Samsung Galaxy S II vs HTC Sensation - Shootout
Now that I have got both the Samsung Galaxy S II (herein referred to as SGS2) and the HTC Sensation (herein referred to as HTC), I can do a thorough comparison between these two beasts. They are the two most powerful Smartphones available now. I am going to go through different (bolded) areas and give each one an edge as to who wins out in what I am testing and then overall add up the total scores for the winner of this shootout. I will also give you my opinion on which phone I liked and why.
Hands On
Hardware:
Both units sport a 1.2Ghz dual core processor. As for RAM the SGS2 comes with 1GB while the HTC comes with 768MB. Both quite adequate for todays tasks but may not be in a couple years time.
Edge - Samsung Galaxy S II
On the Mobile radio the SGS2 come with a lot of options when compared to the HTC. The SGS2 has HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 frequencies whilst the HTC only supports 900 / 1700 / 2100 frequencies on their 4G version. However there are talks about HTC supporting the 850Mhz which the Telstra Next G and a few other providers around the world support. I havent seen one released yet but I am sure there will be one at least for this kind of spec'd phone.
Where the SGS2 shines is in the radio speed on 3G - HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps while the HTC is only HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps. Most newer phones have HSDPA speeds of 14.4 Mbps like the iPhone 4 etc. I know that the SGS2 speeds are much faster in speedtests than the iPhone, however I was not able to test this on the HTC because of the lack of the 850Mhz band to test it on the Next G network. On the SGS2 at full signal strength I get around 7 to 8Mbps, the same on iPhone 4 would give me around 4 to 5 Mbps. So the radio in SGS2 did make a big difference.
Edge - Samsung Galaxy S II
As for the hardware the SGS2 is definitely thinner than the HTC, but the HTC is smaller in size but thicker. The one thing I dislike about the SGS2 is the power button
. It is on the side of the phone and not well thought of. For e.g when I am taking a picture I always hit the power button and turn the unit off because of the way I hold it, and because the phone is thin as it is, you are bound to hit that key at some stage. Most annoying. Big plus for HTC to put the power button at the top. so much easier to turn the phone off this way.
Edge: HTC Sensation
The HTC has an LED which can be used for notifications such as SMS, emails etc whilst the SGS2 does not have such a feature. Its a handy feature to have so you dont have to keep turning the phone on and off to see if you got new messages.
Edge: HTC Sensation
The SGS2 has a dedicated Home button whereas the HTC does not have this. This button comes in quite handy as it is a nice big button and you can always go to the home screen. With the HTC I find it is not as convenient because there are 4 soft buttons and they are close to each other when compared to the SGS2.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
The build quality of the HTC is better than the SGS2. The HTC has a duo tone back and it wins points on its looks. The HTC feels sturdier to me unlike the SGS2 where I always fear that I will drop it and this is also partly due to the thinness which in itself is not a bad thing especially when you put the phone in your pocket. I also like the positioning of the HTC volume buttons where I can just use my thumb to rock the volume switch up and down. With the SGS2 I have to slide down my thumb quite a bit to do this. The back cover on the HTC is far better than the SGS2. The SGS2 has a flimsy back cover and feels cheap. At first I thought I was going to break the cover but fortunately the cover is very flexible and doesn't break even if its bent. Even so it just feels cheap.
Edge - HTC Sensation
The speaker quality on the HTC is much better than the SGS2. The SGS2 sounds very tinny. The HTC is better but again not the best I have heard in a smartphone.
Edge - HTC Sensation
As for the Screen resolution, both these units have gorgeous displays. The SGS2 sports a Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, with 16M colors at 480 x 800 pixels whilst the HTC has qHD display with 16M color at 540 x 960 pixels. To be honest at least to my eye, there isn't a whole lot of difference but the SGS2 comes out slightly on top here especially when you max the brightness for both, the SGS2 has a more sharper picture. They both look fantastic and vibrant.
Edge - Samsung Galaxy S II
Phone Vibration is something that not many reviewers cover but I wanted to write a little bit about it. I use this function quite a bit when I am in meetings or when I'm travelling or at home at night and many phones I have tested have weak vibration. When comparing these 2 phones the HTC is a clear winner here. You can literally feel the vibration going right through your muscles. The SGS2's vibration is not too bad either but it is not as powerful as the HTC.
Edge - HTC Sensation
Camera on the SGS2 is 8 megapixels with a single LED flash while the secondary camera has 2 Megapixels. The HTC also has an 8 megapixel camera and a VGA front camera. It does however have 2 LED lights for the flash You can decide for yourself from the picture below which one is better. As you can see the SGS2 adds a bit more light to the photo whilst the HTC is more natural. The HTC in my opinion takes better photos.
