This latest smartphone of HTC is full of latest &#151 an all new Android 2.3.3 operating system, HTC sense 3.0 user interface, and the recently launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2 GHz dual core processor. With powerful specs like 8 Megapixel camera with HD video recording, Flash 10.1 support, and a 4.3 inch qHD (quarter high definition) screen, it is pitted against the best.

But is it the best in real world use?

Hardware

It is obvious that HTC Sensation will be compared against the Samsung Galaxy SII, with both matching head to head in hardware – the only difference being the weight where HTC is much heavier at 148 grams compared to 118 Grams of Samsung Galaxy.
However, this does not mean that Sensation feels heavier. It is much more comfortable to hold as it is narrower than the Galaxy (thanks to the change in aspect ratio of the screen) and easier to grip despite being thicker than Galaxy (although opinions can vary, this is widely a consensus).

One of the major disadvantages of HTC Sensation is the fact that it has only 1GB of inbuilt memory versus 16GB of Galaxy SII. Its RAM is also lesser at 778MB compared to the 1GB of Galaxy.

So in hardware space, HTC Sensation is not the best but that’s not something to worry as it has a latest version of the processor, which is asynchronous compared to the Galaxy’s synchronous one, meaning that the two cores of HTC can work independently of each other saving power and giving better speeds.

The 8 Megapixel camera is capable of recording high definition videos; the camera quality is good with stills and brilliant with video. The auto focus camera does a good job of focusing on subject in both still and video. If you are not satisfied with the result just touch the display and the camera focuses where you touched.

There are several pre-sets available but manual controls are limited. Compare to the Galaxy SII, the Sensation wins hands down as its camera fires up quickly and snaps pictures with even faster speed. Otherwise it’s a draw.

The screen is a 4.3 inch capacitive touch with 540X960 pixels qHD Resolution (Samsung Galaxy SII has 4.3 inch with 480 x 800 pixels resolution). It is brilliant with the colour and sharpness, making it easier to read web pages even without zooming in, e-books and other text are also very sharp. However, the screen pales when it faces the sun. It’s here that the Galaxy scores better.

The Sensation is encased in an aluminium uni-body, in fact it is a three piece unit with two part plastic and one part aluminium. However, the case is sturdy and the build quality is top notch.

It’s also not uni-body in the iPhone way – you can take out the back cover. The front glass seems to come out when you open it. The SIM card and micro SD card slot is also placed inside the cover. The antennas are mounted on the cover, so the phone doesn’t work without it.
The 3.5 mm jack is placed at the top and so is the power on button. On the right hand side, the volume key and USB ports are placed. Sadly, there is no physical button for the camera.

Battery backup is the main problem area of the phone despite the fact that the phone comes with 1520 mAh battery; the phone hardly lasted till evening with overnight charging even with medium usage – half an hour of calling, little bit of WiFi browsing, plus 45 minutes of radio and music.

We thought that this is a problem with this particular handset but that does not seem to be the case. So much talk of asynchronous processing, helping save power does not seem to hold ground.

Software

The Sensation comes with the latest Android 2.3.3 version and HTC sense UI’s latest 3.0 version. Both work flawlessly and are smooth in their operation.

Although there is no revolutionary feature added to the HTC Sense user interface, it makes the user experience much delightful with the small changes it brings with it.

The first thing that you notice is the new unlock mechanism, which is now a ring instead of sideways or upwards swipe that comes with the standard Android. Applications can be dropped in the ring to open; you do not need to unlock the screen first. So it’s just one step less but then I already told you it’s the little things.

The weather App is marvellous; it gives you complete feel of weather outside. The integration with the phone is also superb.

The phone makes full use of the powerful 1.2 GHz processor inside and gives a very fluid and vibrant user experience.

Contact and sync feature have been integrated very well – you would get all the updates of your contacts from Facebook and Twitter or any other social network in a single screen when you dig out the contact. Digging out the contact is kind of old school with predictive T9 dictionary type of search.

There are other good things that have been carried forward from the last version of the sense UI such as flipping the phone to silence it.

There are many more small little things about the UI to talk about but we would not bother you with that, we will only say, “enjoy the whole experience”.

There is also a new service debuting on the Sensation &#151 the HTC Watch, which is a movie/video rental and purchase service started by HTC. However, right now there are only few trailer available in this service, hope movies make appearance soon.

Performance

With 1.2 GHz processor, we did not expect any hiccups in performance. The phone indeed did not disappoint all the touches and swipe worked without a hitch; applications opened with no time as well. Only thing that is a bit slow is predictive text but that too is like fraction of a second slow, nothing deal breaking.

The sound quality of the speaker is good, infact good is an understatement, but we will stick to that since it’s not really loud, but the clarity is top notch. The supplied ear piece is kind of big and does provide clear sound output. However, it is not loud either but then most top manufacturers seem to keep it that ways (care for your ears).

One thing that disappoints is the radio. The reception is poor, in fact at first you will think that the phone doesn’t have one as it is not there in the main menu – you will need to go to widgets by long pressing the empty screen. There is also a torch function which you will find here.

Verdict

The phone is a HTC flagship and as such we had high expectations from it, and we would say we are not disappointed. But, the HTC Sensation lacks just a little bit when we compare it with the Samsung Galaxy SII, in terms of performance, as both of them are priced neck to neck comparisons will be made.

But does that mean you should buy the Samsung? Not really. Oh, well, you can but HTC is equally competitive, what works in favour of the HTC is its fluid and interesting user interface, the phone is also easier to hold despite being heavier, the build quality is top notch. However, if you like vanilla Android experience, Samsung is a better choice.

Indeed it is raining mobile phones every week these days. India being a price-sensitive market, every customer seeks a value-for-money handset. But they too want all the features such as multimedia as entertainment on the move has now become a need.

