Gizmo Ground

HTC has been producing some great Android smartphones, and their latest flagship model is the HTC Sensation, which comes with a range of impressive specifications, we recently showed you some hands on photos of the new HTC Sensation, and have been testing it out over the last 10 days, so its time to let you guys know what we thought about the HTC Sensation.

The first thing you notice about the HTC Sensation is the size of the device, it features a large 4.3 inch qHD display. so the handset has a similar size to the Samsung Galaxy S II we reviewed recently and also features very similar specifications.

Both HTC and Samsung have been leading the pack with their Android smartphones, and HTC’s latest offering will appeal to Android fans who want the latest hardware and features in a stylish design.

The HTC Sensation has a range of impressive hardware specifications, just what you would expect from the latest flagship Android device from HTC, it features a 4.3 inch 4HD display with a resolution of540 x 960 pixels, processing is provided by a dual core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, it also comes with the latest version of Android Android 2.3.3 and HTC’s Sense 3.0.

The HTC Sensation comes with 768MB of ram, you also get 1GB of storage built in, plus a microSD card slot, plus 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, a G-sensor, gyro sensor, a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and a micro USB 2.0 connection.

The Sensation is equipped with dual camera’s, up front there is a VGA fixed focus camera for video chat, on the back you get an 8 megpaixel camera with a dual LED flash and auto-focus, the camera is capable or recording Full High Definition video in 1080p.

Other features on the HTC Sensation include, DNLA, WiFi and USB tethering, and it also comes with the latest version of HTC’s custom Android user interface, Htc Sense 3.0.

The first thing you notice about the HTC Sensation is the size of the handset, it features a large 4.3 inc qHD display, which makes it feel slightly larger than your average smartphone, although it still feels slim and light, measuring 126.1mm long by 65.4mm wide by 11.33mm thick, and it weighs in at 148 grams.

The HTC Sensation takes many of its design cues from earlier HTC devices, it certainly feels very well made and it fits nicely in your hand, with all the buttons easily accessible, there are four buttons on the bottom of the display, which include, home, settings, back and search.

The display on the HTC Sensation is one of the latest qHD displays, it features a resolution of 540 x 860 pixels, everything looks clear and bight on the screen, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint, the display is great for games, and video and also surfing the web.

The UI on the HTC Sensation is the latest version of HTC’s Sense, and with previous HTC devices we have tested HTC’s Sense is a great user interface, one of the best available on the market, and it has a wide range of options which make customizing your UI a breeze.

The HTC Sensation features a dual core Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor, and it works exactly like you would expect, everything feels fast on the HTC Sensation, whether you are launching applications, playing games or watching a video, the HTC Sensation’s processor handles everything with ease.

HTC has stepped up their efforts with the camera on the HTC Sensation, providing an 8 megapixel camera with a dual LED flash and built in auto-focus, the camera is capable of recording full HD video in 1080p, and it is certainly an improvement on some of the cameras we have tested on previous HTC devices.

The HTC Sensations camera does a good job at snapping photos and recording video when the lighting is good, it isn’t as good in poor light, but you still get the sort of quality you would expect from a smartphone camera.

The HTC Sensation features a 1520mAh battery, and it works pretty well for every day tasks like surfing the web,checking your email, and playing games, its not quite as good as the battery on the Samsung Galaxy S II, and didn’t last as long when we tested it,  but it is still adequate for every day use.

If you are a heavy user you can expect to have to charge your HTC Sensation on a daily basis, for average users, performing normal tasks like checking email, surfing the web etc, you would probably end up charging your sensation every one and a half to two days.

The HTC Sensation is an impressive smartphone, things that we liked about it were the bright, clear display and the fast processor that made everything feel snappy on the Sensation.

The Design is very nice, and the Sensation feels like a quality, well built smartphone, it fits nicely in your hand and considering its large 4.3 inch display it still feels light and thin.

The user interface (UI) is also very good on the Sensation, with a wide range of features that can be customized to suit your personal needs, we already liked HTC’s previous version of their Sense UI, and Sense 3.0 adds more features and is an improvement over the previous offering.

