Samsung Captivate vs HTC Desire ... help me decide - Captivate General

Hey guys,
As the battery on my HTC Diamond is dying, I'm in the market for a new phone, and I am down to either htc Desire or Samsung Captivate ...
Why HTC Desire?
- Love HTC phones, my last 4 phones were all HTC's
- Love Sense, hate TouchWhiz
- Slightly smaller, so it would fit a little better in jeans pocket
- Availability of development and cooked ROMs
- Captivate seems to be somewhat buggy? With self shutdown problems, GPS can't lock and alarm won't pop up / go off ... little quirks.
Why Captivate?
- S-AMOLED screen is the best screen available now
- Hummingbird > Snapdragon
- 4.0" screen is better than 3.7"
- Have concern about Desire's battery life ... vastly disappointed with Diamond's battery though I know 1400mAh > 900, but many people still complain about Desire's battery life
- Captivate seems to be better at video playback, smoother, more vivid colour
- Captivate seems to be snappier with web browsing
What do you guys think? Anything else I should know about these phones?
Like I said, the biggest appeal of the Desire is Sense ... I think it's a great UI and I'm almost temped to pick the phone just for its UI. That said, I have concern about Desire's battery life. The Captivate's S-AMOLED screen is also something you fall in love with.
Any suggestion or advices is welcome!

Motorola Atrix.
Sent from my Captivate.

number16 said:
Hey guys,
As the battery on my HTC Diamond is dying, I'm in the market for a new phone, and I am down to either htc Desire or Samsung Captivate ...
Why HTC Desire?
- Love HTC phones, my last 4 phones were all HTC's
- Love Sense, hate TouchWhiz
- Slightly smaller, so it would fit a little better in jeans pocket
- Availability of development and cooked ROMs
- Captivate seems to be somewhat buggy? With self shutdown problems, GPS can't lock and alarm won't pop up / go off ... little quirks.
Why Captivate?
- S-AMOLED screen is the best screen available now
- Hummingbird > Snapdragon
- 4.0" screen is better than 3.7"
- Have concern about Desire's battery life ... vastly disappointed with Diamond's battery though I know 1400mAh > 900, but many people still complain about Desire's battery life
- Captivate seems to be better at video playback, smoother, more vivid colour
- Captivate seems to be snappier with web browsing
What do you guys think? Anything else I should know about these phones?
Like I said, the biggest appeal of the Desire is Sense ... I think it's a great UI and I'm almost temped to pick the phone just for its UI. That said, I have concern about Desire's battery life. The Captivate's S-AMOLED screen is also something you fall in love with.
Any suggestion or advices is welcome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what ever you do, if you want your phone to run the latest software, have a gps working, lagless UI, do not, I REPEAT, DO NOT BUY A SAMSUNG PHONE
get a desire or wait for the motorola atrix

If you do buy the Captivate, make sure you get the newest hardware build which is 1012 I believe?
Either way it has the gps, shutdown issues fixed.
I've never heard about the alarm issue.

I don't recommend samsung smartphones. worst manufacturer when it comes to upgrading latest android updates.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Thanks guys ... from the sound of it, despite superior hardware the Captivate is pretty buggy and there are plenty of small little quirks? (I don't call occasional self power-down as "small" quick neither)

number16 said:
Thanks guys ... from the sound of it, despite superior hardware the Captivate is pretty buggy and there are plenty of small little quirks? (I don't call occasional self power-down as "small" quick neither)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before you make a final decision, I suggest you ask this exact same question (if you havent already) on the HTC Desire forums and see what they say. Right now, many people on the captivate forums are frustrated with the lack of official updates, gps issues, shutdown issues, etc and will point out the negative aspects of this device. People who are frustrated tend to speak "louder" than people who are happy, its just human nature.
See what responses you get from the HTC Desire forums, research what people have been saying about it, go to the store and play with both, then make a decision.
I too am frustrated with the Captivate at times and even my girlfriends HTC Aria looks better and better.

gormander said:
Before you make a final decision, I suggest you ask this exact same question (if you havent already) on the HTC Desire forums and see what they say. Right now, many people on the captivate forums are frustrated with the lack of official updates, gps issues, shutdown issues, etc and will point out the negative aspects of this device. People who are frustrated tend to speak "louder" than people who are happy, its just human nature.
See what responses you get from the HTC Desire forums, research what people have been saying about it, go to the store and play with both, then make a decision.
I too am frustrated with the Captivate at times and even my girlfriends HTC Aria looks better and better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
But looks like the GPS and shutdown issues are fixed in newer captivates.
But wait for 2 months. Couple better phones are "currently" set to be released by end of first quarter.

Thanks! Yes, I do have a similar thread over at the Desire forum (nobody's posted to it yet ... either it means there's no serious issue or it's a phone people have kindda lost interest in? )
I do believe in general, htc phones are free of major problems. I'm on my 4th htc phone and I've been pretty happy with each of them ... except maybe the battery life.
It's just Galaxy S has a GREAT screen (I think it's the best screen available today, bar none) that I started considering it.

If you are planing on flashing roms I think the better hardware wins in the long run.

I agree I would check out the Moto forums sense some think the 1.2ghz Processor is worth moto putting in a locked bootloader so might be a long while till you see any roms for it if at all

I agree better hardware wins in the long run, and I do plan to flash with cooked ROMs ... that said, I do want a phone that's reasonably bug-free in the meantime. I don't know when Samsung can iron out its problems, and that also has an impact on cooked ROM's.
I think the new dual core processors are interesting, but my budget won't allow me to get one of the newest phones. I think given my budget, my best choices are the Desire and the Captivate.

number16 said:
I agree better hardware wins in the long run, and I do plan to flash with cooked ROMs ... that said, I do want a phone that's reasonably bug-free in the meantime. I don't know when Samsung can iron out its problems, and that also has an impact on cooked ROM's.
I think the new dual core processors are interesting, but my budget won't allow me to get one of the newest phones. I think given my budget, my best choices are the Desire and the Captivate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To tell the truth the Desire HD is my next device unless HTC comes out with something before I get the cash together. When it comes to PPC I have learned that now that while hardware is great samsung just doesnt have the CS that I would like and Motorola tries everything they can to lock up the bootloader to prevent custom roms.

I am somewhat of a noob when it comes to flashing roms. I do work in IT though and love messing around with gadgets. I just want to say I love my captivate. The gps does take a while to lock, but once it locks it works fine. I have no shutdown issues. I'm running Perception 10.1 with the Firebird 2 kernel and it rocks. Videos do look crisp on this phone as well. I have no experience with the Desire, but I bought a refurb Captivate and I am very happy with it.

MikeyMike01 said:
Motorola Atrix.
Sent from my Captivate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not so fast, as much as i love the specs on the atrix looks like motorola will be locking the bootloader damn shame.

Just get the nexus S when it comes out. I have a captivate and have no problems with it, very fasy, great screen and best thing.... got all my iphone freinds jelous lol
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I896 using XDA App

Vik_92_Sandhu said:
Just get the nexus S when it comes out. I have a captivate and have no problems with it, very fasy, great screen and best thing.... got all my iphone freinds jelous lol
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I896 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't Nexus S already out since last November?

