Galaxy Nexus vs HTC Sensation XL | HTC Sensation XL vs Samsung Galaxy Nexus Speed, Performance and Features | Full Specs Compared
Galaxy Nexus
Galaxy Nexus is the latest Android smart phone released by Samsung. This device is designed for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Galaxy Nexus was officially announced on 18 October 2011. It will be available to users from November 2011. Galaxy Nexus is launched in collaboration of Google and Samsung. The device is designed to deliver a pure Google experience, and the device will receive updates on software as soon as it is available.
Galaxy Nexus 5.33” tall and 2.67” wide and the device remains 0.35” thick. These dimensions are related to a quite large phone in comparison to the current smart phone market standards. It is important to note that Galaxy Nexus is quite thin. (IPhone 4 and 4S is also 0.37” thick). Bigger dimensions of Galaxy Nexus will make the device appear even thinner. It is also important to note that for above dimensions Galaxy Nexus weighs reasonably less. The Hyper-skin backing on the battery cover will make a firm grip on the phone and will make it slip resistant. Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65” Super AMOLED screen with 1280X720 pixels resolution. Galaxy Nexus is the first phone with a 4.65” high definition display. The screen real estate will be appreciated by many Android fans and the display quality and high resolution is quite promising. Galaxy Nexus is complete with sensors such as accelerometer for UI auto rotate, compass, gyro sensor, light sensor, Proximity and barometer. In terms of connectivity, Galaxy nexus supports 3G and GPRS speeds. An LTE variant of the device will be available based on the region. Galaxy Nexus is complete with WI-Fi, Bluetooth, USB support and it is NFC enabled.
Galaxy Nexus is powered by a 1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor. According to the official press release, the device includes 1 GB worth RAM and internal storage is available in 16 GB and 32 GB. The processing power, memory and storage are in par with the high-end smart phone specifications in the current market and they will enable a responsive and an efficient Android experience to users of Galaxy Nexus. The availability of the micro-SD card slot in order to expand the storage is not yet clear.
Galaxy Nexus comes with Android 4.0 and it is not customized in any way. This is the first time users get to have a look at Galaxy Nexus. The much talked about new feature on Galaxy Nexus is screen unlock facility. The device is now capable of recognizing the shape of the users face to unlock the device. The UI is re designed for a better experience. According to the official press release the multi tasking, notifications and web browsing is enhanced in Galaxy Nexus. With the screen quality and display size available on Galaxy Nexus, one can anticipate a unique browsing experience combined with the impressive processing capacity. Galaxy Nexus comes with NFC support as well. The device is available with many google services such as Android Market, Gmail™, and Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps, Navigation, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, Google Calendar™, and Google+. The home screen and phone application has gone through re design and has acquired a new look under Android 4.0. Android 4.0 ( Ice cream Sandwich) also includes a new people Application allowing users to browse friends and other contacts, their photographs and status updates from multiple social networking platforms.
Galaxy Nexus has a 5-mega pixel rear-facing camera with LED flash. The rear-facing camera has zero shutter lag reducing the time between the time the picture is taken and the time the picture is actually shot. The camera also has additional features such as panoramic view, auto focus, silly faces and background replacement. The rear-facing camera is capable of HD video recording at 1080 P. The front facing camera is 1.3 mega pixels and is capable of rendering good quality video for video conferencing. The camera specifications on Galaxy Nexus fall under middle range specifications and will deliver satisfactory photo and video quality.
The multimedia support on Galaxy nexus is also note worthy. The device is capable of HD video playback with 1080 P at 30 frames per second. By default, Galaxy Nexus has video codec for MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 formats. The HD video playback quality on Galaxy Nexus coupled with the impressive display will deliver a superior movie watching experience on a smart phone. Galaxy Nexus includes MP3, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+ audio codec formats. The device also includes a 3.5 mm audio jack.
With a standard Li-on 1750 mAh battery, the device will get by a normal working day with calling, messaging, email, and browsing with ease. The most important fact with Galaxy Nexus is the availability of updates on Android as soon as it is released. A user with a Galaxy Nexus will be the first to receive these updates as Galaxy Nexus is a pure Android experience.
HTC Sensation XL
HTC Sensation XL is one of the latest Android smart phones announced by HTC. The device is officially announced on 6 October 2011, and expected to be released to the EMEA and Asia-Pacific market by early November 2011. This is a larger and slimmer version of HTC Sensation XE, and like HTC Sensation XE, this is also designed as an entertainment phone. HTC Sensation XL comes with custom made ultra light “Beats” headset. Therefore the device is also known as HTC Sensation XL with beats audio.
HTC Sensation XL is 5.22” tall, 2.78” wide and 0.39” thick. The device, unlike many other entertainment phones including Sensation XE, which is black and red, comes in white colour, . With battery the device weighs 162.5 g. HTC Sensation XE has a 4.7” Super LCD, capacitive touch screen with 16 M colours. The screen resolution is WVGA 480×800 pixels. The device also has Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off and a Gyro sensor. The user interface on HTC Sensation is customised with HTC Sense.
HTC Sensation XL has a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm snapdragon processor, but it is not dual core, and the RAM size is 768 MB. The device comes with 16 GB internal storage (12.64 GB available for user storage). As HTC claims it as a multimedia super phone, everyone would have expected a card slot for storage expansion. But HTC Sensation XL does not support storage expansion. In terms connectivity the device supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G connectivity as well as micro-USB.
On HTC Sensation series, HTC capitalized heavily on the cameras. The emphasis remains similar in HTC Sensation XL. HTC Sensation XL has an 8 mega pixel rear facing camera with dual LED flash and auto-focus. The camera also comes with useful features such as geo-tagging, touch focus, image stabilization and face detection. Instant capture is another unique feature in the rear facing camera. The camera is also capable of HD video recording at 720p. The front facing camera is a fixed focus VGA camera quite sufficient for video calling.
HTC Sensation XL is a unique multimedia phone. The device comes with Beats audio and custom made Beats headsets and specially customized music application to take the full advantage of the cool headset. The FM radio support is also available on the device. HTC Sensation XL supports audio playback for formats such as m4a, .mp3, .mid, .ogg, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9). The audio recording format available is .amr. In terms of video playback formats, .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1) are available while video recording is available on .3gp and .mp4. With the high end hardware configurations and the 4.7” screen HTC Sensation XL will be very user friendly for gaming as well.
HTC Sensation XL is powered by Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread); however the user interface will be customized using the HTC Sense platform. The active lock screen and visuals for weather are available on HTC Sensation XL. Since HTC Sensation XL is an Android phone applications can be downloaded from Android market and many other 3rd party stores. Facebook and Twitter applications highly customized for HTC sense is available for HTC Sensation XL. Photos and videos can be directly uploaded to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube from HTC Sensation XL. The browsing experience on HTC Sensation is also supreme with multi window browsing. Text and image are rendered with quality even after zoom and video playback on browser is also smooth. The browser comes with support for flash.
HTC Sensation XL comes with a 1600 mAh re-chargeable battery. As HTC Sensation XL is intended for heavy multimedia manipulation, battery life is vital. The device reportedly stands more than 6 hours 50 minutes of continuous talk time with 3G on.