The HTC Sensation is definitely a smartphone that would be worth checking out, comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy S II, it is a hard choice between the two devices, we would recommend that you check out both devices to find out which one would be best suited for your needs.

HTC Flyer
Instead of making another (yawn) black tablet, HTC’s tablet is made from aluminium with white accents, which it instantly stand out while remaining unmistakebly HTC.  It feels very solid in the hand and certainly is a premium product, although it's manageable 415g . The multitouch 7-inch screen has a resolution of 1024x600.

Another black tablet. Sure it's nice looking, but stylistucally hard   from 10-inch rivals. At 425g there's a mere 10g  between this and the Flyer. The 7-inch screen has a 1024x600 resolution and multitouch support, during our time with the Playbook at CES it felt very responsive.

HTC Flyer
Surprisingly HTC has decided to launch the Flyer on Android 2.4, instead of Honeycomb, although an update is coming soon. But instead of using Android's UI it will be running a new version of HTC Sense, which has been optimised for tablets, promising 3D graphics. It looks good, but until we get a chance to try it, we'll opt for the Playbook.

BlackBerry Playbook 
Last year RIM brought QNX and has used its technology to power a brand new OS. Open applications appear in a carousel in the centre of the screen, these are live, so update automatically. Flick up to close them and swipe left to swap between. Underneath, are five categories: All, Internet, Media, Blackberry and Games, click each one and relevant icons appear underneath. Swipe up from the bottom at any point to return to the main menu. It is exceptionally intuitive and different to anything we've seen.

HTC Flyer
Surprisingly the Flyer runs a 1.5Ghz single processor, with 1GH RAM, instead of dual core. OK, HTC seems to be targetting more business users than gamer (although you'll get an OnLive app) and for day-to-day tasks there isn't a great difference between single and dual cores, but, every other new tablet has dual cores.

Blackberry PlaybookRIM has equipped the Playbook with a dual core processor and 1Gb RAM. During out time with the device it felt exceptionally quick, effortlessly letting us swap between 3D games, Video and we browser. Impressive.

HTC Flyer
The Flyer has 32GB internal memory, expandable via a MicroSD slot. Elsewhere there's Bluetooth 3.0 and N WiFi. It launches with 3G and WiFi, with a WiFi only version coming later.

BlackBerry Playbook 
Released initially in a WiFi version, with a 3G version coming later. In the meantime Blackberry users can use their handsets as a modem. It comes initially with 16GB internal storage and a microSD slot, although larger capacities may be available.

Best tablets 7-inches: Conclusion

In terms of processor power,  the Flyer lags behind the Playbook, it also loses marks for not launching with Honeycomb.Although it does have a unique selling point in the form of HTC Scribe and we love its design and build. In contrast tThe Playbook isn't going to win any design innnovation awards, but having used it, we were really impressed by it's power and usability.  The unique OS is what sets the Playbook apart from the pack and could prove a winner.  But this all depends on on crucial factor - price, both tablets need to remain competitive, and be well under £500 to compete with the iPad.

HTC Flyer launch date: Q2, link: HTC

Blackberry Playbook launch date: TBC, link: RIM

This morning AT&T began selling the Motorola ATRIX and since they are marketing it as the world's most powerful smartphone we had to buy one and take a look at the performance of this new smartphone. It also happens to be the first dual-core smartphone thanks to the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, with each core running at 1 GHz. The ATRIX also has 1GB of memory with 16GB of storage space that is expandable up to 48GB if you wanted to buy and insert a 32GB micro-SD memory card. With specifications like this we had to run some benchmarks, which will be a first for Legit Reviews as we have never ever benchmarked and compared smartphones.

he just concluded Mobile World Congress was dominated by Android without doubt. A plethora of Android based smartphones were displayed at the expo since day one. The grand finale of the event was the Global Mobile Awards announcement. This function awards the makers of the best devices and technologies. This year’s award for the best GSM handset was won by Apple’s iPhone 4. This, at an event where Apple had virtually no presence at all!  Talk about creating an impact!

