HTC Sensation revealed: the Desire HD's spiritual successor?

HTC have revealed their latest flagship smartphone at a press preview in London today. Pretty much a spiritual successor the lucious Desire HD, the newly revealed HTC Sensation is likely to top gadget-most wanted lists when it launches in Europe and the UK sometime in May.

For want of avoiding a pun, the handset’s spec sheet is looking pretty “sensational”. Packing in the latest version of HTC’s nifty Sense UI overlay (with tweaks including a 360-degree hompage carousel and app screen locking), the Android 2.3.3 handset is rocking a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8260 chipset, as well as 768 MB of RAM.

The 4.3 inch screen is also looking great; running at 960 x 540 pixels in a 16:9 aspect, it’s finished with ultra-strong Gorilla Glass and protected with a curved bezel that means the screen will never make contact with rough surfaces when placed face down.

Overall the phone measures up at 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3mm and a fairly weighty 148g. The extra bulk is likely down to the 1520mAh battery onboard, the highest capacity battery HTC have used to date, which should go someway towards offsetting the tragic battery life of the comparably-sized Desire HD.

Other features include full 1080p HD recording and 8MP still image shooting from the rear camera, and 640 x 480 video capture from a front facing sensor too. A HDMI out port will let you push videos to your flatscreen TV via an additional adapter, while the HTC Watch movie download portal will come pre-installed.

Some argued that apart from the HTC Flyer, the company’s MWC showing in February was a little prosaic, but it seems all was being held back for today’s big Sensation reveal. Providing they’ve fixed the frankly attrocious battery issues that plagued the otherwise-superb Desire HD, HTC will be on to a real winner here.

Scroll down for some more images of the new smartphone.