Spice Mobile has perhaps recognized this fact quite well.Recently it has brought the Popkorn M-9000 handset that comes with built-in mobile projector &#151 a first in the Indian market. Basically it’s a mobile movie and presentation projection device friendly to your pocket.

Spice Popkorn M-9000 comes in a yellow and white striped box, resembling the popcorn container. Inside the box is the neatly packed handset that tags along a tripod stand, external canary yellow coloured speaker, laser pointer, earphones, charger, 1200mAh battery and a data cable. It is quite a big box for a mobile phone capable of carrying mini-theatre in your pocket.

Physical Attributes

First thing I noticed was the diamond shaped directional pad with a considerably sized stud in the middle. Apart from that, the phone carries quite contemporary design and styling for an entry level device. The keypad is in black while the outer rims are painted gun-metal steel colour. At the back, a 3.2 Megapixel camera lens placed beside the speaker.

The handset itself weighs 123 grams but appears bit heavy. From the front it looks like any other entry-level device. On one side, lies the volume adjustment buttons and the projector control button is located on its opposite side. The top end of the phone features the projector lens covering the lamp. At the bottom you will find the microUSB port.

Display and Interaction

Popkorn M-9000 sports a 6 cm QVGA display that promises 262k colours. The screen is not that big, where you can enjoy your movies as you can do in a smartphone, but it is not so small that you’ll have to squint your eyes for text.

Supporting a decent 320×240 pixel resolution, the screen has been bolstered with a user interface that carries colours that wouldn’t be appreciated by a serious mobile phone user. Being said that, an average cool guy would certainly enjoy it.

Call quality is really decent and the reception is variable &#151 dependent on the network. At times the call drops were experience while talking anywhere inside the building – cellular operators can be blamed for the same as it happened with the other handsets as well. Good part of this mobile being a Dual-SIM handset is that I could use two different numbers as Master and Slave. There’s no front facing camera so forget about making a video call.

Visually, it would look nothing more or stand out amongst the crowd of other mobile phones. May be the diamond stud used as joystick will shine and catch your eye.
Projection:

The major highlight of the Popkorn M-9000 handset is the built-in projector. Show movies, videos, Live TV, documents and images using the built-in phone projector. Best part is hooking up the handset to the bundled tripod stand, connecting it to the Canary Yellow speaker. Projection quality is decent – mostly on the white surfaces in a dark room.
However, if you plan to project something in a well illuminated room then project it on a black background. The video playback happens at 25 frames per second so ensure the video files carry the similar attributes or be ready to tear out some hair.

Adjust the projection with a turnable knob that is located at the back of the mobile on the top. Yes, the project does eat up the battery life but that’s the sacrifice you will have to bear with. Apparently, one can watch a TV show episode and the metallic back panel of the phone will not heat up much. But you can feel it getting warm. The Projector lamp life is 8000-1000 hours and it’s not like a never ending source. So ensure you use the projector judiciously. Bundled Laser pointer is extremely handy while projecting Presentations, Spreadsheets and Documents.

Multimedia and Camera

Popkorn has a 3.2-megapixel camera, which provides decent images that you can share through MMS, Bluetooth or can upload to the web. It is also capable of capturing videos.
The video player is capable of playing different popular formats such as – .3GP, .avi, .flv, .rmvb, .rm and .mp4. There’s not much you can store on the phone with 87MB memory and one needs to have 8GB or 16GB Memory card handy for such leisure. The Music player allows you to play MP3 files and apparently the sound recorder application allows recording in WAV, AWB and AMR file formats.

Now here’s an interesting feature: During a call, you can just press key corresponding to Options on the screen and choose Sound Recorder to record the calls. Quite a handy feature to implement a sting operation!

Popkorn comes with Analog TV feature that will let you view and stay updated with the TV channels provided you’ve subscribed to something like the offerings from ZengaTV. Other than that, it’s very difficult to get free channels.

We, Indians, love Radio and thereby Popkorn features a FM radio with recording feature. Radio record scheduling will automatically record and save your favorite radio programs that you can enjoy later. Pull out the Antenna and make the best of it. However, there’s just one glitch. Radio recordings aren’t audible via earphones and can be heard only through the speakers at the back of the mobile.

Applications and Accessories

Spice has loaded the Popkorn devices with all possible applications that you can use in your daily route. Ensure you have a good GPRS data connection plan if you plan to use the apps exhaustively. From eBook reader to the Opera Mini web browser, you can find majority of the most used things on this mobile phone. Fun Spice gives you direct access to the most useful apps like Opera Mini, Facebook, Snaptu, Ibibo, mobile tracker and others. The phone does carry ZengaTV App but it requires GPRS connection to view all possible channels through the same.

Document Viewer will let you view and project the Microsoft Office and PDF documents. Besides that, there’s an eBook reader app that will allow you to catch up with your favorite ebooks. Unfortunately, the eBook reader app supports only .txt file formats. There’s an interesting Incoming Call Guard feature to be used judiciously to avoid the unwanted telecallers. Got bored? Use VuClip, a mobile video search app to find a video that will make you laugh your guts out.

Spice has also been kind enough to pack a ‘File Manager’ that will let you browse, open and manage the files stored on the phone memory and the memory card.

Conclusion

Spice Popcorn handset with bundled accessories justifies its price of Rs 6,699. The projector is the unique selling proposition of the handset and it does not dissapoints.

Using projector and dual-SIM could be a downer for the battery life since neither would promise prolonged usage on single charge. You will be forced to carry the charger around just to be on safe side. Keeping the user interface and hard stud that will hurt your thumb aside the phone’s visual appeal isn’t that great. However, do not under estimate it. Popkorn M-9000 does pack enough features that will make you feel &#151 money well spent.