HTC
Sensation XL

The HTC Sensation XL was unveiled at a high-profile launch event in London in October 2011. As the name suggests, it was the "extra-large" sibling in the Sensation family. It was a key device designed to take advantage of HTC’s multimillion-dollar investment in Beats Electronics. The most striking feature of the Sensation XL was its massive 4.7-inch Super LCD display. In 2011, a screen of this size was considered enormous and described as a “phablet”. It pushed the boundaries of what was then acceptable for "one-handed" use. Despite its large footprint, the device was impressively slim at 9.9mm and featured a premium silver-and-white aesthetic. Its aluminium unibody backplate gave it a solid, high-end feel, drawing design cues from the HTC Flyer tablet and its Windows Phone twin, the HTC Titan. Music was central to the Sensation XL. It was one of the first devices to feature deeply integrated Beats Audio technology. When the iconic red UrBeats (iBeats) in-ear headphones (which were included in the box) were plugged in, the phone automatically activated a custom-tuned audio profile designed to deliver music "as the artist intended." The hardware specification choices proved controversial. While the smaller Sensation XE had a dual-core processor, the Sensation XL used a high-clocked 1.5GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. While some commentators questioned the lack of a second core, the device ran Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and HTC Sense 3.5 smoothly, as the software was highly optimised for the single-core architecture. The device also had an eight-megapixel camera with a wide-angle 28mm lens and a bright f/2.2 aperture, specifically designed to improve low-light photography. The device photographed is a rare "Runnymede" prototype unit.