Unboxing the HTC Sensation XL – entering the lair of the 4.7″ droid with the Monster headset [VIDEO]

XL – a universally recognized label for stuff bigger than regular. But don’t worry, the HTC Sensation XL fills its XL clothing with a 4.7″ screen rather than whatever the gadgetry equivalent of flabby fat is.

No, sir, this soldier here is a lean mean fighting machine. The XL packs virtually the same hardware as the recently reviewed HTC Titan – that means a single 1.5GHz CPU core and 8MP camera. But it’s a Sensation and like its sibling (the recently reviewed XE), it comes with the Monster iBeats headset which gives a hefty boost to the value for money of the package.

We think our perception of size got skewed over time – when the first phones with 4+ inch screens hit, we thought they were kind of big. Now, we’re holding the Sensation XL with its monstrous 4.7″ screen and our first thought was “why, that’s not so big!” Yup, time change and so do we.

While the XL was in our hands, the large slab of aluminum on the back gave us a very positive impression – it’s thick enough for HTC to engrave their logo into it. The design isn’t what is traditionally considered a unibody – the whole back comes off giving you easy access to the battery and SIM card slot.

The Sensation XL carries over some of the downsides of the Titan’s design – the screen has WVGA resolution (and the pixel density drops to a hair under 200ppi) and there’s no microSD card slot (you have to rely on the 16GB built-in memory). Unfortunately, HTC decided not to keep the comfy shutter key from the Titan.

To make up for that, the Sensation XL comes with the iBeats headset and the custom software that improves the listening experience. The headset costs quite a bit if you want to buy one separately, so it’s a major perk to have it in the box.

The only thing that worries us is that audiophiles have huge collection of high-quality songs – and 16GB (of total memory, user accessible memory is even less) might not be enough to fit them all.

Same goes for movies too – the big screen makes the HTC Sensation XL a good candidate for your portable movie player of choice, but the memory limits how many movies you can carry. The XL does come with HTC Watch video streaming service though if you’re okay with online video watching (and okay with paying for it).

Here’s us unboxing the HTC Sensation XL and going over the interface quickly – it’s the latest Sense UI 3.5.

Hope this whets your appetite for more about the monster droid and its songster headphones, we’re busy working on a review for it.