[Q] Thiking of getting a Sensation. Worth it?

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GuestK0065

Guest
Ok so, as the title implies I'm thinking of getting a Sensation on the cheapside (160€) almost brand new. However I do have a few questions:

1. Would you say the phone is worth the price?

2. Do you think it is a good phone? What's your overall experience?

3. I mostly use my phone for multitasking and gaming sometimes, so does it fit the bill? The 512RAM thing scares me, my Galaxy W said it had 512MB but it had like, 378MB. I hated how it ran out of memory.

4. How is custom rom development for the phone?

Cheers and thanks in advance
 

AndroidSupporter318

Senior Member
Feb 19, 2013
599
222
0
TEXAS
Ok so, as the title implies I'm thinking of getting a Sensation on the cheapside (160€) almost brand new. However I do have a few questions:

1. Would you say the phone is worth the price?

2. Do you think it is a good phone? What's your overall experience?

3. I mostly use my phone for multitasking and gaming sometimes, so does it fit the bill? The 512RAM thing scares me, my Galaxy W said it had 512MB but it had like, 378MB. I hated how it ran out of memory.

4. How is custom rom development for the phone?

Cheers and thanks in advance
1. I think a new sensation is not worth it. You can get a used for ~120-150 USD.

2. Great experience. 2 major setbacks: bad battery life and low ram(in my opinion as I am a heavy multitasker)

Battery life can be fixed with a replacement anker battery, and ram can be fixed with turbo swap.

Disadvantages are: medium resolution screen/4.3 inch screen(kind of low for video watchers), speakers aren't that great.

3. Ram is OK. It's 768 megabytes, but that can be fixed with turbo swap space module.

4. Custom ROM development is freakin awesome. We just got the 3.4 kernel with ion allocation, USB otg, and other cool stuff. We have aosp Roms(cm9/cm10/cm10.1), sense Roms(3.6/4/4.1/4+no sense 5 :(

Check this thread out for more: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=35941591

Sent from my Ouya
 

explosivequack

Senior Member
Feb 8, 2012
398
145
73
I like my sensation, but I liked my galaxy sii more, 160€ seems like too much, I got mine on eBay for $140 in like February it should be cheaper now, if you go on eBay you should be able to get a one s for 160€
 
G

GuestK0065

Guest
1. I think a new sensation is not worth it. You can get a used for ~120-150 USD.

2. Great experience. 2 major setbacks: bad battery life and low ram(in my opinion as I am a heavy multitasker)

Battery life can be fixed with a replacement anker battery, and ram can be fixed with turbo swap.

Disadvantages are: medium resolution screen/4.3 inch screen(kind of low for video watchers), speakers aren't that great.

3. Ram is OK. It's 768 megabytes, but that can be fixed with turbo swap space module.

4. Custom ROM development is freakin awesome. We just got the 3.4 kernel with ion allocation, USB otg, and other cool stuff. We have aosp Roms(cm9/cm10/cm10.1), sense Roms(3.6/4/4.1/4+no sense 5 :(

Check this thread out for more: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=35941591

Sent from my Ouya
I'm not going for a new one, this is as cheap as I can find second hand in my country (Portugal) and that includes ebay. It is quite the upgrade from my current (for two more days) Galaxy W and better than most alternatives I could find.

Getting a battery shouldn't be that hard, what's this anker thing though? And TurboSwap? I'll try and read up the link to see if I can learn more :p

Glad to hear Custom ROM development is well :D That's a very big factor in my phone buying decisions, actually. I don't like Sense though, so I think I'll tinker around and see what I prefer!

I like my sensation, but I liked my galaxy sii more, 160€ seems like too much, I got mine on eBay for $140 in like February it should be cheaper now, if you go on eBay you should be able to get a one s for 160€
I wish I could. The cheapest I can find a One S is around 250€ both locally and on eBay and I can't afford that atm. I will admit the SII is better hardware-wise, the look of it is just too unappealing and blocky, haha
 

astar26

Senior Member
Feb 3, 2011
235
44
0
Ok so, as the title implies I'm thinking of getting a Sensation on the cheapside (160€) almost brand new. However I do have a few questions:

1. Would you say the phone is worth the price?

2. Do you think it is a good phone? What's your overall experience?

3. I mostly use my phone for multitasking and gaming sometimes, so does it fit the bill? The 512RAM thing scares me, my Galaxy W said it had 512MB but it had like, 378MB. I hated how it ran out of memory.

4. How is custom rom development for the phone?

Cheers and thanks in advance
1) I don't know how to compare it to what's on offer today so I won't answer that
2) I'll just say I enjoyed (and still do) every moment with this phone. I get good enough battery life (and I say that as a traveler who tends to spend a lot of time away from the charger). Performance is nice (everything is smooth and I hadn't found an app that won't run because of power), and build quality is great (except for dust on screen issue which my device suffers from, it survived some nasty falls, which to compare to my dad's GS4 (which dropped from 0.5m on a floor and died), the device is just awesomly built.