Love my Captivate
Well, i have the Captivate since October and I guess I have been one of the lucky ones because it works great for me. Shortly after I got the phone an update came out and fixed the GPS issue. I use it quite a lot and I have not rooted or updated the ROM a of yet. I have been waiting for Froyo as we all have but the phone does everything i want it to do and more.
I also came from the HTC world, my last phone was an HTC Fuze. I am so glad that I got this phone. Battery life is rather low but overall I just keep a charger around with me and in the car. My phone does a lot. I use it every other day as a GPS when I bike ride 5-10 miles a day. When in the car I stream music with either Pandora or Audiogalaxy. I send text and email messages regularly. Browse the Web and read my Kindle books as well as my Bible.
Just remember if you are going to use the phone a lot you are going to need to have the ability to charge it more often.
It is rather frustrating that AT&T has not released FROYO and that the battery life is not as good as some other phones but for me the pluses out way the minuses.
My brother owned an iPhone 4 an after seeing how my phone worked and looked he bought a Captivate for about $275. He was tired of the dropped calls and smaller screen and just overall functionality. He has been using the iPhone type phones for about 3 years. He has only had it for about 3 days and is loving it!!!
So whether you should buy the Captivate or not you really need to make the choice yourself. Every phone is going to have an issue one way or another. The question is can you live with those issues. Change is always hard and uncomfortable. But in the end you have to make that decision.
Someone suggested that you may want to hold off as the newer phones are on the horizon. That may not be a bad idea. In the end, remember, it is just a phone!!! Most of the heavy lifting is going to be done on your PC!!!
Good luck!!!

I'd say go captivate.
I have the i896 and the gps works perfectly, locks on in about ten seconds or less. I haven't had any problems with random shut downs or my alarm. As for the updates, as long as you are capable of rooting and installing custom roms you'll have 'updates' asap.
Regarding the screen it's absolutely no comparison; I'd say that's enough to buy the phone.
Again, there's no comparison between the hummingbird and the last gen snapdragon, especially with custom roms/kernals this phone demolishes the desire. Me and a friends have done some speed tests with my captivate with phoenix rom, and desire with a custom rom (can't remember the name, wasn't oc though) and in about every test we did the captivate was the winner.
My major complaint with this phone is the build quality, it feels kind of flimsy, especially compared to htc.

peachpuff said:
Not so fast, as much as i love the specs on the atrix looks like motorola will be locking the bootloader damn shame.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like motorola is backtracking a bit on that bootloader comment.

Related

[Q] Should I make the switch to Android?

Hi everyone!
As the title suggests, I'm thinking about making the switch to Android I'm currently at windows mobile, on a HD2. It's a great phone but I can't help but feel that WinMo just doesn't make such a great mobile OS.
Custom ROM's do improve the experience and all, but still, it's WinMo.. So, I thought "Okay, I'll sell my HD2 and buy myself a Desire". At this time of writing, someone is willing to pay € 250 (keep in mind that this phone is almost a year old and has some scratches on the side).
€ 250 is okay, but I'm aiming for € 300
But, now I'm getting second thoughts.. Should I wait to switch to android? Or should I keep the HD2? The Desire seems pretty solid and futureproof...
I really don't know anymore.. And since it involves quite a lot of money, I thought I could use someone else's take on this
So XDA, what do you think is best?
Wait for something better than the desire, and in the mean time, use the android rom for the hd2
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Yeah, that's why I'm having second thoughts There are a lot rumored phones which should out somewhere around the holidays I guess.. But, is it worth the wait? Because the rumored dual core cpu seems kinda overkill.. And 1.2 GHz cpu's don't really seem to make much difference to me.
I mean, 1GHz is already a lot of horse power for a phone :O
Edit: In the world of gadgets and technology, something new and better is released daily, I could keep on waiting for something better?
It depends what you want from your phone. I've had the desire since probably about April, and whilst it was already an amazing phone, I rooted it yesterday because I didn't want to wait around for froyo update. Now what was a great phone is a Stellar phone!
But that's just me. As others have said, HTC are bringing some new phones out but hardware wise they're not too dissimilar to turf desire. If you want either a 4+ inch screen an 8meg camera, or a slide out keyboard, then wait for the desire HD or the Desire Z.
If these are not essential, a desire will be future proof for a least a year yet id say. But hey I'm no.expert
narcoustic said:
It depends what you want from your phone. I've had the desire since probably about April, and whilst it was already an amazing phone, I rooted it yesterday because I didn't want to wait around for froyo update. Now what was a great phone is a Stellar phone!
But that's just me. As others have said, HTC are bringing some new phones out but hardware wise they're not too dissimilar to turf desire. If you want either a 4+ inch screen an 8meg camera, or a slide out keyboard, then wait for the desire HD or the Desire Z.
If these are not essential, a desire will be future proof for a least a year yet id say. But hey I'm no.expert
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was kinda thinking the same thing Although I'm hoping to get by a little longer with such a phone, so that's why I want to make the right decision this time. I mean, the HD2 feels like a mistake.. It was and still is, a quite expensive phone so yeah..
En pff, a 4" screen is nice but I don't know.. It's probably going to be the same resolution? And the design of the Desire HD looks less attractive compared to the one of the HD2 or the Desire. Well, that's just my opinion
and oh, do you have any remarks on your Desire? Something that could've been done better or..?
I'd definitely make the switch. With the help of a friend, I was recently able to put Android (2.2) on my Acer L2R Geeksphone. Since then, I've just been addicted to the phone (mind you, my Tilt2 has got super specs in almost every single aspect than the Acer L2R).
Everything that wasn't available for me with Wm is now on Android. My Tilt2 has just been laying on the floor since I got Android on this device. Now I'm looking to get a Captivate.
I've been with Windows Mobile since PocketPC 2002 on my Toshiba e740. I liked the OS because it was hackable. Swap out components, make edits, and new features.
What I didn't like is the sluggishness.
Android on my Nexus One is amazing. Here are a few thoughts that I've come across. The trackball is better then an optical pad, but don't buy anything without either one of those. You could get by without it but the trackball has really been useful in games and emulaters. I'm not sure how the optical pad would suffice. I had a Samsung Epix with an optical sensor and 1 swipe was 1 direction. So gaming is out right there. Selecting text is a pain but better then nothing.
