The latest handset to roll off the HTC conveyor belt, or should we say Android conveyor belt, is the HTC Sensation. HTC have churned out quite a few handsets of late such as the Desire S, Wildfire S, Incredible S (seems to be a common theme of S’s here don’t you think?) and have been received mildly by the tech craving public. But will the Sensation set our fires burning for them again?

Well HTC rose from nowhere over the past few years with their success very much in the Android smartphone playground. We all know about the Desire and Wildfire original releases. They proved a huge success for HTC. But their subsequent handsets have not really had the same demand. They announced a raft of handsets at this years Mobile World Conference only to kind of go off without a bang. Is it just a case of no one can do a launch like Apple can? Maybe.

But lets get back to the topic in hand. The HTC Sensation may just turn our heads again. It brings with it some very interesting features (check out the full HTC Sensation specs). It packs a dual core snapdragon 1.2 GHz processor under the hood which runs the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS complete with the latest HTC Sense v3.0. It certainly has plenty of grunt to move along smoothly without any issues.

Initially Vodafone have secured an exclusive to have HTC Sensation deals on contract for mid May 2011 and other networks are expected to begin selling contracts sometime in June if you don’t fancy sticking to Vodafone. Orange, O2, Tmobile, Virgin and 3mobile users will all have to wait unfortunately until then.

This is HTC’s flagship multimedia handset so media is top of the agenda for a variety of audio and video such as Xvid, MP4, WMV, AAC and MP3 including an FM (RDS) radio player with internal 1GB storage to get you started. This is expandable using the micro SD slot which can take up to 32GB and comes with 8GB. You can hook your own headphones up to it using the 3.5mm audio jack.

Size wise the HTC Sensation comes in at 65.4 x 11.3 x 126.1 mm and a weight of 148 grams so your not talking particularly small here but it does have a 4.3in super LCD capacitive touchscreen to boot. It has a qHD resolution of 540 x 960 with 16 million colours. For extra strength the screen is using gorilla glass which still has the ability of multi touch. For further control you have a gyro sensor, accelerometer and a proximity sensor which all should help developers produce some useful apps and games as well as help get the best out of the HTC Sense UI.

When it comes to photos it has an 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash which also doubles up as a light which can be used when videoing. The camera has auto focus, touch focus, face detection, image stabilisation, instant capture and 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps with stereo sound. On the front of the handset there is a standard VGA camera for video calls.

The HTC Sense UI has always been one of HTC’s biggest triumphs and they have improved it further to make using their handsets even better. The home screens flip around and you can even spin them around like a carousel which is pretty cool and pinching shows all 7 available home screens at once. It also features some nice interaction options to launch your favourite apps quicker from locked mode. All pretty neat.

When it comes to connectivity the Sensation has it covered with the usual Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n DNLA for quick connection to your networks, EDGE and GPRS. The dual band HSPA has upload speeds of 5.76 Mbps (HSUPA) and download speeds of 14.4 Mbps (HSDPA) for mobile broadband. The handset can even act as a mobile router device giving you a wireless hotspot (sometimes known as a Mi-Fi with 3 mobile network) which lets you connect other devices such as an iPad, iPod or laptop to give them an internet connection on the go. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP and a micro USB port with MHL and can allow you to hook your phone up to a compatible TV to display your phone content such as photos.

You also get GPS with A-GPS support with Google Maps preloaded as you would expect from an Android device as well as some other regular Google Apps.

HTC claim you will get up to 7 hours of talk time from a charge with 400 hours in standby but as we all know when you start using all these powerful features these times can often be misleading to say the least.

Stay tuned for when the HTC Sensation is available to be pre ordered.