HTC Sensation XE vs Samsung Galaxy S II HD: Fight!

The HTC Sensation XE has Beats Audio

The HTC Sensation XE VS The Samsung Galaxy S II HD, which smartphone is better than the other? Well in true versus fashion, we’ve put together an article specifically written to help you as a consumer decide which smartphone is best for you.

Now prior to these two smartphones being announced, the current flagship smartphones of both these manufacturers were the HTC Sensation and the Galaxy S II. We used and reviewed both of these devices and truth be told, we were sold on both handsets but in very different ways. Of these two smartphones, we concluded that the Galaxy S II was the fastest, the HTC Sensation had the best display, the Galaxy S II was the most pleasing aesthetically and the HTC Sensation was better built.

So has anything changed since then and do we finally have a victor with the Galaxy S II HD and Sensation XE? Well let’s find out.

Build quality

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD carries across the same aesthetically pleasing form factor as its predecessor and at 8.71 mm’s in depth, the S II HD is one thin handset. The smartphone itself makes use of a gorilla glass covered screen and high quality plastics towards the side and back.

The HTC Sensation XE is one gorgeous smartphone to use and much like the original Sensation, makes use of a gorilla glass covered screen and an aluminium unibody surround. This makes the device heavier than the S II HD, however far more durable in the long term and a pleasure to use daily.

Winner: HTC Sensation XE

Display

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD brings with it a 4.35-inch Super Amoled Plus display with a whopping pixel count of 1280×720 pixels, making the display one major upgrade the S II HD has over its predecessor. One thing we noted with the original S II was the amazing colour vibrancy it gave off, and the S II HD only makes this better.

The HTC Sensation XE has a 4.3-inch super LCD display, which side by side next to the Super Amoled type in the S II, shows off almost as good colours along with amazing black levels. The Sensation’s display however only has a pixel count of 540 x 960, making it inferior in quality compared to the S II HD’s display.

Winner: Galaxy S II HD

Speed

Let’s get to the point; the original S II is stupidly fast and when put through quadrant tests, it obliterated our HTC Sensation. Now however Samsung has upped the processor to a 1.4GHz Cortex A9 variant, offering a 0.2GHz speed increase on its predecessor and even more multitasking performance.

The HTC Sensation XE makes use of a blistering 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm 8260 processor, making it a whole 0.3GHz quicker than the original Sensation and 0.1GHz quicker than the S II HD on paper. This speed increase is more than enough to speed up the HTC Sensation XE, and as you’ll note in our software point below, more than a match for the Galaxy S II HD when software is a preference over speed.

Winner: Galaxy S II HD

Software

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD makes use of Android Gingerbread and TouchWiz UI v4.0, Samsung’s very own skin. Whilst Android Gingerbread is lovely to use, I have personally never been a fan of TouchWiz and I always install a different one straight away. This is down to personal preference, however, and TouchWiz ensures that speed is never an issue as it is a light skin.

The HTC Sensation XE makes use of Android Gingerbread just like the S II HD above, but HTC has implemented Sense UI in to it, their own Android skin. HTC’s Sense UI is the single best skin on any Android device, and it works beautifully with overflowing graphics and lots of exciting UI elements. Whilst lovely, though, it does slow down a device and ensures the HTC Sensation XE is not quite as quick as the S II HD through tests. In normal use however you’ll really enjoy HTC Sense.

Winner: HTC Sensation XE

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD makes us of an 8 MP snapper with autofocus and LED flash, with features such a geo-tagging, touch focus and smile detection out of the box. The S II also records video at 1080p@30fps, and has a front facing camera at 2 MP.

The HTC Sensation XE also makes use of an 8 MP snapper with autofocus however has a dual LED-flash unlike the S II HD.  Geo-tagging, touch focus and smile detection are also features in the XE’s camera, and it’ll also record 1080p@30fps. Unlike the S II HD’s secondary camera though the XE has to make do with a measly VGA variant, not that everybody video calls anyway.

Winner: Draw

Multimedia

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD has access to the Android App marketplace which is full of awesome apps, a lot of which are free. On top of this it’ll play all your usual file formats, and that awesome display will play back movies and TV shows with great vibrance.

The Sensation XE now features Beats Audio as made popular (and branded) under Dr. Dre. Now we are all for big brand names as they’re a bragging right amongst mates, and what’s more the XE has all the features listed above in the S II HD, and includes a pair of Beats Audio headphones in the box.

Winner: HTC Sensation XE

Memory

The Samsung Galaxy S II HD is quite the external hard drive, and packs a healthy 16GB of internal storage underneath its slim figure as well as a microSD card slot expandable up to 32GB.

The HTC Sensation has a less than healthy 4GB of internal storage however allows for the same amount of storage as the S II HD, at 32GB thanks to a microSD slot. Out of the box though the S II HD is the buyers choice for memory here.

Winner: Galaxy S II HD

Verdict

It’s a draw folks! Overall we are impressed with both of these handsets so I’m going to say this; For raw speed and the ultimate in aesthetics you can not go wrong the the Galaxy S II HD from Samsung. For media capability, build quality and freebie headphones then the HTC Sensation XE is the smartphone for you.

Overall if you asked me to personally choose one, though, I’d opt for the HTC Sensation XE based on its beautiful inset glass display which curves at the sides.

Source: Image Credit