The larger screens may seems nice, but the same resolution things will start to look blocky/pixelized. My friend has an AT&T Captivate (Galaxy S) and the screen looks good. It is a bit too big for me. The bigness of the screen make the phone very thin. Which is a good/bad thing. The Galaxy S is sweet but it lacks a trackball/sensor that is very handy.
The Desire is basically the same as a Nexus One. If I could trade my Trackball for a few physical buttons... I wouldn't. The phone is responsive and fast enough to use the onscreen controls. Being able to hit the green send button to quickly bring up the dialpad would very sweet vs having to launch the dialer from my homescreen. Honestly I don't miss a physical button though.
Life is a trade off though:
Nexus One
Trackball is the best of the best if you want to do any kind of gaming.
Trackball Notifications is a treat, presenting 255 programmable different colors for various notifications.
I think they got the FM radio working on the Nexus One.
Software updates are glorious.
You can make the Nexus one look like the Desire (which is sexy)
Desire:
Physical buttons make it easy to bring up the dialer from anywhere to make a call. I've noticed on Android the End Key doesn't really do anything beside hang up a call. I guess some programs could remap those keys for other uses.
Optical sensor is middle grade. Makes gaming basically useless unless it is all touch controls. Given the quirky multitouch issues of the screen in the Desire/Nexus one, that is also limiting.
I think the Desire is sexy
Galaxy S
I'm not too sure about it yet. I recommended my friend by one, and he did. He complains about the battery being very very short (half a day on light use).
The screen has a blue/green hue. Very noticable.
The screen is easily visible in direct sunlight. Which is awesome.
No trackball/sensor. Ouch.
Hummingbird processor/GPU
Screen has a great multitouch screen. So multitouch gaming is easily possible.
Phone is so THIN that you could probably afford a thicker longer battery to make it last throughout the day.
My opinion... wait. If you want one now the Nexus will start to get Gingerbread probably starting in October (almost a month). Maybe try to find one second hand or cheap. Stay out of contract because some better phones with better processors will start coming out very soon.
The wait for a new phone like desire hd or desire z is not to long and will be a big difference. But no one would blame you if you jumped the gun, especially if you like the design better and feel 1 ghz is enough.
Yeah, the Nexus One has crossed my mind already.. but it's a bit more expensive than the Desire and it's kinda hard to order one and get it shipped right here to Belgium.
I don't know why, but Google doesn't ship to Belgium. It did to the Netherlands but, Google has stopped shipping Nexus' and right now, I don't find a webshop which has cheap shipping or even the Nexus One.
And concerning the Desire HD/Z, I don't think there'll be much difference, the Z will have a physical keyboard and the HD will have a huge screen, just like de HD2 does. But, I noticed that with the HD2, holding the phone can be problematic sometimes. Operating the device with one hand can be kinda tricky, you could easily drop the phone that way..And oh, the Desire HD is not likely to have a trackbaal/sensor And just like player911 says, it's something which is very handy! Most of the time when I have a Android device in my hand, I use the trackball/sensor to switch screens etc.
Code:
http://htcpedia.com/news/995.html
(rumored spec's of the HTC HD, although I guess most of you already knew that )
Are there any more rumored Android devices? :O
One of the only things I would have improved on the desire would have been speed of the OS as it ran slightly slow at times. However now that I've upgraded to froyo I'm struggling to think of anything. The minor gripes I had before are mostly ironed out in froyo.
The biggest negative for The desire is the battery life, but this can be remedied in a # of different ways. I have a spare battery for instance. Also, froyo supposedly improves battery but I haven't run any tests personally.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I'd wait for better and more powerful android devices as i can't see much difference or generation gap between the HD2 and Desire/Captivate etc.. HD2 is still a powerhouse device and it has great android rom ports. In addition, it looks like WM7 port will be available for HD2,too. So hd2 is also very flexible between different platforms.
Sems.
narcoustic said:
One of the only things I would have improved on the desire would have been speed of the OS as it ran slightly slow at times. However now that I've upgraded to froyo I'm struggling to think of anything. The minor gripes I had before are mostly ironed out in froyo.
The biggest negative for The desire is the battery life, but this can be remedied in a # of different ways. I have a spare battery for instance. Also, froyo supposedly improves battery but I haven't run any tests personally.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, I've read about the battery life.. Is it really that bad? I mean, do you have troubles to get through the day with one charge?
Semseddin said:
I'd wait for better and more powerful android devices as i can't see much difference or generation gap between the HD2 and Desire/Captivate etc.. HD2 is still a powerhouse device and it has great android rom ports. In addition, it looks like WM7 port will be available for HD2,too. So hd2 is also very flexible between different platforms.
Sems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point. But the Android ports for the HD2 are nothing close to the real deal, it seems. No? And personally, I don't like WP7 at all.. Way to apple-ish for me. I want a phone which lets me do whatever I want to do with it. That's something which is not going to be possible with WP7 - unless it gets hacked, and it probably will, but still, I don't like it
Battery on desire will get you through about a day on a single charge (pre froyo) but its not drastically worse than other smart phones I don't think. I always charge my phone everyday anyway.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I wouldn´t think on make the switch
My Leo is capable of having the best of both OS and still has same or even better specs than "newer" devices.
And now that WP7 is just around the corner, I´ll stay with WM/WP!
After owning an HD2 you won't to go back to anything with a smaller screen, i did and hated it, so bought a streak! So much better than the HTC in every department
Personally, I think 4" is the biggest screen size I find comfy. Anything bigger is a bit of a risk in the hand.
Ive had the Nexus one and the desire. ALthough near identical, I much appreciate the hard buttons as opposed t o the softkeys on the Nexus.
The Nexus Trackball acts funny after a few months of use (or did in my case) and the optical joystick on the desire randomly breaks with most CM based Roms. so
Btw HTC Sense has a pretty good text selection feature making it easy to deal w/o any sort of joystick/trackball.
I'd wait and get the next range of HTC phones or a samsung galaxy phone. Both will have huge android dev (galaxy coz they simply sold so many!) and HTC because the community has been built around HTC Devices.
The two biggest things on my Desire wish list include:
- better GPU not that I really play games , but hey! I would if I could!
- Multi touch issue (you wont notice it in the browser) but a lot of games are soooo frustrating because of the multi-touch bug
THe Nexus one had the following issues:
Power button has a mind of its own
hard to press soft keys
Bought a Galaxy S to review so will let you know what thats like. Im sure it'll have its quirks.
Hope this helped
Oz

