Excellent. Requires certain apps to be its best. October 13, 2011

Reviewer:  Brian Henderson  (White House, TN USA) -

I replaced my beloved HTC HD2 with this. I'm glad I did. Out of the box it has some little 'foibles', but a judicious selection of apps has cured those for me.

Volume+ - cures the low maximum volume issue (a setting of +5 was perfect for me). And the sound quality improves after a few hours of 'burning in' the speaker.

App2SD - minimizes the over consumption of memory.

Lookout and Mobile Security - do a fine job of security management

Screebl Pro - a different and very effective approach to battery saving.

Software Data Cable - facilitates downloading and uploading from PCs to Phone.

Watchdog - detects runaway apps, you don't need a 'Task Manager'.

WP Clock - Enables intuitive and elegant design for your home screens.

I'm currently at 58% battery capacity after 13 hrs 44 minutes of light to moderate use...

Great Phone June 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Mike 

I went to Tmobile and upgraded to this phone on 15th of June 2011(day it came out) I am very happy with it! I had a Blackberry Curve which was terrible, then I got the Tmobile G1 which was good until it started dropping calls and due to its flip out screen design breaking I again was in search of a good phone with Tmobile. The G2x was fast but kept rebooting and shutting off by itself. So I got the Sensation and very pleased! Fast phone, great display,(I dont understand people that want a more detailed display, its a phone) And above all I get reception everywhere I go!!! So far I haven't had any dropped calls or rebooting issues.

Terrible phone April 10, 2013

Reviewer:  Z. Harris "fry-cook-boy"  (Colorado Springs, CO United States) -

Freezes up constantly, powers off randomly, 16 hour battery life if I don't use it at all, slow, and stopped receiving MMS. Just an awful awful phone.

HATE, HATE, HATE THIS PHONE April 10, 2013

Reviewer:  Heather Judkins-martin "hellis98"  (Texas) -

Where shall I begin? NO BATTERY LIFE, my part time job is charging this phone. Constant ridiculous issues with it. NOT user friendly. It will just completely freeze up when I have an email or text message come in, or my favorite just completely dump and shut down the webpage you were just reading for no reason. You should be able to just plug your USB and get a prompt, but instead you have to go through all these extra steps just to get the most basic things done. My old Blackberry was far more impressive than this piece of garbage. I have been suffering for over a year now and so very glad they are coming back. Will never buy another HTC. Now I know why everybody complained about them.

Very Unreliable Phone March 23, 2013

Reviewer:  mw7585 

I purchased the phone for $500 cash to receive a reduced plan rate through T-mobile. After one year, the wifi stopped working. I contacted T-mobile and HTC and they recommended a factory reset. The wifi worked for two months after the factory reset. Now, if you attempt to turn on the wifi, the phone starts rebooting and resetting itself. I sent it in to HTC to see if it could be repaired but they quoted me $170 to repair the phone. I asked them to return it unrepaired. Now, phone calls cannot be made on the phone. HTC damaged it when it was sent in to check the wifi. HTC refuses to resolve this issue. I urge anyone considering an HTC phone to look for another brand.

phone is really a piece of crap. have had many problems. to many to write March 14, 2013

Reviewer:  dcm 

htc sentation is not a good phone not worth the money nor the time to work with the phone company u go through to fix it. t- mobile does not care about helping there costomers unless it is to there benefit

Great phone! (when it works) September 5, 2012

Reviewer:  Troy  (Vancouver, WA) -

I purchased this phone brand new through t-mobile. It worked great (even had free wifi hotspot capability until I upgraded from Gingerbread to Ice cream sandwich) for four months. That's when it started to develop a problem that this phone is known for.... screen freeze and uncommanded resets. It started off slowly, maybe once a day, but over a week's time, it was a 5 - 6 times per day thing. The phone would perform a restart on it's own. Very annoying.... especially in the middle of a call as I would have to wait for the phone to cycle back on before I could call the person back.

t-mobile sent me a replacement which worked perfectly for about 12 hours, and then it began to do the same stuff...except worse. Currently working directly with HTC for a repair or replacement.

