[HTC Sensation] escaflo:
I am a current owner of a HTC Sensation and also a Samsung Galaxy S II. Personally these are what I like about both of the phones:

HTC Sensation:

1. The solid build.

2. Sense UI

3. High resolution

Samsung Galaxy S II:

1. Battery life

2. Light weight

3. Screen

4. Performance

5. Memory (RAM and storage)

I am actually still deciding which phone I should keep and which phone I should sell off but right now, it seems like I will most probably keep the GS II and sell off the HTC.

The main reason is because of the super bad battery life. I used to own an iPhone 4 and I understand it is impossible to compare the battery life of an iPhone 4 to a GS II or HTC but all I want is that it will be able to last through the day with normal usage. Normal being surfing and listening to music with the screen on time of about an hour or two with the occassional casual gaming.

I have setup the GS II and the HTC exactly the same, with the same apps and the same launcher (SPB Shell 3D) and with the same widget and also the same email accounts and social network. Under normal use, I will need to recharge the HTC in office while using the GS II, I can go through the whole day and at the end of the day maybe left with 30-40% of the battery. Remember that both of these phones are setup exactly the same.

I know that some people have better experience with HTC than Samsung in terms of battery life but my experience so far after owning both of them for more than 2 weeks, I will say I prefer the battery life of Samsung. I am not saying other people are lying but probably my usage is more suitable for Samsung underlying OS changes.

One thing I notice about HTC is that the battery meter will get stuck on 100% for a long time then once it starts draining, it drains like nobody business.

In terms of performance, GS II is smoother in day to day use. I don't play that much 3D games so I don't really care about the performance of the graphics but just like smooth response for day to day use. HTC seems to be suffering from the lack of RAM or maybe from the lack of internal storage as most of the lagging seems to be coming from the fact that it needs to read from the SD Card which no matter how fast, will definitely still be a bottleneck compare to a memory that's actually solder on board.

I use to be a fanatics over processor speed and GPU speed but I realize that in the end, it is not really the processor speed or GPU that really counts but the end user experience. If you have a slow processor but have optimize your software such that it makes full use of the hardware capability, it will still deliver a smooth and user friendly experience to the end user.

If you tend to play a lot of games on the handset then of course you will be caring about the GPU speed but then in the end, it is still a matter of the developer writing games that make full use of the capability. If it doesn't, you will still get a slow game even if you have a super duper fast GPU.

The problem with Android as the whole will probably be still the hardware fragmentation meaning that it will be difficult for developer to optimize the game for one particular hardware (for example, Tegra) and making sure that it perform as well for the other. So we shouldn't and will never be able to expect the same performance from all GPUs even if they have the same specs. That's why I think it is pretty much a moot point to try and compare GPU/CPU specs between phones.

Oh, and one more thing I really like about GS II is the support for the wider variety of codecs which save me the trouble of converting movies and it plays back HD mkv files with no problem. But that's just for me.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents in regard to this debate between HTC and Samsung. Personally I think specs does not means everything and I don't care which phone is actually faster but rather care about which phone have the software that can utilize the phone the best way I use it and to me, for now, it is still Samsung. I am still awaiting in hope that HTC may release new firmware that can fix most of the issue with especially the battery life.