Opinions Needed. Sgs II or HTC Sensation?

I just wanted to get an opinion before i jump and get a new phone. I like both the galaxy s 2 and the htc sensation (now that it will be coming to Bell Mobility meaning AT&T HSPA Bands). I'm just want to know the positives and negatives of each device. I want honest opinions.
I'd pick the SGSII. I think it'll have better capabilities in the future when it comes to modding.
Sent from my NookColor with Tapatalk.
good point
gasolara2002 said:
I just wanted to get an opinion before i jump and get a new phone. I like both the galaxy s 2 and the htc sensation (now that it will be coming to Bell Mobility meaning AT&T HSPA Bands). I'm just want to know the positives and negatives of each device. I want honest opinions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my play time with a Sensation, there is no other choice. . It's that good. Sense 3.0 is just superb. And the build quality, style and design of the Sensation pushes it over the top. The SGS2 may be a nice phone, but it just can't even approach the Sensation...in my opinion.
Another great point.
I had the same problem choosing between these two phones. My previous HTC phones had superb build quality and I still think HTC makes incredible devices but after reading some reviews I decided on the Galaxy S II. The screen is undeniably amazing, and even though it has a slightly lower resolution it honestly doesn't matter, the display is that good. Its very fast, thin, and has surprisingly good build quality for a Samsung phone (no creaks at all, like my Desire Z). I haven't been able to slow it down yet, and that's a first for any android phone I have had or tried. At the time hearing about the locked bootloader on the Sensation defiantly made a difference for me coming from the **** that was the Atrix, but HTC has resolved this issue now (I think). As far as Sense 3.0 or TouchWiz 4.0 go I await the day CM7 nighties start releasing so I dont have to deal with stupid manufacturer "improvements" to android. You will have to make the decision yourself, but I can tell you for sure if you get the Galaxy S II you wont be disappointed.
HTC all the way. But I a HTC fan not
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
I would have to say SGSII
Samsung has it!
I go for Samsung Galaxy S II.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
I forgot to mention, don't forget about the horrific GPS problems Samsung phones have. Plus the build quality is spotty at best. HTC phones are a proven and sure bet.
Id go SGSII I loved my original Galaxy variation, and the SGSII looks like a beast
Have you seen the GS2's screen next to the sensation? Samsung is infinitely better.
MartyLK said:
I forgot to mention, don't forget about the horrific GPS problems Samsung phones have. Plus the build quality is spotty at best. HTC phones are a proven and sure bet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GPS is perfect here, much better than the DHD, stable lock on seconds, build quality is on par with HTC
Add on the huge development teams involved with sgs2 and u can't touch it! I was a HTC fanboy
Sgs2 is a different animal
Sent from my GT-I9100
I think Samsung Galaxy S II
SII - Brilliant screen and no doubt about that, very good performance and pretty good battery life too. GPS problems seems to be exist in this one too, but when is comes to performance, no compromises, always a better phone, unless you are hooked up to HTC Sense UI
HTC Sensation - super LCD lacks that brilliance that samsung AMOLED holds, but still read that pretty good battery life with idle state, and comfortably survive for 2 days. HTC Sense UI with latest changes does have some lag in the phone, so if you are looking at absolute performance, this might not be the phone.
I totally agree witg ajvasudhar.
The big problem is that Touchwiz is no where near the beauty of Sense UI.
...I wonder if (S*ns* porting to SII)...naaahhh...forget it...
HTC off caurse does not have concurrents. this is true
SGS II is better
Difficult choice, indeed, and I am standing in front of the exactly same dilema... I really dont like TouchWiz, and I really love HTC Sense... but I've read HTC Sense has some issues with smoothnes... I'd say its even here.
Display on SGSII is SAMOLED+, that would be +1 for me, however for 4.3inches, I am afraid that same resolution as on 3.7 inches amoled screen wont look that sharp. HTC on other hand has qHD resolution, but only S-LCD screen, which is not bad, but not as bright as Amoled(yea, I am very afraid of the 'gray' black on S-LCD). its still even fight on this point
Design of SGSII is weird, I dont like it, its like a brick, square, huge. On other hand, HTC came with very interresting design, I like the screen design, its very original. This round owns HTC.
Quality of materials, here again, just as with SGS I, SGSII has been made out of cheap looking plastics, and I dont like it. I have also heard that after two weeks of use, the back cover is making weird noise... on other hand, HTC has again aluminium unibody, where you put the phone into this body. GREAT... +1 for HTC.
Controls, I dont like the Samsung way of doing it, on/off button on side, three buttons, pretty far from each other... its my own opinion, I dont like it, but I guess I'd get used to that(but I still prefer unlocking phone from top) HTC has keys I am used to, but those are again sensors only, not real buttons.. I dont like this, so here its SGSII who takes point, where at least the home button is real +1
HW and performance, so far what I've seen benchmarks(I know its not perfectly accurate) and other stuff, SGSII is way better, it may be caused by SENSE, which is eating really a lot of performance, and may get improved by custom roms, but here I have to give points to SGSII, which has even more memory So far we have it 2:2 for each device
Now, I got into point, that no other things makes any difference for me... each phones have their own issues, SGS is loosing GPS signal, HTC is loosing WiFi and BT while not holding properly. I have also heard that first bunch of HTC's had issue with pocket lint/dust getting under the screen, however HTC is solving this responsibly and fixing the phones straight away.
So, if you ask me, for me its gonna be the one that goes cheaper... so far I can get Sensation for cca 220eur and SGSII for 300eur(both with 18months contract, which I'd take anyways), which makes HTC the winner, just because of the pricing.
Dont take this as a guide, this is bunch of my own opinions and preferences, why I chose HTC over Samsung, you might have different preferences, and performance could be far more important for you than look of the phone as for me, so still this is your choice... If you have chance, get into store and let them borrow you both working phones, put them next to each other and play with them for a moment, then you'll see which one is your champion
I read tons of reviews and comparison videos and went with the SGSII. The SGSII came out on top in most reviews. Loving mine!

[Q] Sense 3.0 lag,unresponsive touchsreen,lousy battery life... Evo3D better choice?