3) On stock roms I got issues with that, but once you are rooted and use custom ROMs there are many tweaks available to improve your performance. I must say that CM runs silky smooth with lots of apps running in the background, while sense roms started struggling after some time (but still were good). about the lower amount of RAM than advertised, it's because the GPU reserves RAM as dedicated memory for it to work (like desktop GPUs with their own RAM).

4) Just awesome, there are many ROMs available,just like AndroidSupporter318 said, now we even have ION.

I would like to just add something to think about: Just remember we are talking about a 2 year old device, so know what you buy (no more official support from HTC, unless the end of the world comes and they decide to update it, and nothing can be guarranteed on the long run). but as it goes today, custom ROM development will continue for a while, and there are many users, so I believe as things are now it's still fine.

Edit: Forgot about this, but when compared to the GS2, at least in my opinion performance seems better, and I actually like the screen of the sensation more. These things are subjective, but that's my opinion on it.
 
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AndroidSupporter318

Senior Member
Feb 19, 2013
599
222
0
TEXAS
I'm not going for a new one, this is as cheap as I can find second hand in my country (Portugal) and that includes ebay. It is quite the upgrade from my current (for two more days) Galaxy W and better than most alternatives I could find.

Getting a battery shouldn't be that hard, what's this anker thing though? And TurboSwap? I'll try and read up the link to see if I can learn more :p

Glad to hear Custom ROM development is well :D That's a very big factor in my phone buying decisions, actually. I don't like Sense though, so I think I'll tinker around and see what I prefer!



I wish I could. The cheapest I can find a One S is around 250€ both locally and on eBay and I can't afford that atm. I will admit the SII is better hardware-wise, the look of it is just too unappealing and blocky, haha
Here is turboswap: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=37905307

Anker is a battery that has greater capacity than the original stock battery.
Here it is on eBay: http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?index=0&sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=321115438849

Sent from my Ouya
 
G

GuestK0065

Guest
1) I don't know how to compare it to what's on offer today so I won't answer that
2) I'll just say I enjoyed (and still do) every moment with this phone. I get good enough battery life (and I say that as a traveler who tends to spend a lot of time away from the charger). Performance is nice (everything is smooth and I hadn't found an app that won't run because of power), and build quality is great (except for dust on screen issue which my device suffers from, it survived some nasty falls, which to compare to my dad's GS4 (which dropped from 0.5m on a floor and died), the device is just awesomly built.

3) On stock roms I got issues with that, but once you are rooted and use custom ROMs there are many tweaks available to improve your performance. I must say that CM runs silky smooth with lots of apps running in the background, while sense roms started struggling after some time (but still were good). about the lower amount of RAM than advertised, it's because the GPU reserves RAM as dedicated memory for it to work (like desktop GPUs with their own RAM).

4) Just awesome, there are many ROMs available,just like AndroidSupporter318 said, now we even have ION.

I would like to just add something to think about: Just remember we are talking about a 2 year old device, so know what you buy (no more official support from HTC, unless the end of the world comes and they decide to update it, and nothing can be guarranteed on the long run). but as it goes today, custom ROM development will continue for a while, and there are many users, so I believe as things are now it's still fine.

Edit: Forgot about this, but when compared to the GS2, at least in my opinion performance seems better, and I actually like the screen of the sensation more. These things are subjective, but that's my opinion on it.
Thanks for another informed opinion :)

I'm looking up this ION thing you guys mentioned, I had never heard of it. Also, I am aware I'm buying a non-supported phone by HTC, then again HTC usually drops their phones at the drop of a hat so that's not to be surprised. That's why what I look for more in a phone is community-development and build quality + hardware. Hope that makes sense!

Here is turboswap: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=37905307

Anker is a battery that has greater capacity than the original stock battery.
Here it is on eBay: http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?index=0&sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=321115438849

Sent from my Ouya
Awesome! :D
 
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Far_SighT

Senior Member
May 28, 2013
586
172
0
Roorkee
Thanks for another informed opinion :)

I'm looking up this ION thing you guys mentioned, I had never heard of it. Also, I am aware I'm buying a non-supported phone by HTC, then again HTC usually drops their phones at the drop of a hat so that's not to be surprised. That's why what I look for more in a phone is community-development and build quality + hardware. Hope that makes sense!

Awesome! :D
ION is JB's new memory mangement, and it replaces ICS's PMEM.
Thanks to @SebastianFM, we can now have Sense 4+ JB roms on SEnsation XE.
 

Gatosbil

Senior Member
Jul 24, 2013
161
41
0
Athens
I have HTC Sensation S710e and I think it is an exellent choice to buy a mobile phone like this as long as you can give it s-off with Juopunutbear S-OFF guide without to unlock bootloader.Secontly they are a big varity of custom roms and recoveries you can try on your device.
 

MechanicaIMan

Senior Member
Sep 1, 2011
136
43
0
The speaker sucks.
It gets dust trapped under the screen.
Battery life is pretty bad (mine came with an Anker battery, and battery life is still pretty unimpressive).

Other than that, I've been pretty happy with mine.
 