Edge: HTC Sensation
On the Video side the SGS2 comes out a clear winner with 1080P HD videos being crisp and clear whilst the HTC is not as sharp but still good nevertheless.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
Software:
Both these Manufacturers take a different approach when it comes to the software UI inside these smart phones. Although both are running the Android Gingerbread 2.33, they have made some changes on the UI to enhance the experience. The HTC version is the Sense 3.0 UI and the SGS has the TouchWiz software. Overall I found the experience a lot better and appealing with the HTC sense. In my opinion it is implemented better than Samsung's Touchwiz. The animations on the lock screen are quite cool with the Sense. Even little touches in the email on the Sense is better than Samsung's implementation.
Edge: HTC Sensation
Booting time from Power on to the lock screen menu took roughly 35 seconds on the SGS2 and about 38 seconds on the HTC, Not very different but still a difference nevertheless.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
Battery life - The SGS2 comes with a 1650 MaH whilst the HTC comes with a 1520 MaH battery. After doing some tests for a few days I have come to the conclusion that the SGS2 has better battery life but not by that much. The SGS lasted for a day right through the early night while the HTC would last an hour or two less than that. I think the reason could be the heavy animations of the Sense UI. I am a heavy Microsoft Exchange email user and get close to 150 emails a day and leaving them on Push email does suck up a lot of battery not to mention leaving things like Wi Fi, Bluetooth and 3G on. For me regardless of which phone I use, I must charge the phone on a daily basis. I am in the habit of putting all phones to charge at night.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
The GPS on both these units were pretty even with both getting quick locks to satellites and they were both impressive and accurate.
Edge: Even
Internet Browsing - They both perform fairly similar with the SGS2 coming in ever so slightly faster in rendering pages.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
Built in Keyboard - The HTC comes with 2 variants, one is their normal keyboard and the other is what they call HTC Trace which is a trace type keyboard similar to the awesome Swype but it is no where close to the Swype keyboard. You can currently get the latest Swype 3.0 beta by signing up to their beta program at http://beta.swype.com and grabbing a copy of this awesome keyboard. I have it installed on the Sensation and it works great. The SGS2 comes with Swype bundled already which is great. Thumbs up to Samsung for bundling Swype.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
Hubs - Both these phones come with their own versions of custom software. For the SGS2 they have names like Social Hub, Music Hub, Readers Hub and Game Hub. Here you can access things like Facebook, Twitter, newspapers, magazines, music and games. The HTC comes with names like HTC Hub, HTC Likes, Friend Stream, HTC Watch. Personally I think a lot of this is bloatware but I am sure many will find these apps useful. As for the implementation the HTC is implemented better.
Edge: HTC Sensation
Wireless - I did 2 tests using the speedtest app. One test right next to the Router and the other about 15 metres away and the results were in HTC's favour especially the 15 metre test. Samsung has had some issues with wireless especially when you trawl through the forums and I wanted to test this as it loses signal down to one bar at 15 metres while the HTC stayed at full bars. Here are the Speedtest results from less than 1M away from the router. HTC - 12351/761Kbps , SGS2 - 12300/790Kbps. From 15 metres away - HTC - 12200/712Kbps, SGS2 - 11419/606Kbps. Even though the signal bar showed one bar the throughput was still there. So this could be more of a software issue where they need to fix the signal meter.
Edge: HTC Sensation
Lag Factor - Many people have asked me whether these phones lag much at all esp in the menus and other areas. Well my answer is overall both phones are fairly lag free. The HTC Sensation due to the heavy animations very occasionally does lag. The SGS is pretty much lag free.
Edge: Samsung Galaxy S II
Total: Samsung Galaxy S II = 10 - HTC = 9
Overall Shootout Winner: Samsung Galaxy S II
Conclusion:
So a lot of what I think is important has been covered here. I may have missed a few things here and there. So the overall winner in the Shootout was the Samsung Galaxy S II just by a mere 1 point. Goes to show you just how close these 2 models are in terms of hardware and performance. You may have certain areas which are important to you that may sway your decision for either model. Personally I prefer the HTC Sensation for 2 reasons, one is how it feels in my hand and the other is the software and I prefer the HTC Sense UI to the TouchWiz of the Samsung. You really can't go wrong with either model.
So if you are sitting on the fence wondering which one should I choose, my recommendation is either one of them. They are both fantastic phones and I highly recommend either one. One thing though is, if you are with Telstra and on Next G, you may want to check that your HTC Sensation does the 850Mhz HSDPA frequency, Without that you wont get those blistering next G speeds and as of this writing that version is not yet shipping or is about to ship. Feel free to comment and share your experiences of your Samsung Galaxy S II or the HTC Sensation. This shootout is by no means thorough. It is just a quick run down of what I have found. Of course your mileage may vary.
P.S. If you are looking for accessories like spare batteries, cases, or screen protectors for these 2 devices, check out DROIDAX.
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