HTC Sensation XE review

There are no surprises with the software – the phone runs Android 2.3 with HTC’s Sense 3.0 interface. Sense adds a lot of useful features, and if you’re into social networking you can add your friends from a wide variety of sources such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It can be a bit overwhelming, however, plastering your home screens with large widgets. Sense also brings a number of bundled apps, and while some of these are useful you can’t uninstall the ones you don’t use.

Mind you, with a gigabyte of app storage space, as well as a microSD card slot for expansion, you’re unlikely to ever run out of space. The camera takes shots with vibrant colours, but those taken indoors under fluorescent lighting are noisy. The phone can shoot video at 1080p and there’s a video recording light, but this is disabled automatically when the phone is low on battery.

HTC’s Sensation XE is a fast smartphone with a great screen, which is currently fairly good value for such a powerful phone. Its Beats headphones, while not the best we’ve ever heard, sound better than the headphones bundled with most smartphones and don’t seem to add to the cost. Also, according to HTC’s Twitter feed, the phone is also set to be getting an upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich this year, so you don’t have to worry about falling behind the times.

It’s a good choice if the bundled headphones are more attractive to you than say the more-striking looks of the Motorola RAZR or the superb OLED screen on the still-excellent Samsung Galaxy S2.