I'd consider another model - HTC makes great phones but the Sensation is hit & miss.... not good if you're away from home on business.

great phone May 23, 2012

Reviewer:  Dorothy L Sparkman 

love this phone.have had for awhile now and no problems at all
would recommend to anyone.easy to use phone works great only slight complaint is speaker volune

Amazing smartphone! simply Wonderful! March 15, 2012

Reviewer:  Lynnette Damiano "lynnette"  (california usa) -

The HTC Sensation is a awesome smartphone! I love mine! I have had no problems with it! It's fast, and incredibly easy to use the image quality is outstanding! This is the best phone I've ever owned and I've owned blackberries , androids, I phones, but this phone beats them all! There is so much you can do with this phone and all ability are easy to learn ! I use my phone as a wireless router,I tether my device, sync with my computer and I learned to do these things with no problems! HTC makes it easily done! I love expandable memory,I' ve changed my card to a 16GB for more apps, yes most apps can be moved to the SD card freeing up phones memory. Video is simplily fabulous on this phone ! This phone is incredibly fast! I highly recommend this phone!you can personalize the seven home screens and make it truly your style! Can't say enough about good things!you must see for yourself,you will LOVE it!

Amazing phone, a few cons March 1, 2012

Reviewer:  Shindy 

I used to think I won't need smartphones. How wrong I was! Once I got this thing, I cant leave home without it.

This phone is a BEAST when it comes to things like office, video playback, internet, and speed of basically everything. I can study off my powerpoints on Kingsoft Office while listening to youtube music on Dolphin Browser HD, all on 4G connection.

If there was an option for a 4.5/5 I would choose it. The phone is not without imperfections, and the major hang is BATTERY LIFE! Taking calls or making calls with this smart phone drains its battery HEAVILY. Have to turn down quite a few features once you get it (most of non-essential sync, brightness), they are all unnecessary stuff you don't need.

This was my first smartphone, but I can already tell other people are jealous of my sexy phone.

Wowwww this phone has some bugs April 18, 2012

Reviewer:  marcusj3000  (shreveport, louisiana United States) -

I got my wife this phone and months later she has demanded another phone after dealing with the constant problems. The Phone will reboot after being idle, has the worst battery life, and every time you turn around something is force closing or stopping. The issues just almost mad her throw it out the window of our car into the river.

She has said she wants no more android phones since this isn't the first one with problems like that. So we now have migrated to windows phone 7 as it was like night and day to her. We don't try to stuff a phone with apps and after a while you don't use have the apps on a phone hardly any. So for us we don't listen to this one has this many apps as most or useless anyway.

So be warned everyone the latest apps and how much it can be customized means nothing is a phone can do the simple task of being a phone first.

Update:

You know what bugs us the most is that phones that could be updated get left behind very quickly each time a new Android OS comes out.

BEST PHONE IN T-MOBILE HISTORY August 10, 2011

Reviewer:  Russell Enterprises 

THIS PHONE DOES EVERYTHING FROM 8 MEGAPIXEL CAM TO REALLY GOOD INTERNET SPEEDS. WITH THE WIFI CALLING, I CAN BE ON THE PHONE AND THE INTERNET AT THE SAME TIME WITHOUT IT SLOWING DOWN AT ALL. ALSO WITH THE WIFI CALLING I HAVE YET TO DROP A CALL! THE BEST TMOBILE PHONE EVER.

Great at first then went bad fast- update- good again August 31, 2012

Reviewer:  John C. Eberhardt "websitemarketingmasters"  (Milwaukee, WI, USA) -

My advice is don't get it unless you get extra batteries (like Ankers [[ASIN:B0053EZJMC Anker® 1900mAh Li-ion Battery For HTC Sensation, Sensation XE,Sensation 4G, EVO 3D, Mytouch 4G Slide, Amaze 4G - White]] ) and condition them properly (see bottom of review). I replaced my very old razor as I was waiting for the best phone of the moment to be out and get some feedback back from users on functionality and reliability. I had the HTC Sensation 4G for about 3 to 4 months and wrote rave reviews--I loved it. I watched YouTube videos, emailed, surfed the web, listened to Science Fridays and enjoyed lots of apps.

