Tag Archives: smartphone

HTC Sensation XE full review: inches away from perfection

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Last week I decided it really was time to look into a new phone. I’ve had my trusty Nokia 5230 since April ’10 and, in all honesty, it’s served me very well – but recently it’s started to show it’s signs of old age. The battery isn’t lasting as long as it used to, crashes are becoming more common and it’s started shutting down all by itself. Enough is enough.

But I faced a tough dilemma. Ever since I got my 5230, I’ve been a very loyal member of giffgaff. They’ve been great to me – and their £10 per month goodybag was perfect for my everyday needs. However, I’ve always fancied an Android phone – and they’re expensive – so a contract of some form was inevitable.

Sadly, I am about to close my giffgaff account and transfer my number to my new O2 account – a sad farewell but never mind! Anyway, on to what you want to read about – the phone!

Overall, I’m incredibly impressed by the phone. Compared to the 5230 I had before, this is a gigantic step up with new features left, right and centre. Here’s a quick run-through of the tech specs:

  • 1.5Ghz dual core Snapdragon processor
  • 768MB RAM
  • 8MP dual flash & autofocus camera with 1080p 30fps video recording (plus dual microphones for stereo recording)
  • 4GB internal memory (1GB usable)
  • Up to 32GB microSD expansion (mine came with a 16GB card)
  • Android 2.3.4 (with HTC saying an upgrade to 4.0 coming in early 2012)
  • GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA
  • WiFi b/g/n
  • GPS, bluetooth
  • 4.3″ multitouch display @ 960×540 pixels

That’s the most important stuff covered – and as specs go I’d call that a pretty high end phone. And these specs do play a good part in the phone – with fast boot enabled the phone will boot in around 5 seconds.

Anyway, let’s have a run through most of the key features.

Look and feel of the device

I personally happen to feel that this is one of the best looking HTC devices I’ve seen in a long time. The device is reasonably flat on the front with no hardware buttons at all – just four touch sensitive keys. The screen is very is a beauty to look at – colours are crisp and resolution is excellent. On the side, you get a volume rocker on the left and a sleep button on the top-right of the device. The back of the device has a firm plastic-type feel – it doesn’t look too bad but more importantly it wipes out the potential problem of scratching the body.

Weighing in at around 150g,the device does actually feel quite heavy in the hand – but this is normal for a device of this spec. It’s not uncomfortably heavy to hold, but I think my arm would tire after half an hour or so on the phone.

Camera

The 8MP camera on the phone does a fine job of taking crisp photos. The autofocus works well and also responds to pinpointed focus on screen, whilst the dual flash does a brilliant job of brightening up the darkest of scenes. However, I wasn’t hugely impressed by some low light pictures – and whilst the flash is great it sometimes over-saturates the picture.

The camera is also capable of filming 1080p video at 30fps – and videos recorded look well focused and consistent (little or no dropped frames). The device also packs two microphones for stereo recording – although I found that there was sometimes a worrying amount of background noise picked up by the microphones.

Android and bundled software

I’ve never properly used an Android device before – so this was a great opportunity to start.  The device comes with Android 2.3.4 (and a promised upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich early next year) and it packs a punch. Most of the bundled software works very efficiently and loads up in lightning speed (partly thanks to the dual core 1.5Ghz processor).

There are a couple of pieces of software that do disappoint me, however. For one – the music player; which seems to lack many key features. For example, it fails to remove the word “The” when alphabetising artist names which can be very frustrating. It also fails to group albums in many cases – which is incredibly frustrating at times.

Another piece of software that annoys me a bit is the Mail app. It’s great for receiving emails and will render them very well, but it does a poor job of sending mail out. It doesn’t seem to be capable of inserting line breaks to emails and also doesn’t copy sent mail to an IMAP server. There doesn’t seem to be any option to change these settings – so if anyone can enlighten me here that would be great.

Battery life

If I have one major complaint about the device, it’ll be for battery life. It really is pretty poor (I’m told most Android phones are like this) if you play on your phone a lot. I had the battery from full to flat in 7 hours after quite a lot of app downloads and web browsing. However, if you take it steady and use it normally, it should get you through a day or two without recharge. Still, I’d like to think it’d last a bit longer at this spec of phone.