Hi mates, I've been reading up on comments, reviews and opinions on the Evo 3d and Sensation for the past few weeks and am already getting headaches from it. Now I'm at the brink of buying one of these (preferably this week as my iphone makes me sick more and more).
Your opinion is very important to me as I'm about to extend my contract for 2 years!
I don't need the 3d, but I'm having the feeling that the Evo3d is the overall better device. However, the bulky design and the inferior camera make it hard not to go for the Sensation (especially since I don't give a damn about 3d).
What I need to know from you guys are the follwoing things:
1. The Sensation's been known to have a slight lag in Sense and overall slower performance compared to the evo 3d. It was said many times this could be due to software issues. Has the performance since been improved in a way that it's on par with the Evo? Are the European units any better/different than the American ones?
2. I live in Europe. Are chances high I will get a faulty unit with a bad touchscreen? It seems to be a hardware issue so I guess there will be no software fix and sending the unit in 5 times with weeks of waiting in between is a dealbreaker for me.
3. I have read many reviews saying the Sensations battery life is superior to that of the Evo 3d and I have read just as many reviews that claim the opposite.
I do the occasional surfing while in train/bus, maybe 1-2h of music listening, checking emails several times a day and use google maps+GPS from time to time. No 3d use, movie watching or hours of gaming intended. Which one will serve me better?
The Sensation is slicker and doesn't have the ugly and unhandy camera-bumps like the Evo, but I'm very allergic to lag so if the Sensation is just underpowered compared to the Evo, i'll go with the snappier of the two.
Thank you!
As far as I know, the EVO 3D is pretty much identical hardware to the Sensation. And it also runs Sense 3.0. Check here for a comparision: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3901&idPhone2=3875
With a custom Sense ROM, it is much more smooth.
Really don't see why the EVO 3D performance would be THAT much better then the Sensation...
The touchscreen isn't a problem. The only issues seem to be on the lockscreen, so it's software.
I don't see the reason either (apart from 1gb ram over 768mb) but apparently the Evo runs soomther plus i hear the sensation starts to show lag over time...
anyways, evry review says evo is snappier... i just wonder whether thi sis soething that can be fixed by updates or if it is due to bad hardware
My experience is limited to the Sensation only, but:
1. Yes. Annoyingly so. Stock performance on the Telstra model isn't very good. I've used three units and all have been identical. Once you S-OFF, install a custom ROM and a custom kernel, the problem is lessened somewhat. Sense 3.0 seems to underpin all the problems with this device.
2. Completely random. Out of the dozen or so people I know who own Telstra units, I am the only one with a 'good' Sharp panel. There's not a lot of difference in the picture quality of both screens, but there is a definite difference in the ghosting while scrolling. Mine's better, but it's still there. Looks to me like a refresh rate issue, but I'm not sure. Apparently the digitiser can 'de-sensitise' over time, I've had mine a fortnight and no issues as of yet.
3. I find the Sensation's battery life admirable. After a moderate day's use I get home with 80-60% remaining. I don't OC, I use WiFi all day at home and HSPA when I'm out, make a few calls, send maybe 80 texts, download a few apps and listen to music for an hour or so. Even after a solid hour of continuous Market browsing, I'd reportedly lost <10%.
Good luck in your choice!
Those side-effects are all results of Sense. Just install CyanogenMod or any other AOSP ROM (when they're released) for a much, much better experience.
--
Sent from my HTC Pyramid.
TheBiles said:
Those side-effects are all results of Sense. Just install CyanogenMod or any other AOSP ROM (when they're released) for a much, much better experience.
--
Sent from my HTC Pyramid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely.
I've never been a fan of CyanogenMod, but I will say that I am very much looking forward to it becoming available for the Sensation. The Alpha AOSP ROM looks promising also!
Thank you very much juzz86 and the others. Your post was very helpful. The thing is, I WANT Sense 3.0. If it was for the hardware alone, I'd go with the SGSII, although it's butt-ugly and feels like a child's toy in your hand. The Sensation's hardware is not so sensational when you compare it to other flagship phones. It's Sense that is making me want a HTC phone, but if the darn device can't handle it, despite dual core fanfare, I don't want it.
I'm so disappointed in this device It should have been everything the SGSII is, but with better design and Sense on top.
Anyways, the Evo seems to deal just fine with Sense 3.0 (at least that's what I read). I think I will give it a shot then, but not before I actually had the device in my hands. I'm a Pperson that is rather careless with it's phone. My iphone survived just fine because of a rubber case that saved it many times. But The Evo has ONE big glass plate in front of the two cam lenses... one unfortunate drop and goodbye picture taking.
I will have to think about that and see how the device actually feels...
Vipeout said:
Thank you very much juzz86 and the others. Your post was very helpful. The thing is, I WANT Sense 3.0. If it was for the hardware alone, I'd go with the SGSII, although it's butt-ugly and feels like a child's toy in your hand. The Sensation's hardware is not so sensational when you compare it to other flagship phones. It's Sense that is making me want a HTC phone, but if the darn device can't handle it, despite dual core fanfare, I don't want it.
I'm so disappointed in this device It should have been everything the SGSII is, but with better design and Sense on top.
Anyways, the Evo seems to deal just fine with Sense 3.0 (at least that's what I read). I think I will give it a shot then, but not before I actually had the device in my hands. I'm a Pperson that is rather careless with it's phone. My iphone survived just fine because of a rubber case that saved it many times. But The Evo has ONE big glass plate in front of the two cam lenses... one unfortunate drop and goodbye picture taking.
I will have to think about that and see how the device actually feels...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like a plan. Don't drop the coin on it unless you're happy (only stupid people do that... ).
A recommendation: If you love Sense, and daily performance is more important to you than what looks good on paper, the Incredible S is an extremely good choice. It's 'just' a single-core, and it runs an older Sense, but it absolutely runs rings around the Sensation. The only real difference between the Sense version is the lockscreen, which is the only 'plus' I've come across in Sense 3.0
Thx for the advice, but I think it's rather stupid to buy a single core mobile in the age of dualcore processors and quadcore soon to be unleashed onto the world. I don't care if my Lambo is slower compared to a F1 Ferrari, but that don't mean I 'd go with a Fiat too
One more question regarding the lag/slowness of the phone: Is it sluggish out of the box or does it's performance degrade over time? How bad is it?
I often hear people complain about ceratin bugs, but only few seem to feel bothered by the performance...
Vipeout said:
Thx for the advice, but I think it's rather stupid to buy a single core mobile in the age of dualcore processors and quadcore soon to be unleashed onto the world. I don't care if my Lambo is slower compared to a F1 Ferrari, but that don't mean I 'd go with a Fiat too
One more question regarding the lag/slowness of the phone: Is it sluggish out of the box or does it's performance degrade over time? How bad is it?
I often hear people complain about ceratin bugs, but only few seem to feel bothered by the performance...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it was slow out of the box. But I just flashed InsertCoin and it's very smooth compared to stock. CM7 will be even smoother
Swyped from my HTC Sensation
I don't know whether I should be happy or afraid because of that :O
Will CM7 still have Sense 3.0 or is it something completly different? I'm new to andorid, sry have no clue about it... Just saw that InsertCoin still has it.
I just read that the European Version of the Evo 3d isn't h4ackable as of now Different bootloader version or sumthin...
Yeah great, now I'm reconsidering the Sensation with a custom ROM. Geez this is getting old now...
Vipeout said:
I don't know whether I should be happy or afraid because of that :O
Will CM7 still have Sense 3.0 or is it something completly different? I'm new to andorid, sry have no clue about it... Just saw that InsertCoin still has it.
I just read that the European Version of the Evo 3d isn't h4ackable as of now Different bootloader version or sumthin...
Yeah great, now I'm reconsidering the Sensation with a custom ROM. Geez this is getting old now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM7 will not have Sense at all. Most of the current crop of ROMs available still have Sense - even those that offer a 'sense-less' option still have the underlying frameworks included.
For me it was untolerable out of the box. I'm very susceptible to lag though.
I stick by my recommendation of a good single-core over a dual-core at this point. If it's fluid and quick in everyday operation, do you really need anything else? It's all just hype at this point, and the real-life benefits of dual cores aren't here yet.
I've ditched my Sensation for a Sharp SH-12C and it stomps all over it with just a single core and it does (pretty cool) 3D to boot. Pretty hard to come by, but so far a very polished package, and I'm getting much more enjoyment from it than from the Sensation.
I'm a big fan of stock android. I love cm can't wait for it to become available. That would definitely speed up things. Not sure I care about sense.
On another note I completely abuse my phone as far a use goes. WiFi on all day now Bluetooth too. I get 5.5hrs on a full charge. But again I completely abuse my phone. I listen to music all damn day I have a car charger so I'm happy and love my phone.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
I was sick of waiting and got the sensation yesterday. Haven't had too much time to spend with it but so far things are looking good, and it's fast, I see no lag. Only thing that's bothering me is te free memory, which is somewhere around 100mb usually. that's kinda lame. Why on earth did HTC not include simply 1gig?
No I wonder which rom to install. I figure crystal pyramid isn't too bad?
Vipeout said:
I was sick of waiting and got the sensation yesterday. Haven't had too much time to spend with it but so far things are looking good, and it's fast, I see no lag. Only thing that's bothering me is te free memory, which is somewhere around 100mb usually. that's kinda lame. Why on earth did HTC not include simply 1gig?
No I wonder which rom to install. I figure crystal pyramid isn't too bad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Task Manager is showing the wrong amount of RAM, go to Settings-Applications-Running Services and check there. I agree it should have been 1 GB though
For a ROM I recommend InsertCoin 2.3.4 because it's very fast However, maybe you will like another one better, so try them out and use the one you like best.
Swyped from my HTC Sensation
Vipeout said:
I was sick of waiting and got the sensation yesterday. Haven't had too much time to spend with it but so far things are looking good, and it's fast, I see no lag. Only thing that's bothering me is te free memory, which is somewhere around 100mb usually. that's kinda lame. Why on earth did HTC not include simply 1gig?
No I wonder which rom to install. I figure crystal pyramid isn't too bad?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear you got a good one mate, nice job. I was also a bit skeptical of the reported RAM under the task switcher, seemed very low. As stated above, it appears to be a bit off. Uninstalling Sense actually freed up about 80MB for me, so hopefully something like AOSP will free up even more and make it really sing.
Crystal Pyramid is very nice. You won't be disappointed with any of the custom Sense ROMs at all, they're all nice and slick.
Enjoy!
I also have problems with the fact that the phone is so slow,and i was expecting much much more from it,i couldn't wait to finally get my hand on a Sensation .I have the stock rom with no modifications,but my Desire HD was also stock and it worked perfect,with no lag.I was playing Angry Birds Rio yesterday and the phone had lots of lags(like a video with low frame rate),and there wasn't any running program in the background .The Desire HD never had this problem,even if there were programs running in the background,the phone worked flawlessly.I am starting to regret that i sold the desire hd and bought the Sensation.

Any former Nexus S users want to comment on the Sensation V. NxS?