After a year of owning it I have a quite different story to tell (but now see update at bottom too). After you download all the apps that you want and fill the phone with texting, videos, etc., it started to wig out (but it was a simple battery problem in my case). Now that I use all the features the phone overheats, seriously lags, shuts off at random, restarts at random, drops WIFI calls when I am standing next to the wireless router. It even turned itself back on in a movie theater while I was watching a film and took a call (is it the poor on/off button location? Can it really be pressed to turn on in my pocket???) and it has done that more than once (OK, lots of times). I keep the phone in my front pocket and it has never been dropped or been near any water so I can't explain the behavior. When I pull it out of my pocket sometimes it is on when it should be off and other times it is off when I thought it was on. I've noticed that it does like to turn itself off during power changes. For example, I have 40%-50% battery left and I dial a number, as soon as it start to connect it shuts off or reboots. It did that with a text message as well. The WIFI was on once and off at other times (WIFI is a huge power sucker and the 2 new Anker 1900mAh batteries and extra charger cured all of these problems).

Right now the worst problem is the shutdown/reboot issue (cured by new batteries). After a couple hours of use, my Sensation has a nasty habit of turning itself off every 10-20 minutes. Sometimes it gets stuck in a loop and the only way I can keep it running is to plug it in and charge it (and it has plenty of juice left in the defective battery according to the battery saver application). I've tried pulling the battery (I'm really good at getting it out of the case in seconds now), restarts, turn off everything (make sure WIFI, GPS and Bluetooth is off), shut down all apps, letting it cool down and the only fix is to plug it into a charger. I've read on the forums that having extra Anker batteries around are a good work around (boy was he right, thanks again gramps!) so I'll look into those as everyone that sends their phones back get the same thing back or worse (I stuck with the devil I knew and the new batteries fixed it).

Brand new, out of the box it has a poor speaker-phone, lousy battery life and is very picky about signal strength (poor call quality when not using headset as I can't hear people without jamming it into my ear, and it drops lots of calls). The keyboard is almost impossible to use in vertical mode and it has a new bug in the new Ice Cream update that does not allow the screen to rotate to horizontal without a restart. I don't have any experience with Samsung but I'd like to try anything else at this point(see update below)...

++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE

On the T-Mobile forums I found many that had the exact same problems as I did. They have a bunch of troubleshooting steps and one guy recommended getting the Anker battery set (2 batteries plus a charger for about $30) and I did. All my problems went away with the new Ankers! when i received the new batteries it stated that they had to be broken in with 4-5 charges to 100% and then use the HTC until dead (as close to 0% as possible) and then charge up to 100% again without interruption. I am still doing this right now by taking one battery charged to 100% and then putting depleted spare in the charger (after about 4 hours it is fully charged) until it is back to 100% then I stick it is a plastic (non-conductive) bag and keep it in my pocket until I need it.

I must have ruined the original battery and it took about 3 or 4 months to start acting goofy and making the phone unusable. I now have 100% of the function back without any real problems. All the freezing, reboots and shutdowns (at full charge), rapid power consumption, etc have stopped and the phone is totally great again. I wish that HTC would put a warning about battery problems on the box. I have to believe that this is a random thing with "bad" batches of batteries because many on the forums never had any of my problems.

In my case the batteries made all the difference! Beware of breaking them in properly...also the Ankers at 1900mAh ([[ASIN:B0053EZJMC Anker® 1900mAh Li-ion Battery For HTC Sensation, Sensation XE,Sensation 4G, EVO 3D, Mytouch 4G Slide, Amaze 4G - White]])last alot longer and make the phone even better than new! So it begs the question: Why don't they ship it with the 1900mAh batteries?

Would never buy this again January 11, 2012

Reviewer:  C. Kelley 

Piece of junk. I am on my 4th Sensation in 2 weeks. First one would intermittently shut down (completely, and would need to be rebooted), second one had defective bluetooth, third one had dust under the screen in 1 day of use, and now the 4th one also has dust after 6 days of use. The dust issue is all over the forums, yet HTC support says they've never heard of the issue. My provider says "they all do it" when I complained of the dust. Very frustrating for a $550 phone. Hope someone gets angry enough to file a class action.

Great Tool: Phone, Camera, Internet (and More) December 30, 2011

Reviewer:  A.Trendl HungarianBookstore.com "What should I review next?"  (Glen Ellyn, IL USA) -

So far, several months into using the HTC Sensation 4G Android Phone (T-Mobile), I'm pleased. As this is my first smartphone, I was concerned about how fast 4G really is as it relates to different apps. Faster is always better, but this is a fantastic start.

