Sense 5, your verdict. - One (M7) General

So, by now One has reached lot of people and lot of people have been using it for a while.
I am not new to sense. My last sense phone was Droid DNA, so I have used Sense 4 and had love hate relationship with Sense back from HTC Hero days.
Now coming to Sense 5. What do you guys think. This is suppose to be very light weight, improved version of Sense, and to some extent it is.
But personally I cant seem to live with it day in and out. Blinkfeed annoys me. Plain and simple. Sources there are simply not what I read. And it is very intrusive and cant be disabled while keeping rest of the Sense. The App drawer........................ Less I talk about it the better. That is a vack step in my book. But I guess this can be subjective. But lot of wasted space and the painful vertical scrolling which Google threw out of door with ICS makes the comeback.
Even though I did not always like Sense completely on my previous HTC devices, I had never replaced the Sense before completely and forever on any of those devices. I tried desensing DNA before but I quickly went back to Sense ROM.
But Sense 5, I dont know. I wont be able to live with it as it is now. I have installed Nova Launcher on ARHD ROM. Using AOSP ROM will not be an option because I dont want to lose the critical camera functionality including the metering and HDR and even Zoe.
Personally I cant fatham how HTC design and UI department thought this is a big improvement over Sense 4. At this point I would take Sense 4 on One over current Sense 5.
But as we all know different people think differently. And hence this thread to discuss and see what others think of Sense 5.

I am liking it
Funkym0nkey said:
So, by now One has reached lot of people and lot of people have been using it for a while.
I am not new to sense. My last sense phone was Droid DNA, so I have used Sense 4 and had love hate relationship with Sense back from HTC Hero days.
Now coming to Sense 5. What do you guys think. This is suppose to be very light weight, improved version of Sense, and to some extent it is.
But personally I cant seem to live with it day in and out. Blinkfeed annoys me. Plain and simple. Sources there are simply not what I read. And it is very intrusive and cant be disabled while keeping rest of the Sense. The App drawer........................ Less I talk about it the better. That is a vack step in my book. But I guess this can be subjective. But lot of wasted space and the painful vertical scrolling which Google threw out of door with ICS makes the comeback.
Even though I did not always like Sense completely on my previous HTC devices, I had never replaced the Sense before completely and forever on any of those devices. I tried desensing DNA before but I quickly went back to Sense ROM.
But Sense 5, I dont know. I wont be able to live with it as it is now. I have installed Nova Launcher on ARHD ROM. Using AOSP ROM will not be an option because I dont want to lose the critical camera functionality including the metering and HDR and even Zoe.
Personally I cant fatham how HTC design and UI department thought this is a big improvement over Sense 4. At this point I would take Sense 4 on One over current Sense 5.
But as we all know different people think differently. And hence this thread to discuss and see what others think of Sense 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am definately liking it and personally I am a fan of Blinkfeed.

OMG! After voting can't believe I'm the only one who voted the sense 4 over 5 @[email protected]

I agree with most everything you said. Sense 5 almost feels like a beta version. Blinkfeed would be less annoying if it had more options and flexibility. There are other little annoyances like weather only in 24 hour format, missing widgets, missing settings, ect. I hope there are some significant updates coming.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

propagandax said:
I agree with most everything you said. Sense 5 almost feels like a beta version. Blinkfeed would be less annoying if it had more options and flexibility. There are other little annoyances like weather only in 24 hour format, missing widgets, missing settings, ect. I hope there are some significant updates coming.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It shouldnt be possible to vote for all 5.
I actually like Sense 5!

