HTC have stuck to their tried and tested approach of a machined aluminium back, with a bottom section finished in rubberised plastic to ensure plenty of reception. Like the HTC Sensation, the entire back comes away from the front, so effectively all the innards are attached to the back of that massive screen.
The Engine Room
The devices packed with 1.5 GHz dual core Qualcomm snapdragon processor with Adreno 220 GPU for hardware accelerated graphics. HTC Sensation XL was meant to manipulate a reasonable amount of multimedia, a good hardware configuration is necessary to achieve the full potential of the device. In terms of connectivity the device supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G connectivity as well as micro-USB.
The iPhone 4 looks positively dinky next to it and HTC's existing big screened device the HTC Sensation is dwarfed too. The HTC Sensation XL just about pulls this off because it still remains usable, but at 162.5g, it's a pretty hefty phone. The dimensions are 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9mm .
The Design
The HTC Sensation XL harks back to previous "big" phones from HTC. From the back you can see glimpses of the HTC Desire HD, the HTC HD2 and the HD7. It is inherently slab like, unlike the curved Samsung Galaxy Nexus that has a screen size only slightly smaller, but sits more naturally in the hand.
The handset has the aluminium plate has an attractive anodised finish, but it doesn't offer much by the way of grip. Where plastics may offer a little more natural grip, the finish of the XL means you might send it skittering across the floor when you pull it from your pocket.
This is compounded by the fact that the chassis is pretty large. Gripping and manipulating the phone so you can touch all areas of the screen, or prod the power/standby button on the top, especially one-handed, can be a precarious affair, particularly in these colder conditions when you have drier skin.
HTC Sensation XL is 5.22” tall, 2.78” wide and 0.39” thick. The device comes in white colour, unlike Sensation XE, which is black and red designed as commonly available in many other entertainment phones. With battery the device weighs 162.5 g.
The Display
You won't find the curved Gorilla Glass display seen on other Sensations -- the screen looks to be identical to the Super LCD we already stroked on the HTC Titan; HTC Sensation XE has a 4.7” Super LCD, capacitive touch screen with 16 M colours. The screen resolution is WVGA 480×800 pixels. The device also has Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off and a Gyro sensor. The user interface on HTC Sensation is customised with HTC Sense.
Already the software differences do come into play, if only due to involuntary comparisons with other Android phones. We've already seen qHD and even higher resolutions running Google's OS. Does it matter? Well, it depends. This, like the Titan is a lovely screen, despite the mid-table dots-per-inch ranking. Colors aren't washed-out, and this model of Super LCD beats out the smaller -- but sharper -- Sensation screen with impressive viewing angles and color production.
HTC is not Super AMOLED, but that doesn't mean it can't impress. In daily use, in this size, it's a revelation to use -- like the Galaxy Note, we found ourselves drawing the phone away from our eyes, as we could see everything we needed to from a distance -- you can glance at the phone, and read any information you've setup on the customizable lock-screen.
The Storage
The device comes with 16 GB internal storage (available for user storage 12.64GB) and 768 MB RAM. The storage can be extended up to 32 GB with a micro SD card.
HTC Sense 3.5
This is the third HTC Sense 3.5 device to launch. HTC Sense 3.5 as seen on the HTC Explorer and HTC Rhyme is simplified slightly, with a cleaner front page. The HTC Sensation XL returns to the typical look and feel of HTC Sense we've seen in the past, so the dock sits at the bottom of the homepages.
HTC Sensation XL is powered by Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread); although the user interface will be customized using the HTC Sense platform. The active lock screen and visuals for weather are available on HTC Sensation XL. Apps for the device can ge downloaded from Androids market and many other 3rd party stores. Facebook and Twitter applications highly customized for HTC sense is available for HTC Sensation XL. Photos and videos can be directly uploaded to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube from HTC Sensation XL. The browsing experience on HTC Sensation is also supreme with multi window browsing. Text and image are rendered with quality even after zoom and video playback on browser is also smooth. The browser comes with support for flash.
Camera
On HTC Sensation series, HTC capitalized heavily on the cameras. The emphasis remains similar in HTC Sensation XL. HTC Sensation XL has an 8 mega pixel rear facing camera with dual LED flash and auto-focus. The camera also comes with useful features such as geo-tagging, touch focus, image stabilization and face detection. Instant capture is another unique feature in the rear facing camera. The camera is also capable of HD video recording at 720p. The front facing camera is a fixed focus VGA camera quite sufficient for video calling.
Video performance is hampered by some pretty poor light balance, often switching between extremes. We appreciated the ability to adjust the auto-focus during filming by touching the area we wanted in focus, but this invariably adds a moment of unfocused blur. It's still worth noting that other similarly priced Android phones may be capable of 1080p recording but often don't have the bit-rate chops to back it up. With adequate lighting, the camera is still capable of capturing satisfactory footage, but audio quality leaves a lot to be desired.
Beats by Dr Dre
HTC Sensation XL comes with Beats audio and custom made Beats headsets and specially customized music application to take the full advantage of the cool headset. The FM radio support is also available on the device. HTC Sensation XL supports audio playback for formats such as m4a, .mp3, .mid, .ogg, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9). The audio recording format available is .amr. In terms of video playback formats, .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1) are available while video recording is available on .3gp and .mp4. With the high end hardware configurations and the 4.7” screen HTC Sensation XL will be very user friendly for gaming as well.
KeyBoard
HTC's stock keyboard takes up the majority of the screen, with its squareish buttons a very viable option for anyone who's found touchscreen keyboards before now simply too fiddly. There's the typical predictive function here, too, but what the Sensation XL has over the Titan is a choice of extra keyboards, including Engadget favorites like SwiftKey and Swype, though the stock Android version isn't an option here.
Battery Life
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