HTC Sense 4.0 details emerge before Mobile World Congress

Like it or not, custom manufacturer skins are here to stay. That said some are better than others, and HTC’s Sense UI has emerged as one of the more mature and usable options, even garnering its fair share of fans. HTC is expected to reveal the fourth version of Sense with new hardware at Mobile World Congress next month, but PocketNow allegedly got a look at the changes before prime time. They came away impressed, and noted some radical – and in many cases welcome – changes.

First and foremost: the homescreen can finally function in landscape mode without any hacking or tweaking. This is a feature that is bafflingly absent form almost all stock phones (save QWERTY sliders) and is often inserted by modders and aftermarket ROM developers.  Sliders and icons go with a slate gray look instead of the current glossy black, and the sometimes obtrusive icons are augmented and in some areas replaced with text. The task switcher is similar to the card system found on stock Ice Cream Sandwich, but uses a 3D effect like the current Sense carousel.

The lockscreen gets a makeover with a more straightforward notification system, reportedly aping the iPhone 4 and 4S. (Careful, HTC – Apple’s lawyers are running amok, and will certainly be looking for easy targets.) PocketNow reports that HTC plans for all of its devices to use capacitive physical buttons, not on-screen buttons as was assumed to be standard for Ice Cream Sandwich phones. Some hardware will move to a three-button layout even so. A new guest mode allows you to lock all private data and apps to allow a friend or acquaintance to borrow your phone for a quick call or search.

Sense’s other affected programs like email and the web browser get incremental updates, and the later notably has a reader mode saved page function. Beats will be a universal feature with support for plugins from third-party apps, and DropBox is included with some integration with the rest of Sense’s custom applications. Take all of this as rumor at the moment: none of it is official in any way. We should be able to confirm or deny all of the above information in Barcelona in late February.

Virtuous S4X brings ICS and Sense 4.0 to HTC EVO 3D and Sensation

Whatever else they might be, custom ROM developers are speedy. Barely three weeks after the first official ROM for the Endeavor (now officially revealed as the HTC One X) leaked, an industrious group of devs have released a series of ROMs based on the leaked code. The Virtuous S4X series of ROMs isn’t the first family of custom ROMs to bring Ice Cream Sandwich to HTC’s devices, but it is the first to bring the ubiquitous Sense along for the ride in its fourth incarnation.

At present only the GSM version of the HTC EVO 3D and the HTC Sensation are supported, and the ROMs themselves are in beta form and their first release at that – don’t expect daily driver performance. Work from the developers includes resizing and recalibrating ROMs to work on qHD (960×540) screens, smaller both physically virtually tan the HTC One X’s 720p panel. In the best tradition of custom ROMs, they’ve also made a few speedy tweaks and removed bloatware that isn’t strictly necessary.

HTC has committed to bringing Ice Cream Sandwich (and probably Sense 4.0) to both the EVO 3D and the Sensation, but it might be months before the updates materialize. If you can’t wait, download the files, reboot into a custom recovery and get crackin’. Both will require a full wipe (even from a stock ROM) so make sure and back up your data with Nandroid. It’ll still be a few weeks at the very least before the HTC One X is released, so it’ll be a while before the developers can upgrade their source files.

Device Specifications and Information

Device Name : Sensation 4G

Manufacturer : HTC

Carrier : T-Mobile

Announced Date : April 12, 2011

Release Date : May 19, 2011

Display

• Screen Size : 4.30 Inch
• Resolution : 540×960
• Screen Type : qHD

Dimension & Weight

• Height : 4.96 Inch
• Width : 2.57 Inch
• Depth : 0.44 Inch
• Weight : 148 Grams

Battery Type : Lithium Ion

Battery Capacity : 1520 mAh

Talk Time : NA

Stand By Time : 350 hours

Android OS : 2.3.x

Audio Playback : AAC, AMR, MID, MP3, WAV, WMA

Video Playback : 3GP, MPEG-4 (MP4), WMV

Messaging : SMS, MMS

CPU : SnapdragonCPU Clock Speed : 1200 Mhz

Core : 2

Ram : 768 MB

Internal Storage : 4 GB

Camera Resolution : 8 MP

External Storage : MicroSD, MicroSDHC

Camera Features : Auto focus, Flash, 1080p Video Recording

Sensors : Accelerometer, Proximity

QWERTY : No

Network Technology : GSMGSM Band : 850, 900, 1800, 1900

Wi-Fi : 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11nBluetooth : Bluetooth 3.0

Location Features :

• Compass
• GPS
• Cellular location
• Wi-Fi location

FM Radio : Yes

NFC : No