Bundled “Beats” earphones

I actually really like these – and it was a nice bonus to the phone to have a decent pair of earphones included. With the beats software running on the phone, you’ll get pristine bass and treble from the earphones. However, bear in mind that the “beats” software only really works with the music player – so other apps won’t be able to make use of it.

Overall thoughts

Overall, I’m really happy with the device and glad to have it as my companion for the next 24 months. It’s not perfect – and there are clearly some software issues that could well be solved in Android 4.0 – but overall it does a fantastic job of providing a fine balance of entertainment and practicality. With pricing for the SIM free model around about £430, it makes a great competitor to the iPhone – as it has much better tech specs and a larger screen. However, it’s down to the opinions of the person using the phone – and some would rather use iOS than Android.

If you’re interested to know the contract I got for the phone – it was the o2 200 DATA Bonus contract purchased from Dialaphone. Coming in at £536 for the entire 2 year contract, it makes great value. The plan comes with 200 minutes, unlimited (3000) texts and 500MB data every month. If you’re a data junkie, you can get the plan extended to 1GB data for an extra £4 per month (change it after you’ve started your contract and received the phone).

Are wireless headphones just over-hyped or are they worth the extra money?

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I was recently browsing through the Amazon store for a new pair of headphones. I have countless pairs of earphones – some of which have great sound quality – but they tend to break so easily and are only goody for light use.

However, whilst browsing, it crossed my mind to have a look at some wireless headphones. I’ve previously known them to be very expensive and many of them seem to have poor build and sound quality.

However, I stumbled across a £24 pair on Amazon that had good reviews and thought I didn’t have much to lose – so I bought a pair.

It’s fair to say – considering the price tag – they’re brilliant. They aren’t branded (so those of you who like to show off their brands – these aren’t for you!), but that never seems to bother me!

The sound quality is relatively good and I was pleasantly surprised. The headphones have decent bass and don’t seem to sound “tinny” in the slightest.

They will happily connect to any Bluetooth audio device in stereo and/or mono (eg PC, iPod touch 2G or above, iPhone, any smartphone, etc) and it’s really simple to get them going. Simply hold down the multifunction key for 7 seconds (when the blue and red LEDs flash) and connect to them as normal.

I was also really impressed by the battery life. I’ve had these headphones for several days now and have used them for hours on end – and they’ve still only been charged once! They usually outrun the battery life of my iPod by miles!!

My only minor complaint is the LEDs on the device. When you’re using the headphones, a blue LED flashes occasionally. Whilst this is fine in a well lit room or outside, it can be irritating if you’re trying to use them in the dark or at night.

Other than that, they’re a fantastic pair of budget wireless headphones and seem to outsmart many of their more expensive competitors. At £24 a pair, you really don’t have much to lose.

Having fun with QR codes

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I’d heard about QR codes in the past – otherwise known as quick reference codes – but only recently have I realised how useful they are. Basically, they’re the next step forward from bar codes.

A square image holds many pixels, which a programmed reader can recognise and decode. A simple idea – but very handy.

You may have started noticing them in advertisements and on posters. The idea is that you scan it with your smartphone or other reader, and your device will instantly decode it and provide you with whatever information you requested.

Any one QR code can hold a whole host of information such as URLs, contact cards, texts, wi-fi network details, geo-locations – the list goes on!

I’ve now trimmed up the twitter feed with a QR code for this site – seems like a no-brainer to me. There are loads of online QR code generators – such as this one – so why not stick one on your site?

3 UK (Hutchison 3G) to finally start offering the iPhone in the UK

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3 UK, the network which claims to have the best 3G coverage in the UK, has recently announced that it will start offering the iPhone 4 from June 24th.

There’s no news on pricing as yet, but 3 have said that they’re aiming to announce tariffs on June 15th.

I’m personally very pleased with the idea. Despite the fact that I left 3 earlier this year, it’s good that 3 are finally offering one of the most popular smartphones around. And it could be perfect time, as O2 are cutting their mobile internet down later this month, coinciding with the iPhone 4 launch.

With their extensive 3G coverage in the UK, this could see a lot of customers moving from other networks to 3 for the brand new iPhone, which claims to have a bucket-load of new features that will interest a wide range of smartphone users.