HTC have finally got it right with Sense 5, i remember using HTC Sense a few years back and it was a resource hog and the phone was never really fluid and there was always some lag preset but Sense 5 is much different, it not only looks good but isn't a resource hog like Sense was previously.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Sense 5 is clean, fast and looks different. Out of all of the manufacture skins I prefer Sense 5.
I hate touchwiz, LG is ok but I hate the look, Sony is laggy, Motorola is close to stock but the icons are ugly.
I dont mind pure aokp but I still prefer sense.
It's one of the main reasons why I got the One.
I hope with future updates there are more options in blinkfeed. They need to let us add subreddits on blinkfeed. I would like that a lot.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Riyal said:
OMG! After voting can't believe I'm the only one who voted the sense 4 over 5 @[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not anymore... came from One X and abs loved Sense 4

I actually quite like Sense 5, too. Sorry, but I think it's a huge improvement over the bloated mess that was Sense 4 and Sense 4+, which both felt like Gingerbread-era skins which made the One XL run way slower than it should have - which you could obviously see if you installed any AOSP ROM.
Sense 5 both meshes well with the Holo style of Android, while at the same time doesn't unnecessarily bog the phone down, and it's hard for me to complain about that. The best thing I can say about Sense 5 is that it doesn't make me miss CM10.1.

Being a Nova user for very long time the Sense 5 is a very pleasant surprise. It's very fast and stable. I use it.

jhonsok said:
Sense 5 is clean, fast and looks different. Out of all of the manufacture skins I prefer Sense 5.
I hate touchwiz, LG is ok but I hate the look, Sony is laggy, Motorola is close to stock but the icons are ugly.
I dont mind pure aokp but I still prefer sense.
It's one of the main reasons why I got the One.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sense 5 is so much cleaner and faster than 4, and the best manufacturer skin.
I have set my home screen to a different one to Blinkfeed as I'm not too bothered about it.
This is my 4th HTC Android phone, and the first one where I haven't installed GoSMS, another dialler or keyboard. I love the default look.
I occassionally use my Sensation as a backup and that feels very laggy now. Sense 4 was ok last year, but feels dated now.

Sense 5 is nice. Blinkfeed is dumb.
I switched my home screen to the middle option and used some widgets I prefer and I have blinkfeed for some news and crap when I'm bored off to the left screen now.
Maybe I'm rare but I don't have a facebook and I don't give 2 craps to knowing every little update. I just have some news on Blink along with my calendar and that's it.

If I could do this with Sense I'd give it a try (6 rows of 4 icons plus the dock row):

I love it, finally vertical scroll back in the app drawer, I really hated horizontal scroll, it made my thumb hurt and it is much harder to follow the scrolling with your eyes, it gives me a nystagmus. I use blinkfeed and it has some great potential but I wish there were more sources though the ones that are there are almost sufficient. The only things I miss from previous sense version are a find my phone and ring phone from computer and the temperature graph in weather.

Epic!
Am loving sense 5 at the moment.
The last time I used sense was on my (wait for it - Legendary) HTC Desire back in the days. I am liking the minimalist changes HTC decided to implement in this new version.Love the remote app too can control my TV setup with ease.
The amount of times I have just turn on my phone to drool on the lockscreen/homescreen. Sense 5 with this brilliant screen is too much lol.

Love Sense 5.
I like the blinkfeed concept, just not as a homescreen.

I have used:
HTC "cube" from the HTC Touch (winmo 6.0)
Manila 2d and 3d, brand name "TouchFlo", still winmo
And.......sense from winmo, then Android (old sense, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, 4.0)
Of all, Sense 5 is hands down the best.
I could only ask for two things.......bring back and expand customization.
Under personalize, there used to be two options:
1. Scenes
This was fantastic, if you use your phone for work and home you could save all your home screen setup as a scene and switch back and forth. I used this lots.
2. Skins
Who doesn't like customization? I feel HTC should have expanded this, not scrapped it. Give out free developer / theme tools and let people make their own to upload to HTC hub......so much wasted potential. I used to theme for winmo. My first projects were different color and themed Manila (sense) flip clocks. Theming was easy, no hidden files, no paid tools required. The way it should be. On my old Touch, I had over 200 sense skins.
Really, these are the only two features I miss. Sense is now closer to stock, flat, and fast.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

I had a nice long post written up and my Nexus 10 locked up....
In short I like it a lot... FML
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

The only thing I miss are since of the widgets. Used the mail and messages about.
I like Blinkfeed ALOT and use it a lot. Just wish there were a few more feeds.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium

