Abhinav Lal

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Posted on 04-08-2011

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The HTC Sensation seems to be suffering from a new hardware issue – an unresponsive touchscreen – if hundreds of forum posts have anything to say about it. The fault seems to be affecting both new and old handsets, with the touchscreen becoming unresponsive within weeks of purchase. The flaw is most noticeable when trying to slide to unlock the device.

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The trend on xda developers indicates that it might be a firmware issue, tying in with such other flaws as the camera button restart issue. HTC however has yet to comment on the precise nature of the issue, or even officially acknowledge its prevalence, just like its stance on the Wi-Fi death grip fault.

HTC recommends a factory reset to fix the problem, but this apparently does not make a difference, according to comments on xda developers. New handsets have also been provided in some cases – but the issue apparently creeps up again, within weeks of replacement.

Let us hope HTC fixes the issue, probably by providing a new firmware and ROM. For now, the Sensation has a locked bootloader, making it difficult to test different firmware.

In the meanwhile, quite relevantly, HTC has released a web tool that unlocks the bootloader in certain HTC devices (starting with the HTC Sensation and EVO 4G) – in an attempt to help users and developers install custom ROM and firmware, except, the advantages of this method compared to conventional rooting seem to be non-existent.

In fact, an obvious disadvantage comes to the fore – HTC specified that using the unlock bootloader tool will void the device’s warranty – something rooting can in most cases, avoid entirely. See more details on its Facebook page – and the excerpts below:

Because unlocking the bootloader provides extensive control over the device and modifications may cause operation, security and experience issues, new devices will continue to ship locked but will support user-initiated unlocking using a new Web-based tool.

So how will this work? The Web tool, which will launch this month, requires that you register an account with a valid e-mail address and accept legal disclaimers that unlocking may void all or parts of your warranty. Then plug in your phone to a computer with the Android SDK loaded to retrieve a device identifier token, which you can then enter into the Web tool to receive a unique unlock key via e-mail. Finally, apply the key to your device and unlocking will be initiated on your phone.