay attention to this, but it really bugged us, especially when walking around town using the device. Speaking of walking around, we were very pleased to find that the Sensation’s display worked very well in direct sunlight. The only problem with this was that the screen worked so hard that got became uncomfortably hot and took about five minutes to cool down. As for the capacitive component of the touchscreen, we found it to be very accurate.

Camera

The Sensation 4G’s main camera takes 8 megapixel stills, and it’s the first smartphone in Bell’s line-up capable of recording 1080p HD video. The still images taken by the Sensation were above average, though the occasional image would come out cloudy and have the colours muddle together. The 1080p videos we shot with the Sensation looked very good and were fluid, at times there were very high levels of compression artifacts while microphone often picked up large amounts of background noise. On the flips-side of the Sensation is a front-facing VGA camera, but as with all other devices, the front-facing camera is really only useful for quickly checking your hair or posting incredibly vain self-portraits to Facebook.

Phone Calls

Pretty much every phone made by HTC has above-average call quality, and the Sensation is no exception. Everything sounded perfectly clear, and the people we talked to reported hearing minimal amounts of background noise. Then there’s the speakerphone, which serves double-duty as the external speaker for music, movies, and games. Simply put, it’s awful, and made everything sound thin, tinny, and garbled.

Battery Life

The Sensation is a powerful phone, so it’s hardly a surprise that it can go through batteries with ease. Thankfully the 1520 mAh battery that ships with the device is more or less up to the task. The average person should easily make it through the day without needing to recharge, as should most moderate users. Power users, on the other hand, will probably want to top up the charge when possible.

Reception and “Faux G”

We’ve had a lot of experience with Bell’s network, but we’ve never quite had a handset perform as poorly as the Sensation. Reception fluctuated between three and four bars, and the speeds we achieved on Bell’s much-hyped “4G” network were abysmal. We ran a series of speed tests across Metro Vancouver, and achieved an average of 1120Kbps down and 625kbps up. To put this into perspective, we also tested the Sensation along side a Rogers iPhone 4 which averaged 4772kbps down and 1157kbps up. We’re aware that our results are atypical, so we wish to make it clear that your results will vary based upon a multitude of factors. Having said that, it’s disappointing that Bell’s network in various parts of Metro Vancouver was so slow during our multiple days of testing. To us, this really emboldens our intense dislike of Bell’s deceptive marketing of its HSPA+ network as “4G”.

Conclusion

Will the Sensation live up to its name? That’s ultimately for consumers to decide. For what it’s worth, we think the HTC Sensation 4G — despite its flaws — has earned its place as one of the greatest Android smartphones ever produced. But with new handsets launching at a feverish pace, the question is “for how long?”

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The HTC Sensation 4G is available in Canada from Bell Mobility for $149.99 on a 3-year contract.