Sense 5 is becoming more and more disappointing the more I use the phone.
I got rid of HTC's crappy launcher and immediately replaced it with Apex, a much better and more fully featured launcher. However, sense extends beyond there...
First there's the gallery. In short, it's horrible. I'm not sure why they decided to set my images to be sorted by 'events' by default but suffice it to say I can't find anything until I change it to gallery mode.
In addition to that, there are the battery stats. The stats don't tell you how much battery the screen is draining (why on earth would they omit that?) and only shows app usage. It just displays less info in general.
Finally I tried to share a photo over Facebook today and HTC shoved their crappy 'HTC Share' thing into my face. So I said to myself, what the hell, let's try it. Well my post/picture showed up on Facebook...minitiarized and with HTC's branding all over it. I may actually flash an AOSP rom if this stuff can't be fixed with roms and/or mods. Sense 5 is not horrible, but it's far from great.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Related

DHD or Nexus S

After using HTC Magic for 1.5 years I'm seriously considering getting a new phone. My two main options are Nexus S and DHD.
How are your phones treating you guys? Would you recommend going with a DHD or the S?
Sent from my Gingerbread on Sapphire using Tapatalk
You asking this in the Desire HD forum, what kind of answer do you expect?
Go with the Desire HD of course lol
I've thought about grabbing a nexus but there it's just too little going on in their development thread to make me want to. I'm wondering if, in these challenging economic times, a lot of devs are sticking with the nexus one. After all the nexus s is only a small jump ahead in spec.
The worst thing about the nexus s is that there are no sense roms. I've come to the conclusion that sense is just better. I mean vanilla aosp doesn't even include a fm radio and this is 2011. What are you thinking Google?
Someone swyped my idea.
By using default Sense as your launcher you gain two things:
1. HTC Widgets
2. General integrity with your phone UI
Main downsides of Sense:
1. Application space in home screen dock, you cannot add any application to Sense dock
2. Missing eye candy: e.g. home screen transition effects
3. General smoothness. Sense is actually very unsmooth. You might not realize this if you haven't used LauncherPro, which is the smoothest launcher at the moment
Only real thing I lose by not using Sense are HTC widgets. But I've found a corresponding replacement for every HTC widget I want. Even the lovely "Sync All" widget.
So basically if you look at the pros and cons of Sense UI, it really makes me laugh when people say "Sense just makes sense"
Fihlvein said:
By using default Sense as your launcher you gain two things:
1. HTC Widgets
2. General integrity with your phone UI
Main downsides of Sense:
1. Application space in home screen dock, you cannot add any application to Sense dock
2. Missing eye candy: e.g. home screen transition effects
3. General smoothness. Sense is actually very unsmooth. You might not realize this if you haven't used LauncherPro, which is the smoothest launcher at the moment
Only real thing I lose by not using Sense are HTC widgets. But I've found a corresponding replacement for every HTC widget I want. Even the lovely "Sync All" widget.
So basically if you look at the pros and cons of Sense UI, it really makes me laugh when people say "Sense just makes sense"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny you say that. I find launcher pro to be slow and a bit buggy at times. Everytime I have flashed a aosp rom, I have always gone back to stock HTC sense. I find it better and has a nice UI and integration.
As for the question, having asked in the desire HD forum, your going to get a biuased lean towards the desire hd of course. Having said that desire HD ftw .
A few weeks ago I was due an upgrade so was in a similar position - DHD, Nexus S or Galaxy S. On paper each one had things I liked so I did a few weeks worth of reading reviews, checking out videos, checking them out in a shop, looking at development progress on XDA etc.
In the end I went for the DHD, mainly down to:
1/ Build quality. HTC build some very nice phones, the DHD being no exception. It has a nice weight to it and feels like the expensive piece of equipment that it is. The SGS and Nexus S on the otherhand, felt like cheap iPhone copies. Really quite plasticy and flimsy looking.
2/ Sense UI. It's what sold me on HTC phones in the 1st place and I love how it integrates with the phone. I've always dabbled with other ROMs and launchers but in the end I'm back on Sense. It's not perfect but using a custom ROM like Android Revolution HD you can get it super smooth and if transition animations are your thing then you can add those too... along with most other mods and customisations.
3/ RFS, GPS issues and lag. Go check the SGS section for details.
4/ Samsung seem to release phones and then stop supporting them, whereas HTC seem to be a little bit better at this.
That's probably as unbiased as I can be... so go buy a DHD and well see you back here soon
The NS has got week specs..... its just a N1 with a samoled screen and a SGS inside lol
CitizenLee said:
4/ Samsung seem to release phones and then stop supporting them, whereas HTC seem to be a little bit better at this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the NS has nothing to do with samsung after it leaves the factory, its the official google developer device, so all updates and support come straight from google.
AndroHero said:
the NS has nothing to do with samsung after it leaves the factory, its the official google developer device, so all updates and support come straight from google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was generalising about the very similar situation I found myself in. See 1st paragraph
CitizenLee said:
I was generalising about the very similar situation I found myself in. See 1st paragraph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
duh sorry mate i was speed reading lol
AndroHero said:
duh sorry mate i was speed reading lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha... no worries, it's easily done.
If I had a £1 for every post I've misread I could buy us all a new DHD
Tbh Sense was the thing that got me sold on HTC phones in the beginning, now after 3 different HTC phones and more experience with flashin and other apps I defenatly cant say i have not found any better launcher app than ADW EX, its so many custom ways to use it, including expanding number of apps on homescreen, dock layout of choice etc, the best is if you get yourself Beautiful widgets or simular and other cool stuff, you can match HTC widgets easy, the thing i miss is really the deep integration with the apps and OS none other has managed.
DHD without a doubt. I find HTC kit extremely reliable. I think the nexus S looks too plasticy.
I had 4 nexus s phones and all had faults... in the end I gave up and got a wonderful HD.. best move ever... The nexus s is the sexiest phone in the world, but performance wise it isn't a scratch on the HD. Of my 4 nexus s, 3 had weird colour changes on the screen due to the curved glass and one had really poor wifi, the weird colours was strange, one had a piss green hue, and another had a purple haze, not at all like the cool blue of the Samsung galaxy s. But my 4 phones was from the first batch The DHD is a 9/10 and the nexus s is a 7/10. And the 7 points is because its the prettiest phone in the whole universe
JD
Sent from my Ginger Garnished HTC Desire HD
Rosjer said:
Tbh Sense was the thing that got me sold on HTC phones in the beginning, now after 3 different HTC phones and more experience with flashin and other apps I defenatly cant say i have not found any better launcher app than ADW EX, its so many custom ways to use it, including expanding number of apps on homescreen, dock layout of choice etc, the best is if you get yourself Beautiful widgets or simular and other cool stuff, you can match HTC widgets easy, the thing i miss is really the deep integration with the apps and OS none other has managed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
spb are working on mobile shell for android, i got my beta testers email the other day i think this could be the first sence beater

HTC Sense Vs TouchWiz (what a difference)