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onemanshow85

Senior Member
Apr 25, 2012
124
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The Hague
Ok so, as the title implies I'm thinking of getting a Sensation on the cheapside (160€) almost brand new. However I do have a few questions:

1. Would you say the phone is worth the price?

2. Do you think it is a good phone? What's your overall experience?

3. I mostly use my phone for multitasking and gaming sometimes, so does it fit the bill? The 512RAM thing scares me, my Galaxy W said it had 512MB but it had like, 378MB. I hated how it ran out of memory.

4. How is custom rom development for the phone?

Cheers and thanks in advance
1) like said before, 160€ may be overprized but if that's the common price in your region, then I guess you're still paying a relative good price. Especially since newer phones are heavily overprized these days.

2) I think it's a good phone. I like to compare my rooted sensation to brand new stock powerhouses like GS4. Even though they're much faster, the self-defined MHZ/euro ratio is much better in my case. I like the fact I can keep up well with brand new devices with my more then 2 yo device. I even outperform some phones in battery life.
the build quality is good, it's the way a decent phone should be build. Decent camera with LED and no plastic.

3) Especially after rooting, I never encountered a situation where I ran out of memory or ended up with bad perfomance. I must say I'm not an extensive multitasker, but I'll have to add that I never felt the need for a taskkiller app or such. And I keep apps running on a regular basis. I think a dual core is more then capable for multitasking, and the phone packs a decent amount of RAM.

4) amazing custom ROM support. There are plenty of flavours for both sense and no-sense ROMs. I myself am running CM10 for quite a while now and I like my former sense phone being a pure google 4.2.2. Many ROMs with a lot of tweaks, UI tuning and themes. I can boost my stock 1.2 GHz to a outstanding 1836 MHz
Since new phones are so expensive, the custom ROM support for this phone keept me hanging in on to it for a additional year. I took a SIM-only subscription because I feel no need for a replacement.

overall, you get more phone for buck wih a sensation compared to new devices.


The speaker sucks.
It gets dust trapped under the screen.
Battery life is pretty bad (mine came with an Anker battery, and battery life is still pretty unimpressive).

Other than that, I've been pretty happy with mine.
Indeed a disadvantage, the sensation is a dust collector. Many models suffer from the little bit of dust under the screen and the speaker needs to be cleaned on a regular basis.

I don't agree with your opinion on the battery. I think you're not being relative in this case. When are you impressed? Don't expect it to last 3 days away from a charger. But 1,5 to 2 days with average use is excellent perfomance. I can reach 2 days when I only use it to check facebook, news, wheater, whatsapp and a occasional call. Don't forget that new devices wouldn't last a day in these conditions because of their huge screens and power-eating quad/octa cores.
 
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EfrainTrejo

Senior Member
Dec 22, 2012
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AZ
Ok so, as the title implies I'm thinking of getting a Sensation on the cheapside (160€) almost brand new. However I do have a few questions:

1. Would you say the phone is worth the price?

2. Do you think it is a good phone? What's your overall experience?

3. I mostly use my phone for multitasking and gaming sometimes, so does it fit the bill? The 512RAM thing scares me, my Galaxy W said it had 512MB but it had like, 378MB. I hated how it ran out of memory.

4. How is custom rom development for the phone?

Cheers and thanks in advance
I would say get it for the development and there are things like turbo swap to help on the memory situation.
 

gleesonger

New member
Dec 14, 2010
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I bought mine second hand after moving from desire HD.

I find the dev stuff to be great (currently on viper JB ROM). With an Anker battery I get 2 days out of it (I'm a light user with everything turned on) really those batterys are amazing. 2 of my friends (who are both on stock) use the battery and both are utterly amazed at the difference they make.

I do find the RAM a little on the small side but I dont notice that all that often.
 

Anti_simlock

Member
May 24, 2011
41
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Ok back then when I bought this, there weren't many phones available, but now phones companies went crazy, releasing new phones almost every 2 months, especially HTC. But I remember when I ownd all phones with my badass dual core phone, while most people only had a single core chip built in.

Apart from that, the phone itself looks kinda cool with the red lights & speakers.

But with the phones currently available, I'd suggest wait a few more months, maybe save some more money and then go to the One series.

I know a lot of people just think, a new phone came out -> current phones = all crap, but you just have to think back when this was released, it kicked ass :cowboy:
 

astar26

Senior Member
Feb 3, 2011
235
44
0
Ok back then when I bought this, there weren't many phones available, but now phones companies went crazy, releasing new phones almost every 2 months, especially HTC. But I remember when I ownd all phones with my badass dual core phone, while most people only had a single core chip built in.

Apart from that, the phone itself looks kinda cool with the red lights & speakers.

But with the phones currently available, I'd suggest wait a few more months, maybe save some more money and then go to the One series.

I know a lot of people just think, a new phone came out -> current phones = all crap, but you just have to think back when this was released, it kicked ass :cowboy:
When buying a new phone, you should not think what it was, but what it is. Today you can't say it's a strong device (even if when released it was one of the strongest available), because there are many devices which overpower it by a significant margin.

Anyway, in my opinion, it still kicks ass