HTC is releasing yet another variant to its Sensation family of phones. This time around it is the massive 4.7inch Sensation XL which is equipped with beats audio. The Sensation XL really does not share much of anything in common with the original Sensation that we reviewed, except for the name, and it actually is almost an exact match to the HTC Titan for Windows Phone 7.
The Sensation XL’s most notable feature would be its massive 4.7inch WVGA Super LCD screen. That screen size and resolution combination worries us a little bit, but we will withhold judgment until we are able to get our hands on a device with this screen. The XL also comes with a Qualcomm 1.5GHz single-core processor, which is slower than both of the other Sensation stable mates.
The XL, like the Sensation XE, is loaded with Beats hardware and software and come packaged with a pair of Beats in-ear headphones. There is also a collections edition that will be available that will come with a pair of Beats Solo over-ear headphones. The phone is able to tell when Beats headphones are plugged in, and will be able to modify the audio output to sound as perfect as possible when paired with some Beats headphones. Sadly this software only works in the stock music player, and does not play nicely with third party apps like Pandora or Spotify, but HTC promises to be working on a fix for that.
From what we can tell this phone is designed for those who want to consume media. The single core processor might scare off power gamers, but movie watchers will love the huge screen. Unfortunately HTC has no plans to bring this phone over the U.S., which means that so far there are no official Beats phones coming to the States planned as of right now. If HTC wants to start making money on that investment in Beats it better make a U.S. bound phone soon.
