Thinking of buying a new smartphone? You have a lot of options with most of high-ends handsets having basically the same specs. It’s hard to make a choice, in order to know you have a great device in your hands. What can be said about these two phones? Nokia N9 running the company’s new operating system Meego or the stylish and one of the most powerful handsets from HTC, the Sensation 4G? Let put both devices face to face and analyze their important specs.
What’s the first thing that captures your attention? The design. Featuring a fresh and rebranded form factor compared to other Nokia’s phones, The N9 has a stylish, modern and eye-catching look plus a curved touchscreen. It comes in a wide range of vivid colors. As for the HTC Sensation 4G, we haven’t remarked something too different from the rest of HTC phones. It features the same classy form factor with rounded corners. Generally, it looks great, but we don’t think it can be considered a real Sensation. In terms of dimensions, the N9 is smaller, wider and thicker than the HTC Sensation. Plus, it is much more lighter, weighing 135g, compared to HTC Sensation which has 148g.
Secondly, we’ll be mentioning the display. Nokia N9 is fitted with a 3.9-inch Amoled capacitive touchscreen with a resolution set at 480 x 854 pixels. The exterior part of the screen is protected by the Gorilla Glass which prevents the appearance of unwelcome scratches, scuffs and other dirts. Free from buttons, Nokia uses on the N9 an innovative swipe gesture to navigate around. Other useful feature is the anti-glare polariser, which means you can safely keep the handsets out when the sun comes out. HTC Sensation’s display is larger, having a 4.3-inch S-LCD capacitive screen with a better resolution set at at 540×960 pixels. Instead of Amoled, it’s Sony’s technology used by the Taiwanese company. The Sensation uses HTC’s new version of UI, HTC Sense 3.0 plus multi-touch input, accelerometer and gyro sensor.
What can be said about the camera? Nokia N9′s rear camera is positioned more centrally unlike other smartphones on the market. It has a good 8 megapixel cam covered in Carl Zeiss optics with autofocus and dual LED flash It adds a secondary front facing camera for video calling. Other included features are: geo-tagging, face detection, touch-focus. It captures videos at 720p.
HTC’s device comes with the same 8 megapixel rear camera in the left side with autofocus and dual-LED flash plus a VGA frontal camera. Unlike the N9′s cam, this one supports full HD videos at 1080p with stereo sound recording. Compared to N9, it has more useful features such as: Features include touch focus, autofocus, face detection, geo-tagging, image stabilisation and instant capture. 
With a better video quality, HTC Sensation wins this round.
Speaking of processor, HTC Sensation has another advantage, because it comes equipped with a dual core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor on the MSM 8260 Snapdragon chipset plus good graphics processing unit. On the other side, Nokia has opted for a single core chipset; 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor on the TI OMAP 3630 chipset. Certainly, HTC’s processor is faster than the one used on the N9, but, generally, both are good processors running some nice hardware.
In terms of internal storage, N9 beats the Sensation with a roomy 1GB of RAM, while HTC’s phone has only 768MB of RAM. Furtheremore, Nokia N9 comes with two models: 16 GB or 64GB, with no card slot included for more expansion. There is also a microUSB port connector and headphone jack, as it can be seen in the photo below.
As for the HTC Sensation, it comes with a merely 1GB built-in memory, which can be expanded up to 32 GB via a microSD that comes with an initial 8GB. It has also a port for headphone jack, micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition for USB or HDMI connection.
What about the software? The fresh and new Nokia N9 comes with Meego OS, being the first handset to be running on this platform. Nokia has designed this modern and fashionable N9 with Meego, which promisses to be faster, solid and more simple to use it. Featuring no buttons, it is controlled by a set of specific gestures for navigation around its three home screens. On the other side, HTC Snesation runs the latest version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread with noticeable improvements compared the previous versions. Each of the handsets has its own store, where you can download a bunch of useful and interesting applications and features.
Regarding the connectivity options, both phones are compatible with 3G network, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot plus Bluetooth. HTC Sensation has also support for 4G network.
Wrap-up
Still don’t don’t know what choosing? You should probably take into consideration the pricing too. HTC Sensation is available at T-Mobile for the regular $200 with a two year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate, while Nokia’s N9 is not available yet on the market. Furthermore, it does make a good impression with its stylish and modern design. Probably HTC Sensation is not the best Android-based smartphone you’ll find on the market, but it’s a complete phone with top rated specs, better than the N9. Needless to say, the N9 is a great phone too. Put in balance all aspects, so you can choose the right handset.