It is difficult to separate the device from the apps. I have been careful only to download name brand apps, avoiding the nastiness that happens when downloading some unknown company's tool.

I have a couple Gmail accounts coming through with ease. Internet use has been trouble free, and especially good when sites are mobile-ready. Netflix works well, though their updates can be dodgy, but that's a Netflix problem. LinkedIn, Peep, YouTube, Google Doc, Google Translate, TuneIn Radio, Spotify are all good here. Kindle is slow to load, but it gets the job done. How good is Angry Birds? I don't want to talk about it. I'm addicted.

The camera shots and video have all been impressive, though the sound pick-up with the video is sometimes slightly off. I use the camera daily.

Things are fast, clean, and only occasional freezes. I'm a happy customer, looking forward to the next generation. I fully recommend the HTC Sensation 4G Android Phone.

Anthony Trendl
anthonytrendl.com

I am on my third phone. HTC will not replace, Tmobile will charge you! November 17, 2011

Reviewer:  Robin L. Myers "Robin" 

I am on my third Sensation. The first had two issues: The charger stopped connecting (it was the charger)within 30 days then the earpiece just stopped working mid call about two weeks later... so a total of maybe 46 days of phone ownership and kaput. I though the call was dropped. It was simply that I couldn't hear the person I was speaking with. I figured out that I could use speakerphone but if you have this phone you know that he speaker is useless. You simply can't use it for a serious call. The phone has potential but I have had a number of issues and so have others.

FYI T-mobile will charge you 20$ to replace it under warranty and HTC won't replace it, but they'll fix it at your expense to ship it. AND, if replaced, you'll get a refurbished (phone (hopefully not a broken one like they sent me), and that's a shame because I paid for a new phone. All cell companies do this, I think. It's a such a scam.

As far as unlocking my phone, well Tmobile has said that is a possibility but not associated with contract which means you're stuck with it if you buy it. As a long time customer of T-mobile I'd think about something else. Avoid a contract and I'd probably avoid this phone.

The pros are the screen and picture quality and ease of use to post photos and video. I've enjoyed using this phone and if it had better support I'd consider using it longer.
The cons are the sound, slow camera, quality, and keyboard (read some other reviews for a better technical explanation.

As a nice end to my review, here's an exerpt of my cnet review of tmobile:
Overall, the services that T-mobile used to support are no longer there ...
Just got of the phone regarding the continued account issues and the executive office representative refused to let me out of my contract despite my offering to return the equipment because, says this rep, the ability to unlock my phone (an offered service and one that inspires a global traveler like me to remain with the company)is not part of my contract. She then tells me that I am using the services and must pay a penalty. during this same conversation, just five minutes later, when I point out that this call is taking place 4 days after the date promised via e-mail from this same 'executive', she claims to have called me but was unable to leave a voicemail on my phone for 'some reason'. Interesting services I pay for at T-mobile. I am offered the opportunity to call tech support and spend hours on the phone talking about my issues I didn't know I had, and we'll be talking about the wrong phone because that's what shows up on my account. If price is essential for you, consider all of your options before considering a contracted plan. I'm looking for a new provider.

A Major Bug For HTC to Address October 6, 2011

Reviewer:  Christopher C. Stanley 

After a couple hours of use, some Sensations have a habit of turning themselves off every 10-20 minutes. There are a few forums addressing this issue, and I unfortunately have a Sensation from this bad batch. The phone runs hot when it happens, so this may be a battery issue, but I have had a new 3rd party battery in it for a week, and this issue is still occurring. Hopefully HTC will be able to address this with a firmware update, but until then, I have to give the phone one star since it can't seem to function properly after a couple of hours.

Love it except for battery and... September 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Lii  (U.S.A) -

Great phone, fast connection, useful apps. Battery life is AWFUL. I use it for GPS en route to work (8:00am)- connected to power and some light email browsing during the day. Battery is yellow by the time I leave at 5pm. So that's the first thing that makes me not give it 5 stars.

The second thing is a T-Mobile issue: after paying full price for it ($500), I now see where others can buy it for $200. I'm on a 2 year contract! Not cool.