Coming from HTC Desire & HTC Desire HD to Samsung Galaxy S 2, there is only one think i realize. Whatever HTC lacks in hardware, it more than makes up for it in software. HTC Sync works flawlessly. You want to convert into usb? no problem. Integration with contacts? works out of the box. I am stuck here for at least 2 hrs trying to make my new mobile to sync with Kies, with no luck. Before it turned into a USB, now not even that. (and yes i know about the debugging option). Same with software, linking is not as efficient, TW not as customizable, resulting in downloading 3rd party apps to do the things that you took for granted with HTC. So far, excluding hardware, I am really disappointed with my new purchase :/
I also came across from a Desire - HTC Sync was a pile of crap, just like Kies when it's not working. When Kies works, it's waay better, not that I bother using that either - everything just syncs to my Google account(s).
As for Sense vs TW, I admit the contacts linking/integration is far better in Sense, but as for one being more "customisable" than the other, nonsense - neither interface is particularly customisable, other than widgets, which I think you're referring to. Sense had some nice ones included, but TW has too. The only one I miss from Sense is the combined clock/weather one, but you can get something which looks almost as good using the digital clock and Accuweather widgets.
That's what I first though when I exchanged my desire for a galaxy s about a year ago. You'll get used to and when you do, you will start to appreciate how good the galaxy s2 is in the other areas.
I did miss sence after switching but now I don't look back especially with the super amoled screen!
i had a desire and desire z
hate sense
i love the new touchwiz. not even using go launcher any more
Always try to find a way to sync over a google services. nothing is so easy an comfortable than syncing with google on an android.
i just love how it shows all my podcasts when i download google listen and i'm good to go. i know its simple, but it just works
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
To me Tw is the lightest skins..it's almost stock but better.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
tw gives closest to stock android experience. Thank god samsung don't use anything like sense or blur.
Sense is just too heavy for me.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
i honestly hate sense ui , its a ram hog , its a battery drainer , its more complex then it needs to be and to be honest for me it is just a waste of time
give me a plain android o/s or touchwiz anyday
i actually prefer go launcher to any of them but sense ui for me is just annoying overkill with a few nice weather animations
if i wanted sense ui i would have bought the sensastion but i wanted a phone that was based on power not one based on a pretty o/s that is a resource hog
why not stop neing disapointed and just sell the sgs2 and buy a sensation?? job done you can then be a happy person again
I love TW 4 and I use the stock launcher as well ...however it would be awesome to see Sense on this beautiful display - The eyecandy that Sense has is great
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
I had sense on my Nexus One and while I tried it for a while I simply found it to be too heavily modded. Obviously it works for some but TW has been a pleasant, more stock experience so far (Coming from launcher pro). If I ever go back to HTC I'll be making sure an AOSP based rom is available before hand
Sense is something like UI overhaul of whole android. You may like it, but it is not android experience at all (except you can launch android apps).
TW is also too heavy for me, but except weird mail app it leaves android logic in place.
Black fact is, that you will have hard times to find anyone calling himself a "touchwiz hater", but you can definitely find a lot of Sense haters (take a look on any HTC related forum).
