HTC has officially announced the HTC Sensation, their 2011 superphone at a press event in London on Tuesday, hours after the device was leaked by Qualcomm Germany and subsequently confirmed by Vodafone.

Confirming the leaked rumours and specs that we’ve been bringing you for a couple of weeks, the HTC Sensation, formerly known by the codename of HTC Pyramid, appears to be the one that got away from Mobile World Congress: it’s the phone that hits all the high notes from a specs point of view.

It is the company’s first dual core device, effectively replacing the 7-month old HTC Desire HD, and bringing with it improvements and tweaks across the board.

It is running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8260 chipset, at 1.2GHz, backed by 768MB of RAM, promising a slicker, faster experience than we’ve seen before, described by Phil Blair, Product Director Europe at HTC, as "a monster".

It also ushers in Sense 3.0, bringing with it a range of tweaks including a homepage carousel that will spin 360 degrees, a lock screen that can be unlocked to any app of your choosing (with four user-defined app options) as well a live lock screen wallpapers.

The power on offer means that Full HD 1920 x 1080 video can be squeezed out of the 8-megapixel camera on the back; a front-facing camera offering 640 x 480 video is on hand for video calling or shooting yourself. It will capture stereo sound and comes with a video trimmer so you can cut out the fluff and stick to the action.

HTC tell us that they’ve been working hard on the camera experience with a new “instant capture” offering, which aims to eliminate shutter lag. Touch focusing is offered as previously in both stills and video.

The screen is perhaps the biggest spec-sheet update, ushering in a welcomed higher definition at 960 x 540 pixels in a 16:9 aspect. It is finished in Gorilla Glass, with slight curves at the edges so if you place it face down on the table it won’t get scratched. Blair claimed it was the first device to have a contoured edge around the entire display.

The Super-LCD display still measures 4.3-inches, so it is one of the larger Android devices out there, but HTC have crammed a lot into the svelte frame of the HTC Sensation, which measures 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3mm and weighs a reassuring 148g. A 1520mAh battery lies under the skin - HTC's highest capacity battery to date - but we're yet to see exactly what this will offer in terms of real world usage.

The HTC Sensation runs Android 2.3.3, offers the HTC Watch movie rental/purchase service and will offer HDMI out via an adapter to get those movies on the big screen.

HTC Sensation will be exclusive to Vodafone for a limited period and should be touching down in the UK and Europe in the middle of May. In the US it will be the HTC HTC Sensation 4G and be available via T-Mobile later in the Summer.

- HTC Sensation hands-on

Stay tuned as we bring you all the details, our first impressions and a glittering gallery of hands-on photos.