back to article HTC brings Beats to bigger blower

HTC officially unveiled the Sensation XL today, the manufacturer's second smartphone to be equipped with Beats Audio. HTC Sensation XL The HTC Sensation XL is large and narrow, with a 4.7in, 400 x 800 display and a 9.9mm-thick body. It runs on a 1.5GHz processor with 768MB of Ram. It sports Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread spruced …

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  1. yossarianuk
    Thumb Down

    Give MS money no thanks..

    I would boycott all HTC and Samsung products unless you fancy giving Microsoft money

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/28/samsung_motorola_patent_licensing/

    Seeing as I 'have' to pay Microsoft money as I pay tax they can sod off if they think i'm giving them more cash to spend on attacking Linux/Android.

  2. Richard Johnson 1
    FAIL

    re: yossarianuk

    Is this really how you make all your purchasing decisions?

  3. David Lawrence
    Stop

    oh lovely......

    ...a mobile phone that doubles as a mini ghetto-blaster. How nice. I am already sick of walking past the anti-social morons as they think it's cool to play load music on their phones in public. Someting that small is always going to sound like a nasty tinny transistor radio from the 70s.

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Load Music?

      *gets down to Xenon Megablast*

  4. tmTM

    Looks good

    Pretty awesome specs really, would be better in black.

    The new iphone will look quite diminutive next to this I think.

    1. BenR
      Meh

      re: Looks good

      You obviously don't share this view, but to my eyes this is a completely underwhelming release.

      The only real 'headline' spec on this thing is the size of the screen. Yeah, it's big. Sadly, the resolution on it is poor - to the extent that the resolution on my almost 2-year old Desire matches it. A screen this big, you'd think they could have at the very least gone up to the same res as the Atrix and the Sensation.

      The RAM allocation is poor, the CPU is last-gen tech that has been clocked up, and no SD card slot and only 16Gb on board with just over 12 available means it isn't really even much cop if people want to use it as an MP3/media player with phone capabilities.

      I'm a big HTC fan - their build-quality is exceptional, and Sense is the best of the Android overlays. Sadly though, they appear to have somewhat lost their way a bit with their marketing strategy. Rather than making three/four devices for a platform spread across spec/price ranges, they now seem to be adopting a scatter-gun approach.

      The worst thing is that they are now further segregating their product line into a US product, an EU product, and what the rest get (maybe they segregate Asia off as well, I don't know). They release devices in one region that aren't available in others and vice versa. The device from them I'm waiting for is the Vigor, but it looks like that might be a 4G LTE only device, meaning no EU release for it.

      Samsung release gear with decent specs, but the build quality is poorer and their support is awful. Motorola have an even more segregated product line than HTC (to the extent that only the Defy, the Photon and the Atrix are available in the UK to the best of my knowledge). The rest are, really only bit-part players in the Android market.

      A Samsung specc'd device, built by Motorola with HTC/Google-experience software is what I'm looking for, but I know it's nothing more than a pipe-dream.

      As it stands, I'll probably wait until the nVidia Kal-El devices come to market and see whats about then - the Asus PadFone is looking likely if the handset isn't poor.

      1. Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)
        Meh

        @BenR

        Agree with almost all of that, with the following exception:

        "The RAM allocation is poor, the CPU is last-gen tech that has been clocked up, and no SD card slot and only 16Gb on board with just over 12 available means it isn't really even much cop if people want to use it as an MP3/media player with phone capabilities."

        Mostly because the article says:

        "There's a storage capacity of 16GB, with a Micro SD slot to extend that even further."

        Totally agree with the rest though, processor looks poor and the screen resolution is diabolical for a device this size.

        Will keep my Desire HD for now, thanks.

        1. BenR
          FAIL

          I missed that...

          ...partly because I only scanned the review, and mainly because when I read the review of the same device on Engadget, it said there wasn't an SD slot, which is how I knew that there's only 12.8Gb free on the in-built.

          Wonder if one tech-media outlet is assuming and the other isn't?

          Fair point though. Fail icon, because it's entirely possible I did!

  5. yossarianuk

    RE : Richard Johnson 1

    I try to be ethical about the products I purchase so I try to never give any funds to Microsoft or Murdoch.

    The only money I have ever given to Microsoft is the purchase of a sidewinder gamepad (Microsoft hardware isn't too bad...) - the funny thing was that I didn't need to load a driver to use it in Linux (its in the kernel) unlike Windows...

    My 1st PC also has a copy of Windows 95 preinstalled - it was this purchase they made me hate Microsoft as I was used to a far better computer experience coming from an Amiga background. That's before I realised what a absolutely evil company they really were.

    If more people boycotted evil shits of companies the world would be a better place.

    1. Bassey

      "If more people boycotted evil shits of companies the world would be a better place."

      I'd be hugely interested to know what you believe constitutes an "evil shit" of a company and in what way MS qualifies? After all, MS, through Gates, has geneted 10s of Billions for charity whilst one of Steve Jobs' first acts as returning CEO at Apple was to cancel any and all philanthropic activity the company was involved in.

      On a sliding scale of evil shittedness MS seems quite a way back in the queue.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If Ethics is the issue

      Then you're not going to have much selection in mobile devices. Microsoft isn't even the running for most evil tech company anymore. Both Google and Apple are fighting it out for that "honour".

    3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      FAIL

      So let me get this right.

      You won't buy this because the manufacturers pay a patent license fee to Microsoft?

      The ethics of Microsoft aside (and I don't believe they are any worse than any other big tech company), does this mean that you won't buy tech gadgets on other ethical decisions, like being manufactured in China, where theor human rights reputation is dubious to say teh least. A lot worse than Microsoft's I'm sure.

      I ask this question, because if this is the case, I suspect all of your ethical hardware is made from sustainably grown wood or something?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yet Another HTC phone

    How come they keep churning out so many phones - is the idea to scatter gun the market with phones at every possible price point and combination of features and hope some will stick?

    Are they trying to push phone shops into having an entire wall dedicated to HTC handsets and push out the competition that way?

    Are they trying to encourage upgrade mania by making a phone obsolete by bringing out a newer/faster/better/rounder-cornered version within 6 months?

    Will they do the same with their tablets too - 5", 6", 7", 8" screens etc?

    1. Alan Twelve

      I appreciate that it goes against the teachings of St Steve, but I believe the idea is to offer the consumer choice.

    2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      FAIL

      Straw Man Argument

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

      How many phones do HTC actually have on the market at the moment? Really? I seriously doubt it's a wall full and I suspect you know you are talking bollocks too.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        They have 20 different smartphones listed on their UK website. Seems like a lot from one manufacturer to me.

        How many does your local phones4u shop have on display at a time?

  7. LarsG

    IT JUST WILL NOT

    FIT IN MY POCKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Do I need to buy a 'manbag' for it?

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