HTC Sensation XE

“HTC have a flagship they want to keep you interested in. Easier said than done. Six months after the launch of the original, the HTC Sensation XE is raising the bar. But HTC are trying to keep a fine balance. They wouldn't want to push the envelope and make the original Sensation obsolete. The bar shouldn't be set too high either before the next flagship is due.As far as we can tell, they nailed it. They had a 4.3 qHD-screened dual-core-powered super droid to work with and these are not easy specs to top. Yet, the Sensation XE received a bigger battery and a faster processor. We find the new model more attractive than the original too.”

“The HTC Sensation XE is by no means a bad Android phone, but none of its features blew us away. We love the red and black design and the urBeats headphones are a nice inclusion, but average battery life and less than stellar performance detract from its appeal. Ultimately, the HTC Sensation XE is a very good smartphone but not a great one.”

“The Sensation XE is a great phone, but it is no more or less great than the original Sensation. Sure, it has some spec bumps, but these are minor and cancelled out by our concerns about the display and camera, which haven't aged well over the last five months.The Beats Audio software isn't complete marketing vapor, but it's still inherently gimmicky and adds nothing in the XE's favor: you could achieve a better result on the original Sensation simply by downloading a third-party music player that lets you play with the EQ settings yourself.The only thing which might sway us to by the Sensation XE over its predecessor is the packaged YourBeats headphones, coupled with the red styling on the phone. But for us to opt for the XE, it'd have to by priced similarly to the original Sensation, such that we're not paying much extra for these headphones. They're only good if they're a bargain -- otherwise we'd prefer to take matters into our own hands and spend $80 to $100 on some Etymotics, which would be even better.”

“The HTC Sensation XE is a powerful phone with a powerful brand attached to it - Dr. Dre's Beats. However, for the most part it's just like the original Sensation. It has a faster processor, but this isn't hugely apparent in normal usage. Build quality is great, it's fast and has a large, sharp screen, but the quality of the S-LCD panel isn't great and the Beats red bits don't mesh entirely well with the design. It's certainly a decent phone that can more-than do justice to Android, but when the original Sensation is now available for about £100 less, you can get better audio quality by spending the difference on a great pair of earphones, instead of the just-good Beats bundled pair here.”