Difference Between HTC Velocity 4G and Sensation XL

HTC Velocity 4G vs HTC Sensation XL | Speed, Performance and Features Reviewed | Full Specs Compared
 

HTC is a world leading manufacturer of smartphones. Thus, they are looking at growth, and expansion. There are several routes a manufacturer can take to increase their market share. They have to produce cutting edge smartphones that serve a narrow niche market. Then they need to have a class of mid-range handsets which aren’t high priced, yet have decent performance. They also need to have a budget range of smartphones that serve the entry level market. Besides these three segments, the company needs to be aware of global technological trends and need to come up with handsets featuring capabilities to facilitate those. Fortunately, HTC have all the above classes of handsets, and they do stay tuned for the new trends. Going one step further in the expansion, they have been the first to introduce a 4G smartphone to the Australian market. This may open a lot of doors to them with Telstra and a significant competitive advantage, as well.

Both handsets we are going to compare here come from HTC; one is rather new while the other was released two months back. So be warned, we may experience some performance differences. But these two sets are ideal for a comparison because, we can identify how HTC has evolved their strategies during the two months in order to penetrate an existing market with a new product. The HTC Velocity 4G being the first 4G smartphone in the Australian market will yield a lot of favors for HTC if all goes well. Otherwise, if HTC Velocity is to be a failure, the consequences HTC will have to go through will be dire, as well. So we will be keeping that in mind when we compare the two handsets. The HTC Sensation XL would be the rival for Velocity 4G today and let us look into them both first.

HTC Velocity 4G

This is the time we face right on with handsets having dual core processors and super-fast LTE connectivity, high end optics and an operating system like Android, iOS or Windows Mobile. That’s how we perceive a modern smartphone and HTC Velocity 4G matches exactly to that definition. It is powered by 1.5GHz Scorpion dual core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset with Adreno 220 GPU and 1GB of RAM. That’s the top notch configuration you can find in a smartphone right now, until a quad core processor surfaces (We had a rumor at the CES about Fujitsu announcing a quad core smartphone). The Android OS v2.3.7 Gingerbread might not be the ideal version to take control of this beast, but we are positive that HTC will provide and upgrade to v4.0 IceCreamSandwich soon enough. We also like the HTC Sense UI v3.5 because it has a clean layout and easy navigations. As the name suggests, Velocity 4G has the LTE connectivity and records consistent rate of high speeds. The powerful processor enables it to seamlessly multi task with all the opportunities the LTE connectivity provides.

HTC Velocity 4G has 4.5 inches S-LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels at 245ppi pixel density. The display panel is good, but we would have preferred more resolution from a high end smartphone like this. It is somewhat thick scoring 11.3mm and on the hefty side of the spectrum scoring a weight of 163.8g. The smooth edged Black smartphone looks expensive, but you might have trouble in holding it for extended amounts of time due to its weight. HTC has included 8MP camera with autofocus, dual LED flash and geo tagging that can capture 1080p HD videos at 60 frames per second, which is awesome. It also has a 1.3MP front camera for video conferencing bundled together with Bluetooth v3.0. Although Velocity 4G defines its connectivity through LTE, it also has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, which can also act as a hotspot to share your super-fast internet connection. It also has DLNA for wireless streaming of rich media content to a smart TV. It comes in 16GB internal storage with the option to expand using a microSD card. Velocity 4G would have 1620mAh battery that has juice for 7 hours 40 minutes of constant usage.

HTC Sensation XL

As mentioned in the start, we have to expect some performance tradeoff with the price in Sensation XL. It is powered by 1.5GHz Scorpion single core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8255 and Adreno 205 GPU. It comes with 768MB of RAM and runs on Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread. We have some concern about the capacity of the memory, but it performs seamlessly on our hands, so we can disregard that. HTC has no claim of an upgrade of the OS to v4.0 IceCreamSandwich, and that might be a deal breaker for some of the techies out there, but then again, you can always root your handset and gain complete control. It has 4.7 inches S-LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels at a pixel density of 199ppi. The UI is powered by HTC Sense. Sensation XL has a lower pixel density, which would result in texts and images to be less crisp at the micro level, but you’re not about to notice it unless you compare it with another handset with higher pixel density together.

Normally a company would have a tagline for their handsets and, for HTC Sensation XL; it’s the quality of audio. Sensation comes with Beats Audio and Beats headset that is optimized for you to have the optimum entertainment with audio. HTC guarantees that one can completely immerse in the stream of audio and get lost for as long as they want, which is a fair representation of the quality of audio. HTC has included good optics in Sensation, as well. The 8MP camera has autofocus and dual LED flash, and it can also do HDR. The camcorder can capture 720p videos, which we reckon not to be enough, but it compensates that enabling the camcorder to capture slow motion videos. It also has 1.3MP front facing camera for joy of video chatters. The handset comes in a White flavor and is very attractive and beautifully designed. It is more on the hefty side of the smartphone spectrum, and that makes us worry about having it on our hand for extended amounts of time. HTC Sensation defines its connectivity through HSDPA and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and the wireless connection is able to act as a hotspot as well as stream rich media content wirelessly. For a smartphone claiming to be an entertainment edition, 16GB of storage is really not enough, but if you’re going to get Sensation XL, you have to satisfy with that because it doesn’t have an expansion slot. For a smartphone of this caliber, Sensation has an amazing battery life of 11 hours 50 minutes with the 1600mAh battery.

Conclusion

By now it’s obvious for you that HTC Velocity 4G is better that HTC Sensation XL considering almost every aspect. It has a better processor, to be precise, same processor with two cores. Velocity 4G also has a better memory, RAM wise as well as storage wise. It also features a better resolution and pixel density although the display panel is the same. HTC Velocity also features super-fast 4G connectivity which is a big plus point. If that’s the case, what’s the tradeoff? Well, HTC Sensation XL is economical, and it has improved audio experience. It is also capable of serving you on a decent scale, and there won’t be any visible performance deterioration in terms of usability. The HSDPA connectivity will give you fairly fast internet connectivity, and we can assure you, browsing is enjoyable. Therefore, what we have to conclude depends on your specific requirements. If you require 4G connectivity as a must, then you have no option but to go for HTC Velocity 4G. Otherwise, you can equally consider these two handsets and pick up the one that pleases you the most to invest in.