[Homegrown] Telecom NZ finally release HTC Sensation firmware update

This is our first piece featuring some content relevant specifically to developments here in our home market in New Zealand. If you're part of our growing overseas readership you'll be able to recognise this content by the [Homegrown] tag in the title, that way you don't have to waste any of your precious time reading content that is related only to New Zealand.

Some of you might know that I have an HTC Sensation handset that I was testing for Telecom NZ. What you might not know is that my Fiancée also has an HTC Sensation - and she won't let me root/ROM it. This means that it's stuck with whatever updates Telecom deems reliable enough to deploy.

I have been checking for updates nearly daily (much to my Fiancee's dismay) and today I finally got lucky! Yes, that's right there is a new version of official HTC Sensation firmware for Telecom XT handsets.


The update should be available now for all HTC Sensation handsets supplied by Telecom NZ. You can force an update by going to:
Settings > About phone > Software updates and pressing Check now.

The update is 44MB in size, so I recommend that you do this over WiFi. I also recommend that you charge your phone to full so that you reduce any risk of failure. You don't need to worry about your data being wiped either, it will all remain intact and should be exactly as it was before the update.

Here's my early change-log, which may not be complete:

• The software number changes to 1.45.781.3, up from 1.34.781.3 
• Google Talk now supports Audio/Video Chat
• New Radio (Baseband) version 10.58.9035.00U_10.15.9035.02_2 which should improve signal
• General performance improvements 
• Faster web browser
• New kernel version 2.6.35.13

I have run some benchmarks so if you're running an older version of the firmware you can compare.

Browser Benchmarks:

• Sunspider 0.91: 3888.3ms +/- 3.8%
• Browsermark: 49,486
• Peacekeeper: 706

Application Benchmarks

• Antutu: 4223
• Vellamo: 866
• Nenamark1: 43.1 fps

This compares quite favourably to the results obtained on the HTC Sensation's original Telecom XT firmware:


Browser Benchmarks:

• Sunspider 0.91: 6308.2ms +/- 3.4%
• Browsermark: 30,661
• Peacekeeper: 485

Application Benchmarks

• Antutu: 3144
• Vellamo: 744
• Nenamark1: 41.9 fps

Note: All benchmarks were performed with stock firmware and using the stock browser. Alternative browsers such as Dolphin HD may yield better performance. I also excluded CF Bench as I did not have results from the previous firmware version.


So as you can see this update brings quite a large boost in performance, especially when it comes to web browsing. If you have an HTC Sensation from Telecom XT you should definitely update today. If you do the update we're interested to hear if you find any further changes, let us know about them in the comments section!