Ironically, HTC bagged the award for the best mobile phone manufacturer. Looks like the judges were impressed by HTC’s consistency in bringing not one, but a barrage of great handsets. This is unlike Apple which releases just one awesome product a year.

The best part about the iPhone 4 winning the award is the fact that the phone is close to a year old already and had tough competition to fend off in the form of more modern, better specced and faster handsets. According to the judges, the iPhone won the awards for its “great screen, sharp design, fantastic materials, and phenomenal ecosystem for app developers. In a tight race, the iPhone 4 built on the success of its predecessors to set the pace for smart phones.”

The guys over at the Boy Genius Report have managed to get their hands on some photos of a new full QWERTY Android smartphone from HTC.

This new HTC Android handset has a model number of ARD6325, and it is a Verizon branded smartphone and will come with the latest version of Google’s Android OS, Android 2.2 Froyo.

Other specifications on this new HTC QWERTY Android device include a five megapixel camera, a microSD card slot and a SIM car with global roaming.

Head on over to the BGR for lots more images of this new HTC QWERTY Android Smartphon

We have heard previously that HTC are going to be launching a new tablet computer some time next year that will run Google’s Android OS.

Now it seems that the HTC Android tablet will feature NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor, plus a touchscreendisplay with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, although there are no details on the exact size, it is expected to be around 10 inches.

Other possible specifications on a Tegra 2 equipped Android tablet from HTC would include 2GB of RAMand 32GB of built in storage, plus WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.

We previously heard that HTC are waiting for Google to launch Android 3.0 Gingerbread to use in their tablet, and this is expected early next year.

As soon as we get more information on the HTC Android tablet we will let you guys know.

According to the guys over at Android And Me, HTC are working on a new dual core smartphone, which is rumored to be called the HTC Pyramid, and it looks like it will feature a dual core Qualcomm MSM8260 1.2GHz processor.

Other rumored specifications on the HTC Pyramid include a 4.3 inch display with a possible resolution of 860 x 540 pixels, and it is also reported to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

It looks like the HTC Pyramid will be available on T-Mobile some time in May 2011 and it is expected to run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network.

no doubt we will hear some more information about the HTC Pyramid at Mobile World Congress 2011 later this month

 Like every other 7-inch Android tablet, HTC's Flyer is essentially a very big phone. It even looks slightly phonier than the rest. But it might be the nicest oversized phone-tablet yet.

Like previous 7-inch Android tablets, it's not running Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Instead, it's running Android Gingerbread with HTC's Sense software slicked over the top for widgets and a nifty 3D homescreen.

Mixed with a few new software features to make it more it tablet-y is OnLive's cloud-based streaming game service (last seen on the iPad and Vizio TVs). The idea behind OnLive is that you can play console games anywhere. The Flyer is promising to be the first tablet to have true OnLive support, so you can play console games on the tablet or "pipe the OnLive service through the HTC Flyer tablet's broadband wireless" to your TV. Hopefully, it's good.

I'm still not sure about using styluses with tablets (unless you're cranking out the artworks faster than you can paint), but HTC's bundling the Flyer with a stylus and has new "Scribe technology" for recognizing hand-writing (and allowing you to draw pictures of horses, or whatever it is you can't do with a pen and paper). And the Timemark feature lets you record audio which is saved alongside the notes for later use. Tapping a word within the notes will automatically play that relevant recording.

The main reason it's probably the nicest Android tablet yet? That aluminum unibody. The screen is a thoroughly standard 7-inch, 1024 x 600 LCD, with a 1.3MP camera strapped onto the front, and a 5MP one on the back. Inside, it's running a 1.5GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage (expandable through the microSD card slot). Right now, it's got HSPA+ connectivity (think AT&T or T-Mobile) but that doesn't mean they won't have a version for Sprint or Verizon.

If you've read this far and were already imagining yourself watching videos on this thing the whole way from New York to China, think again—the battery can only handle four hours of video playback, though the standby time is listed as up to a whopping 1470 hours—that's 61 days. Playtime is obviously a lot less. HTC's not talking pricing but it's probably not cheaper than what Samsung or Dell are asking for their tablets—so think $450 and up.