HTC Sensation XL review

Contacts in the HTC Sensation XL are stored in the People app, and they're a lot like what you'd expect from a smartphone these days. You've got social network integration, including Facebook and Twitter, and you can bring in your contacts from Google or HTCSense.com, if you're an HTC regular.

The contacts list is a clear, if simple list of names, though it does bring through the latest update from a contact's social network if you've got them linked. It'll also pull through their profile photo and other relevant information.

Aside from the People app, you can also get to your contacts quickly using the Phone app and tapping on the tab at the bottom, or you can use the smart dialling feature – start typing a person's name on the dialpad and they'll appear on the screen.

In a contact, you can add all the usual information, including multiple phone numbers, email addresses and so on, as well as adding them a group or adding notes or a nickname. There's no birthday field, though you can pull birthdays in from Facebook.

When looking at a contact, you've got several views apart from their information. You can view your contact history with someone in the Thread tab, view their recent social network activity in Updates, or see their Facebook photos in Gallery.

We found the HTC Sensation XL picked up signal quite well when we used it, although call quality was a little hit and miss. In low-signal areas, we found that calls distorted quite a bit – more so than many other handsets we've used – but with a good clear signal, audio quality was fine.

In fact, to HTC's credit, the ear speaker can go really quite loud, so it does fairly well in traffic compared to some of the competition.

The loudspeaker is fairly clear, but it didn't impress in the same way the ear speaker did when it comes to volume. It'll suffice in a quiet room, but it wasn't hard for it to be drowned out.