Any former Nexus S owners on the Sensation boards who can give me some good feeback on their Nexus S v. the Sensation now that they have had the phones for a while? I'm really not a power user, I do email, web browsing, and listen to some podcasts and audio books, and take pictures and that's pretty much all I do with my phone. As such I was actually thinking of downgrading from my Sensation to a Nexus S, just because I want to try out a Nexus phone and I can't afford to get a Galaxy Nexus. I'd love to hear some feedback on every day speeds of the UI (lag etc) and battery life especially. Screen, etc.
I had my Nexus S as a daily driver for about 5 months (give or a take a few weeks), and have had my Sensation since around the time it launched-- so very comparable timespans.
In my experience, emailing and audio usage had effectively no difference between handsets; I used Gmail and PowerAMP on both, so I cannot comment on any performance differences between stock AOSP and HTC Email or Music apps.
The camera is IMO a pretty notable improvement on the Sensation. Not just the qHD resolution (more on that in a sec), but the image quality in general. Not to mention the 1080P videorecording ability. Looks ace. I believe I had a ROM that handled 720P videorecording, but IIRC the framerate wasn't as good.
Honestly, I can't say as I felt that either one had smoother UI-- although I've gone to lengths to either clear out some of the Sense 3.X bloat on my Sensation, and exclusively used custom ROMs for both phones.
Battery life was a bit better on my Nexus S-- although a CM7-based ROM and an undervolted kernel undoubtedly affected that. Comparing stock kernels, though, I think it's fair to say that they were about equal, with the NS maybe a *smidge* better.
The biggest reason I prefer my Sensation is the screen size/resolution. qHD is really excellent, and I don't think I could go back-- even though the NS has a reasonably large screen as well. Larger resolution and pixel density makes the text easier on the eyes (and that's coming from a young-ish guy, so it's a pretty dramatic improvement if even I notice ), and fits more content on the screen than I remember having on the NS. Reading webpages also feels better by comparison on my Sensation.
Since we live and die by the touchscreens on our devices, I'd say that's the most convincing reason why I personally would never go back to the Nexus S. Or even my trusty, beloved Nexus One.
EDIT: Hopefully someone who kept their NS stock would be better able to speak to some of the issues above where I wasn't able to comment as well. NSCollab and Netarchy's kernels were just too sweet of a combo for me to want to stay stock, though :]
Hm, that was some good insight. I honestly have been considering trading my Sensation for a Nexus S if I can find someone local with T-Mobile who is willing.
I'm still on the fence. Unfortunately, I feel like my Snesation has caused a lot mroe headaches than my Nexus One did. I am really starting to miss that phone...
Oh. God. Also, the fact that the Sensation has a microSD slot is a big deal for me. I'm a media hoarder, so the 16GB limitation on the Nexus S was terrible for me. I know the OP said that media was one of his factors.
As for sn0warmy, they really just don't make em like they made the Nexus One, eh? (As long as we sort of gloss over the ****ty touchscreen errors on the N1) :]
What sorts of headaches are you having with the Sensation though? Hopefully I've gone through them too, and might have some advice?
Hey guys. Any of you Nexus S owners have any problems with lag(like major lag) on everyday tasks like composing a SMS or any issues making phone calls? My mom just got the S and I've seen it do it to her. She types something and it just stalls like an old Windows 95 machine with an enormous work load. It also refuses to make calls sometimes, with the same stalled out results. Its on Sprint but it's got to be a bad handset right? Should I have her take it in or are these problems with all Nexus S sets?
Sent from where ever I was when I posted this
sosquidtaste said:
...
As for sn0warmy, they really just don't make em like they made the Nexus One, eh? (As long as we sort of gloss over the ****ty touchscreen errors on the N1) :]
What sorts of headaches are you having with the Sensation though? Hopefully I've gone through them too, and might have some advice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I just can't get used to what feels like poor design quality to me. The phone pops and creeks when using it due to the way the screen and back plate are mounted together. It just doesn't feel as solid as I would like.
Secondly, I am now on my second Sensation. The first one was replaced due to dust under the screen and within 1 week of having the new one I had the same dust problem. And it really erks me that there are a large number of us with this issue yet HTC still refuses to admit it's an actual problem.
The one thing that makes me nervous about switching more than anything else is losing the dual core processor. An Ice Cream Sandwich port is undoubtedly around the corner for the Sensation with full dual core support. At which point I think the Sensation will blow the Nexus S out of the water with speed performance.
I have a nexus s as well, just got it 3 weeks ago and it's alright. Its not as snappy as the sensation and you can see the one second lag when you switch from aanother app to another. Right now I'm running the oxygen rom on it and the battery life is awesome.
More on it later, I hate typing long comparisons on my phone
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Love both, been using the nexus s since December (when power button & USB port tapped out on nexus one) ... well, I wouldn't ditch the sensation for the nexus s. But there are a few things the nexus s has over the sensation. Color, sound, voodoo mods, ease of root, and unlocking bootloader, design (sensation housing engineer belongs in the dungeon, I couldn't use it without a case), power button on sensation is suspect as well, just feels like its wearing out each time I press it. I guess if you're a Google fan I'd recommend the nexus s. If you're an HTC fan, the sensation.
Sent from my Sensation using xda premium
Well I'll start off by stating the obvious which is the Nexus S is vanilla.(Pure ANDROID!) So I bought the Nexus S sometime during the beggining of the summer, and for the first 3 months I loved it nonetheless. Coming from the HD2 prior I was use to flashing roms left & right! so using the Nexus S with stock overall felt stable & fluid. However I'm one of the individuals who had a bad pba(printed board assembly) board so about 3 weeks ago I sent my device to Samsung. Waitng two weeks for a phone is ridiculous, & recieving it broken is even more RIDICOLOUS. The phone booted up(which was the issue) , but when plugged into the computer, even with the updated drivers my device wouldnt be detected. Long story short I sold my Nexus S the same day UPS sent it, followed by heading over to a local cellphone store and trading it in for my new SENSATION! I don't regret it one bit. Sure the Prime is Amazing! however if Samsung decides on making the storage internal again, that will be my make or break decision. Oh, not to mention the Sensation has the 8226 qualcomm processor, running at 1.2ghz, which by the way is underclocked. The qhd display along with an 8MP dual flash camera gives the Nexus S a run for its money...Just Saying

Do you think ICS will make things any better for us/the Sensation?