2 MAJOR FLAWS that may persuade you to walk away! September 26, 2011

Reviewer:  EYW  (New York) -

Recently I jumped off the Blackberry bandwagon and joined the Android clans. I was a diehard fan of BB for 10 YEARS my friends so believe me when i tell you that it was a VERY DIFFICULT decision to make. I did so because i can see that the touch-screen was the way of the future and I better join the program before it's too late and also I was getting annoyed at all the fabulous apps that was avail to the iphone and android phone as compared to the laughable craps avail to BB. Additionally, I was not happy that BB continue to lag way way behind when it comes ot web browsing & etc. So I switched...My 2 choices of phone are the Samsung Galaxy Galaxy S or the HTC Sensation. While I liked both, I found that the HTC Sensation touchpad keyboard was slightly easier to become accustomed to than the Galaxy. The Galaxy touchpad was very very sensitive. I've had my htc for about a week now and i am still trying to get use to typing on it but i have gotten alot better...especially after I recalibrated the touchpad. I am confident that i will be able to get upto the typing speed that i had with the BB qwerty board. The other GREAT FEATURE about this phone is the speech to text..it is SUPRISING ACCURATE! and this feature is available for everyihign. Web search, text message, email, and etc. I have used it to send text msg and email and it works GREAT..very accurate. If you are a BB user and you are considering this phone, you will be very happy with EVERYTHING about this phone subject to you can get use to the touchpad). The 2 FLAWS that i mentioned that may send you on your way are:

a. THE BATTERY SUCKS BIG TIME. I do not watch youtube movies or any kind of movies nor do i use it to listen to music. I only use it to check facebook, web browser, email, and phone. I was playing on it between facebook and web browsing and the battery lasted maybe 5-6 hours. Now, I'm afraid to play on it too much coz it will drain the battery. Also, i have 6 emaill account programed and when i spoke with htc support tech, they told me that all those email accts is draining my battery because everytime it syncs with the server to check for new message which i had it programed for every 15 min), it would drain my battery. So the tech sugg that I auto syc only the most important email acct and leave the other non importnat on "manual sync". Also, the tech sugg (in order to conserve battery) that i always turnOFF the WIFI and the GPS and only turn on manually when i need to use it. So, all the APPS and web fucton of this phone is great but you will give up lots of battery time for it.

b. THE SPEAKERPHONE SUCKS BIG TIME. I hate to wear earpieces so when I'm in the car, I use the speakerphone. Well, the speakerphone on this phone SUCKS. It is so low that even if you are by yourself, with the radio turned off inside the car, you may still have trouble hearing the other person. A quick google on this issue will produce you many unhappy campers. I tested 100% on my hearing at last physical and i have trouble hearing the speakero phone. So if you are even the slightest, minutest hard of hearng, then you better save yourself the frustration and find another phone! I also called the HTC tech about this. apparenly the "ENGINEERS ARE AWARE OF THE PROBLEMS AND WORKING ON A FIX"....

So aside from point a and b, the phone is magnificent!

Great smartphone with some serious design issues September 17, 2011

Reviewer:  lb 

I moved from using the iPhone 3g to the HTC Sensation 4G about 3 months ago.

In summary, this phone is great - it's fast, the colors are awesome, camera quality is great for a phone. It's an awesome smartphone for sure! But there are some issues that are making me give it 3 and half stars.

After playing around with it, I would definitely like to describe some of the issues that have annoyed me:
1. The mute/speaker button gets clicked when I'm speaking (so the high sensitivity of the screen triggers the click from my cheek)! It drives me nuts and as I'm speaking, I have to do a lot of phone gymnastics to get the phone locked so that these buttons don't clicked. If there is a way around this - I'm not aware of it yet.
2. The speaker volume is pretty low. Though in the normal mode, voice quality seems great.
3. Sometimes, clicking the Home button actually clicks a screenshot! It's wacky; maybe I'm not aware if I'm clicking it along with something else that's making it a shortcut, but it's a little annoying.
4. Lack of folders.
5. I don't use Google as my personal email/calender. So there is no way to sync up my Yahoo calender. Exchange and Gmail calenders can only be synced. This is a very serious flaw in my opinion.

That's it in brief. Yes, I would definitely recommend buying this phone, but I would also wish that some of the above issues are addressed.