This makes your argumentation problematic and thereby very subjective, but I understand that not everyone have same feeling about HTC -> Sammy migration as me.
//
Edit
Because we are on android, you can try other UI called MIUI. I found it really nice and polished. There are some features I don't like, but its worth try IMO.
buxz777 said:
i honestly hate sense ui , its a ram hog , its a battery drainer , its more complex then it needs to be and to be honest for me it is just a waste of time
give me a plain android o/s or touchwiz anyday
i actually prefer go launcher to any of them but sense ui for me is just annoying overkill with a few nice weather animations
if i wanted sense ui i would have bought the sensastion but i wanted a phone that was based on power not one based on a pretty o/s that is a resource hog
why not stop neing disapointed and just sell the sgs2 and buy a sensation?? job done you can then be a happy person again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 i don't necessarily hate HTC Sense but definitely better off without it and everything you've said is spot on.
OP said himself it's eye candy and already added battery drain, RAM hogger by other user.
Meaningless thread IMO.
JirkaX said:
Coming from HTC Desire & HTC Desire HD to Samsung Galaxy S 2, there is only one think i realize. Whatever HTC lacks in hardware, it more than makes up for it in software. HTC Sync works flawlessly. You want to convert into usb? no problem. Integration with contacts? works out of the box. I am stuck here for at least 2 hrs trying to make my new mobile to sync with Kies, with no luck. Before it turned into a USB, now not even that. (and yes i know about the debugging option). Same with software, linking is not as efficient, TW not as customizable, resulting in downloading 3rd party apps to do the things that you took for granted with HTC. So far, excluding hardware, I am really disappointed with my new purchase :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some devs are working on a sense but there is very little progress yet but I am with you coming from a Desire running a Sense 2.1-3.0 mix, TW is quite a disappointment
I always had an HTC before my GS2, and I definitely prefer TouchWiz.
+1
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Ill b happy with sense 2.1. Not 3. I don't care what sensation owners tell you, rooted or not, the sensation lags worse than my aging og droid.
Meh... TW4 is okay. Pretty standard rom. Not too heavily modified like Sense, but not too bare like stock, just in the middle. Firstly,I love Sense's eye candy . I'm not a big fan of TW4. Using MIUI and that was the best thing I've ever done.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II using the xda premium app.
blunted09 said:
Ill b happy with sense 2.1. Not 3. I don't care what sensation owners tell you, rooted or not, the sensation lags worse than my aging og droid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sensation may lag, but the evo 3D is speed demon. I love sense so much, its so clean and useful for me. I love the notification bar layout, the polished widgets, the awesome text selection quick look up utility,and just how everything is so intergrated.
I had the epic 4g galaxy S phone and i hated it. Touchwiz on it was absolutely awful for me. Such an ugly ui on froyo.
Now with that said,i am still going to be switching to sprints version of the galaxy s2 come September 16th in hopes that touchwiz has improved since its last iteration.
Sense and TouchWiz both are very nice imho. Sense is SO integrated and clean and a perfected shot at a well made Android experience. TouchWiz is also nice, and I love TW 4.0. I have the launcher for whenever I feel like having a TouchWiz... touch... (lol) to my phone. Sense's widgets, themed overlay, etc., make it a very good experience. But WAY too heavy and cumbersome.
And whoever said Sensations lag... you must be extremely dense. Both the Sensation and EVO 3D are so blazing fast it's unbelievable. And on AOSP ROMs? I hit 4500 on quad easy. Sense is what makes the phone lag, not the phone itself.