I really was a HTC fanboy, both software and hardware wise, after seeing their first HTC Desire and later the Desire HD. That made me ditch the iphone and switch to android.
Recently, I am starting to regret having bought the Sensation. Build quality my arse. This phone is full of bugs and disappointments, my biggest issues being:
- Power Button issue (no its NOT software related, at least not with my unit and the "fix" don't work)
- Battery reading and jumping issues. My phone stays way too long on 100% and then takes a dive instead of showing the energy levels correctly. And no matter what it shows, when I restart it the percentage magically jumps up around 15%, only to drop swiftly little later. Yes I did calibrate the battery in Android and yes I did several charge-discharge circles with all my 3 batteries.
- Sluggish Performance. Yes there are "ultra-hyper-mega-omega-smooth" ROMs but it only helps so much, many menus still have an apparent lag when scrolling, most famously the appdrawer (when u install more than just a few apps) and whatsapp when scrolling through chat history.
Also, in Electopia benchmark, the highest I get is 30 FPS, with an AOSP ROM. SGSII users get 49 fps no problem and they don't need to OC their device to 8.7GHz like we do to achieve it. I know benchmarks say nothing but this is a game with nice graphics and I can actually SEE the performance difference with my own eyes.
-Touchscreen problem. It's gone now, yes. But come on! Who tells me this will not resurface after 2 years in a much more severe way?
- Loudness. The phonespeaker blows, when I show someone a song or vid on the phone you can barely hear it. Same problem for in-call volume. No, Volume+ does not really help and it makes sound everything like shiat. I thought the iphone had a bad speaker but now I actually think it was quite good after seeing the lower end of the quality spectrum
-Broken 3D engine and no official fix for it. I need to rely on devs to do their work? Screw you htc
-Camera. Nothing in particular except that it is not as good as I expected and it lacks some features even my old Sony Ericsson k800i had like burst mode etc. Yes you can have it if you install the camera apk from a different htc phone but there usually are compatibility problems. Plus, why can't my phone have a decent camera app of its own? Too much to ask, HTC? Guess their priorities are elsewhere.
- The phone was half-baked to begin with and got patched up to adress the most severe problems rather than being good at launch and "sensational" after updates.
I'm interested in your opinion wheter a future ICS RUU will make things any better. I would sell my Sensation now and probably go for a Samsung. The thing is, I have bought a cover and two extra batteries for it and I'm not looking forward to buying those accessories again, especially because Amazon doesn't ship to my country. And I hear folks say all the time how ICS will make our device shine because of native dualcore support etc. In that case, it might well be worth to wait a little...
The thing is, I just don't believe in it anymore. HTC seems more busy pushing out new models than refining current ones. Hell, since the launch of the first Sensation alone they have thrown 2 additional versions of it in the market, let alone the number of completely new phones released or soon to be released.
I think fragmentation is becoming a major problem with HTC. Look at the leaked 3.3.5 RUU that all the devs build upon, it's been around for forever. But the real thing never saw the light of day and now with ICS out, I think it never will. When HTC has a flagship phone, you can bet they will have a new one in 6 weeks time. The Sensation got replaced by the Sensation XE (Different ROM&Kernel, not just fancy new colours) and the Sensation XE got replaced by the HTC Rezound all in less than 6 months.
HTC announced they will release ICS for Sensation around March. By that time, the Sensation will be a second class phone with quadcores already in the pipeline. The way I know HTC, their first ICS build will be full of crap and bugs. But because they will be busy pushing out new phones, we will have to live with their halfdone work. And by that time, I will prolly get much less for it if sold than I would right now.
What do you think? Sell now or wait and hope/pray for improvement?
Look. If you really dislike the phone that much, sell it now. ICS will change many things; improve some, make some worse. That's just how it goes. Then they'll patch the issues with the next patch etc. But judging from your post, I'd recommend you sell it and get another phone. Just don't touch anything Samsung.
You better sell it if you hate it that much. Why most people buy HTC? Because they can flash anything they whant and make the device better than stock. (same with Samsungs Plastic Devices) I never had any of the prolems you are talking about on my XE with the same Hardware. The Sensation XE is my 4th HTC phone and all of them were great never got any problems (Hardware or Software). And when i read something about benchmark i whant to throw up. What does it help if you have high scores and you device is laggy? If the performance is good i don't care about scores. And like FnH84 said ICS will make much things better but some things worse but we are here at XDA and our devs will make it all perfekt. It only needs some time. Android is a "Hacker phone" (let's call it like this) Out of the Box it's not the best OS but you can modify it in every way you whant and that makes it unique. If you need a phone that works perfekt out of the box you should buy icrap or WP7 on this phones you can do nothing wrong and they are easy to use.
Greez
Sent from my Revolver powered Asus Transformer TF101 with Tapatalk
Why don't we just gather all the ones that got a "faulty" device and retards that have something against specific brands, me included I truly hate Apple , HTC samgay and all the rest brands and see which phone (brand) gets the most posts ala we hate, it sucks yada yada doo.
1. Sensation build quality is robust and good, I have had 3 units.
2. Sense is not for every one but some intend to like it.
3. HTC is one of the older players (the oldest) on the android market. They know how to create something that wasn't there f.ex dual core support gingerbread.
4. Great screen with great resolution.
5. Screw you I'm going home!
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk
You are exaggerating things... Practically HTC mobiles are the best out there...
There is still little bit of lag but didn't effect me personally when using as phone...
HTC developers are much better than those Samsung ones... Atleast we have HTC Sense which other brand developers drag their ass to port to their handsets...
I still love it and it's the best for me..
you don't like it then sell it... Bye bye...
Sensation happens to be my best HTC and android phone. I have fewer problems than with MT3G, Nexus1, MT4G. Very pleased overall, just my 2c worth
Sensation happens to be a great phone for me ... much better than the galaxy s II
Feeling lucky ... didnt have any of those issues ...
I somewhat agree with OP, not everything, but certain points.
It did feel half-baked to start with. 2.08 base feels a lot more sleek though, shame they have not finished it, would be nice to have as an option, fully stable option I mean if they (HTC) **** up ICS.
Assuming HTC actually optimise Sense for ICS I can only see the Sensation getting better. Yes it runs now but I've had to make my own ROM for it. Does it bother me? Not in the slightest!! I enjoy it!!
The build quality of HTC handsets is second to none. I've had the HD2, Desire and now the Sensation and they just feel right. A nice bit of weight is reassuring, it means I know it's in my pocket.
OK, the camera isn't as good as other manufacturers but if I was that interested in taking a picture I'd use a camera (shock horror !!!)
End of the day if you're not happy, flog it and get something 'better'. Otherwise, enjoy what you have and look forward to more awesome ROMs from us Devs
What many people like to forget is, that higher display resolution is always a trade off between look and performance.
Of course the Samsung S2, with slightly better Hardware, performs better... It has only 800*480 Pixels to render.
I'm happy with my sensation. Of course it could be better, but there is no device out there that satisfies all my needs. And the sensation is the one that gets closest to that task.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using xda premium
+1 Sensation..best phone out there, at least for me.
Vipeout said:
I really was a HTC fanboy, both software and hardware wise, after seeing their first HTC Desire and later the Desire HD. That made me ditch the iphone and switch to android.
Recently, I am starting to regret having bought the Sensation. Build quality my arse. This phone is full of bugs and disappointments, my biggest issues being:
- Power Button issue (no its NOT software related, at least not with my unit and the "fix" don't work)
- Battery reading and jumping issues. My phone stays way too long on 100% and then takes a dive instead of showing the energy levels correctly. And no matter what it shows, when I restart it the percentage magically jumps up around 15%, only to drop swiftly little later. Yes I did calibrate the battery in Android and yes I did several charge-discharge circles with all my 3 batteries.
- Sluggish Performance. Yes there are "ultra-hyper-mega-omega-smooth" ROMs but it only helps so much, many menus still have an apparent lag when scrolling, most famously the appdrawer (when u install more than just a few apps) and whatsapp when scrolling through chat history.
Also, in Electopia benchmark, the highest I get is 30 FPS, with an AOSP ROM. SGSII users get 49 fps no problem and they don't need to OC their device to 8.7GHz like we do to achieve it. I know benchmarks say nothing but this is a game with nice graphics and I can actually SEE the performance difference with my own eyes.
-Touchscreen problem. It's gone now, yes. But come on! Who tells me this will not resurface after 2 years in a much more severe way?
- Loudness. The phonespeaker blows, when I show someone a song or vid on the phone you can barely hear it. Same problem for in-call volume. No, Volume+ does not really help and it makes sound everything like shiat. I thought the iphone had a bad speaker but now I actually think it was quite good after seeing the lower end of the quality spectrum
-Broken 3D engine and no official fix for it. I need to rely on devs to do their work? Screw you htc
