Orange has put the HTC Sensation XE on its coming soon page, although further details regarding the exact availability date, the contract prices and whether it will be available on PAYG have yet to be published.
The Sensation XE is the follow up to the original HTC Sensation. it swaps the classic HTC design for a more edgy one which mixes black and deep red colours; with the speaker grill and the earphone cord, for example, adopting the latter.
There’s a dual core Qualcomm MSM chipset clocked at 1.5GHz, 768MB RAM, 4GB onboard storage, a microSD card slot, a 4.3-inch display with a qHD screen resolution, an eight megapixel camera plus a front facing one.
It is powered by Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, has a quoted nine hours talktime (and 540 hours standby) and is jam packed with connectivity features (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSPDA).
It is slightly stockier and bulkier than your average smartphone due to the screen size but at 11mm, it is just a tad thicker than the iPhone 4S.
The current best SIM Free and contract prices for the HTC Sensation XE are £430 at Amazon and £25.56 per month on an 18-month deal with 300 minutes, 300 texts and 500MB data at Affordable Mobiles.