HTC Sensation XL, XE, Explorer all for Vodafone before Xmas

Vodafone is gearing up for a swag of new product launches in the lead up to Christmas this year, with flagship HTC handsets leading the way.

The HTC Sensation XE and XL are the stand outs in the range, both previously unreleased in Australia and bearing the Beats Audio brand, as well as shipping with uniquely designed headphones. Vodafone will also range the original HTC Sensation, which was previously a Telstra exclusive. Vodafone is still a few weeks from formally announcing the new additions to its products, so pricing is still to be confirmed. It's also unconfirmed whether the Sensation XE and XL will be exclusive to Vodafone.

For the more budget conscious, Vodafone will include the HTC Explorer in its collection, pricing it at AU$179 outright. Cheaper still will be the Huawei X3, which Vodafone will bundle with either a Fedora hat and sunglasses for boys or a mini hair straightener for girls.

Vodafone's tablet range will also increase in size in the lead up to summer, with the telco adding the Motorola Xoom to its line-up, joining the Apple iPad 2 and the BlackBerry PlayBook as large screen options. No pricing is available yet for the Xoom.

The new Sensation XL is HTC's largest phone to date, with a 4.7-inch display. It also matches its stable mate, the XE, as most powerful, with both handsets packing dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processors.