-Camera. Nothing in particular except that it is not as good as I expected and it lacks some features even my old Sony Ericsson k800i had like burst mode etc. Yes you can have it if you install the camera apk from a different htc phone but there usually are compatibility problems. Plus, why can't my phone have a decent camera app of its own? Too much to ask, HTC? Guess their priorities are elsewhere.
- The phone was half-baked to begin with and got patched up to adress the most severe problems rather than being good at launch and "sensational" after updates.
I'm interested in your opinion wheter a future ICS RUU will make things any better. I would sell my Sensation now and probably go for a Samsung. The thing is, I have bought a cover and two extra batteries for it and I'm not looking forward to buying those accessories again, especially because Amazon doesn't ship to my country. And I hear folks say all the time how ICS will make our device shine because of native dualcore support etc. In that case, it might well be worth to wait a little...
The thing is, I just don't believe in it anymore. HTC seems more busy pushing out new models than refining current ones. Hell, since the launch of the first Sensation alone they have thrown 2 additional versions of it in the market, let alone the number of completely new phones released or soon to be released.
I think fragmentation is becoming a major problem with HTC. Look at the leaked 3.3.5 RUU that all the devs build upon, it's been around for forever. But the real thing never saw the light of day and now with ICS out, I think it never will. When HTC has a flagship phone, you can bet they will have a new one in 6 weeks time. The Sensation got replaced by the Sensation XE (Different ROM&Kernel, not just fancy new colours) and the Sensation XE got replaced by the HTC Rezound all in less than 6 months.
HTC announced they will release ICS for Sensation around March. By that time, the Sensation will be a second class phone with quadcores already in the pipeline. The way I know HTC, their first ICS build will be full of crap and bugs. But because they will be busy pushing out new phones, we will have to live with their halfdone work. And by that time, I will prolly get much less for it if sold than I would right now.
What do you think? Sell now or wait and hope/pray for improvement?
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I've never had a problem with power button, battery, touchscreen or 3D engine.
Speaker, I agree with you, could be better and louder.
Camera, what you expected? It is only phone camera. For me picture quality is very good. And I don't need burst mode, it is unimportant feature.
Performance is very good. UI acceleration is disabled by default to save battery life, you can simply enable it.
SGS II has better performance in 3D, but Sensation has 35% more pixels.
Agreed with the OP, but then again like others have said, Better build quality than any other manufacturer, Sense (at least for me), and the ability to flash whatever the **** you want makes me buy HTC phones. Even though I wouldn't mind a S2 right now, but the screen resolution kills me on that, everything is just huge!
im in the same boat like you i loved htc sense and i still love htc sense
but the thing that really put me off from andriod is because the software and hardware limitation
firstly i want to write about my experience with htc hd2 my first htc phone and i loved it because of big screen but the downside was that any rom i installed on it used to drain my battery madly
if i used my phone for a while the battery used to drop like there is no tommorow
and max battery life used to be 2-3 hours but if when i used to leave it on stand by it used to lst 8-9 hours and that was not used and battery used to die so i got so mad with it that i sold it and bought htc senstaion
the thing with sensation was i had more memory higher resoulation and it was capable of recording 1080p at the same time it had a front camera but the bad thing in sesnation is battery life and check my post where my battery lasted 2 hours and i think this is piss taking.
i have a iphone 4 which i borrowed form my cousin for test this week and this phone blew me away because i left wifi on for 1 day and 5 hour while it was on stand by and guess what it only lost 2 percent in the long time where as my senstaion would have died in 7-8 hours
the good thing about iphone was its software and harware work flawless toghether even though i admit when i'm gonna give this back to my cousin i'm gonna say to him its **** because i cant admit its better in hadrware
but software wise its the best phone out there.
bad thing about iphone 4 its heavy like htc senstion and it has very smal screen and i personally hate it this is the only reason i choose htc rather than iphone
---------- Post added at 08:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 PM ----------
i also did a camera test and iphone was much smmoother and i;m talking about front camera because if i move my camera it laggs bad and does blur where as iphone despite having the same spec camera is much clearer while at the same time it is much better but about the back camera i personally think htc is better and that is my personal choise(i forgot how to write it). in senstaion the front camera is so dark in low light while at the same time iphone is very clear.
personally i think htc and other company should stop brinig phone for a while and rather they should try to perfect the software on our phone because this is really making andriod looking bad
Vipeout said:
HTC seems more busy pushing out new models than refining current ones.
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The way I know HTC, their first ICS build will be full of crap and bugs. But because they will be busy pushing out new phones, we will have to live with their halfdone work.
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In this regard, HTC is no worse (and is better than) other Android handset manufacturers. I was an early adopter with the Samsuck Behold 2, which saw only very limited updates. Every company is pushing new models, either because most consumers are spoiled and always want the latest and greatest, or as a side effect they don't need to support phones beyond 1-2 years because carriers subsidize phones when contracts are renewed.
In general, software rarely gets faster when new versions are released, and I doubt that ICS will perform faster than what we have now unless HTC seriously thins out their Sense UI overlay. I also expect that HTC has a common code base between what we'll get on the Sensation and what future phone releases will use, so I doubt what we get will be any worse than new ICS HTC handsets.
8.7ghz dam bro ur phone must be an oven lol
To those who say they have no battery issues:
Does your battery not stick at 100% longer than it should? It stays at 100% even after 30min of intense use and then sharply drops instead of declining i a linear way. Do you not have different battery level values after restarting the phone? Afaik it is a common problem with the Sensation caused by bad drivers. There is even a thread dedicated to this.
And it can not all be blamed on the higher pixel count. Electopia is a 3d game that measures your fps. There is an option to run it at WVGA resolution (800x480), meaning it is rendered in exactly the same resolution as the SGII. The game runs at aprox. 20 fps slower than on the sgII. Now this is not some synthetic benchmark, this is real world performance where the game simply runs smother on the sammy.
I just checked my roommate's SGII performance within whatsapp. He can scroll through the entire chat history in real time, back and forward with no delay. Mine has VISIBLE lag and doesn't respond as well, it stutters alot when scrolling up the list. Don't tell me its because it has to render more pixels, its a messaging program ffs! This happens with EVERY Rom (With or without Sense).
I am surprised no one shares my view on those issues because it's basically a compilation of often here mentioned issues plaguing the Sensation. And I know HTC made some damn fine phones, but the Sensation just doesn't live up to their past standards.
No I don't feel the need to always have the fastest and best thing around. I was evaluating pros and cons between the Sensation and SG2 for 6 whole weeks before ultimately going for the Sensation. I knew the Samsung had better benchmark results and more power but I was like "I don't need a ****ing racing car, a nice sports car will do it just as well". But I simply cannot put up with sluggish menus/scrolling behaviour. Not in 2011 and in the age of dual core processors. See, if only the Sensation was really snappy with my daily tasks, I couldn't care less for benchmarks.
But folks will always say the same things like "it has more pixels to push" or "mine runs super smooth" when in fact it runs the same way as mine and they just don't mind a bit of choppiness.
I HATE the plastic toy phone feel of the Samsung devices, but damn those phones fly. Probably I'm alone with this, but choppy and sluggish menus and scrolling behaviour gives me eye cancer. And it's something I can't live withon such a premium device.
Please keep the "if you don't like it then sell it" comments to your self, they add nothing to the discussion and you are not telling me anything new.
Well I am considering the Galaxy Nexus now, despite not having the most fancy gpu unit available.
Probably I'm alone with this, but choppy and sluggish menus and scrolling behaviour gives me eye cancer.
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Then you need to go to a hospital, stat. Here's the deal, 99% of people who dislike this phone either return it or sell it, and get something they like. They don't go to a dev forum specifically designed for the phone in question and ***** about it.
Point is, if you don't like it, get something else.
Get the motorola atrix, or even the lg g2x and then tell me this phone is buggy.. hahah, the moto atrix even with CM 7 was more laggy than this phone stock. with more ram etc. camera flys past both phones. sure its not better than the amaze but look at the price differance.
I think ICS will make the Sensation a little bit smoother.
That said, I overall don't really like my Sensation. It was an under-spec'd, half-baked phone from release. I really wish my phone upgrade would have been now, because I would have been all over a real performer like the Galaxy Nexus. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with my Sensation for another year and a half or so, and I doubt I'll be able to make it that long.
Having a phone that performs like a toy is worse than having one that feels like a toy. I didn't buy a damn phone just to touch it. I bought it to use it, and there are tons of phones out there that perform better.

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