The wait for HTC’s first dual-core Android smartphone is almost over. Ever since it was rumored back in February, Android fans have eagerly waited to get their hands on HTC’s next-generation handheld.

Tonight, T-Mobile announced that the HTC Sensation 4G would hit their retail stores on June 15th. Customers looking to pick up the phone a few days early should keep an eye on Wal-mart, as the Sensation is also expected to be available as early as June 12 at select locations.

Update: The Sensation will be available for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate with a two-year service agreement

Several dual-core phones like the AT&T Atrix 4G and T-Mobile G2x have been available for several months, but each had its own set of annoying issues and did not live up to the crazed multi-core hype (that I was responsible for). It will be interesting to see how the HTC Sensation will fair as it is powered by the dual-core Snapdragon platform instead of the NVIDIA Tegra 2.

If you are in the market for a new Android phone, I’d highly recommend a dual-core powered device over a single-core model simple because it will be more future-proof and last you longer.  It’s still unclear when Android 2.x will be fully optimized to take advantage of dual-core processors (like Android 3.0 was), but hopefully we will see some nice performance gains when Ice Cream Sandwich arrives in Q4.

Check out HTC’s official Sensation page for a refresher on the tech specs.

Any T-Mobile fans making the jump next month?