From sense to touchwiz

Always had HTC phones currently the desire HD,been waiting to see what they had to offer and have to say the x1 doesn't do it for me,so thinking of jumping ship and waiting for the SGS3.thing is I really like HTC sense.So to any former HTC user now with the SGS2 and touchwiz,how did you find the transition,can you get it set up to suit and what should I be aware of if making the jump once the SGS3 is out
sent from my leedroid powered Desire HD
Transition is pretty easy. I never found sense very useful (in a global way) but it's really pretty. I think touchwiz is the opposite. It's kind of ugly with all these shiny icons but it's discret and have a few cool features (especially around the notification bar).
Plus, TW is a lot snappier than sense used to be (didn't get to try newer HTC devices). I even find TW snappier than any launcher you can find on the market.
I moved from desire z to sgs2, and I must say that touchwiz was a big disappointment to me.
It's not hard to get used to touchwiz, but it will be hard to get used with the missing features, for me the most annoying thing was that the dial pad can not search after the second name, I mean if you want to search for "combat goofwing" and you type in the dial pad 4663 for "goof" it will not find anything.
Another annoying thing is that in the app drawer the apps are not sorted in alphabetical order, they are sorted in the install order, and you can move them around but I don't have the patience to move apps around, for me this makes apps harder to find.
I own this phone for a few mounts now and I used to it, but I still miss sense.
The hardware is great, I still can't believe how good the display is, everything works very smooth, but unfortunately touchwiz is light years behind sense.
Any way I'm sorry I didn't bought the sensation, but my next phone will definitely be a HTC.
You can always choose alphabetical listing option. Move to a custom ROM, the phone rocks.
Sent from my GT-I9100
ionut.micu said:
I moved from desire z to sgs2, and I must say that touchwiz was a big disappointment to me.
It's not hard to get used to touchwiz, but it will be hard to get used with the missing features, for me the most annoying thing was that the dial pad can not search after the second name, I mean if you want to search for "combat goofwing" and you type in the dial pad 4663 for "goof" it will not find anything.
Another annoying thing is that in the app drawer the apps are not sorted in alphabetical order, they are sorted in the install order, and you can move them around but I don't have the patience to move apps around, for me this makes apps harder to find.
I own this phone for a few mounts now and I used to it, but I still miss sense.
The hardware is great, I still can't believe how good the display is, everything works very smooth, but unfortunately touchwiz is light years behind sense.
Any way I'm sorry I didn't bought the sensation, but my next phone will definitely be a HTC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto for me, I think I will go buy a One S or X; there are just so many little things missing from touchwizz compared to sense ( I don't mean just the launchers but all the apps htc and samsung, include or modify); don't get me wrong touchwiz is not bad at all, especially compared to stock android but it's just not as good as sense.
Used to have a htc desire before my SGS2.. the only things I liked about sense 2.1 was the lockscreen that gives the caller/texter name at the bottom, instead of a little numbered flagged like touchwiz (being honest I know I could get widgetlocker and get that back but don't mind the sammy lockscreen that much) and I liked the screen unlock weather animations (which I have on my SGS2 courtesy of Beautiful Widgets)
The rest of sense wasn't that great, the contacts app is a little more intuitive than SGS2's but not really an issue
Oh, the touchwiz launcher is pretty useless, but I've been using LauncherPro since day 1
Beautiful widgets' superclock is just annoying, I disabled the animations because you see them everyone time you unlock unlike sense where you will only see it when the widget is visible. Also better in sense : keyboard (best touchscreen keyboard), friends pictures in the gallery, friendstream, sense unlockscreen with shortcuts, dialer, app drawers.
i dont really care because when i get a phone i just put cm on it')
Sent from my SGS2 powered by cm9 love
I have an amaze 4g and my wife has the tmobile sgs2. We both are from the htc g2 running sense. She loves how simple TW is, but she says its missing quite a bit of things she liked, all little things but none the less missing them.
I my self hate TW seems like a child's launcher in a way.
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using XDA App
I miss the dialer and contact screen from Sense. I can get everything else with some minor modifications and apps so it's not a big deal. Shame for the contacts and dialer though.
Touchwiz is fast, unobtrusive and smooth, but in stock form, very, very ugly and lacking in features.
Mind you I've always found HTC Android phones somewhat unresponsive and glitchy.
The only flavour of Android I get on with now is AOSP ICS. Its a big improvement to me. That said, my next phone might not be Android, I might give WP7 a go. I've had a few tries and it is starting to look like a fantastically polished OS, and flashing ROMs all the time is beginning to lose its appeal. It may not have the apps, or the flexibility, or capability, but it makes up for it in other ways.
I haven't seen or used sense, but I know how unfulfilling TW feels. For me, flashing and playing around with MI-UI did the trick. It's the perfect combination of neatness and usefulness. Combined with minor add-ons (such as a new keyboard, kernel, ...) it turns out to be the most stable and enjoyable rom I have ever used. Check it out (google miuandroid).
HTC all the way!
I had htc desire hd which i still have and love. I then got htc sensation and the missus got a sgs2 she hates the user interface and loves the htc user interface. If your looking for something that will in my opinion be comparable to the iphone then htc all the way.
malcovitch said:
I had htc desire hd which i still have and love. I then got htc sensation and the missus got a sgs2 she hates the user interface and loves the htc user interface. If your looking for something that will in my opinion be comparable to the iphone then htc all the way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For an iphone-ish look I strongly recommend the previously mentioned MIUI rom.
For me, I don't know. I couldn't do Sense. I liked the graphics and what not - but I found the user-interface a bit stubborn. Touchwiz was clean and simple.
I have the desire s and SII, and I like sense better than TW.
Sense feels like it's more developed than TW.
For me software htc > samsung and hardware htc < samsung.
So SII with sense would be great for me personally.
ionut.micu said:
I moved from desire z to sgs2, and I must say that touchwiz was a big disappointment to me.
It's not hard to get used to touchwiz, but it will be hard to get used with the missing features, for me the most annoying thing was that the dial pad can not search after the second name, I mean if you want to search for "combat goofwing" and you type in the dial pad 4663 for "goof" it will not find anything.
Another annoying thing is that in the app drawer the apps are not sorted in alphabetical order, they are sorted in the install order, and you can move them around but I don't have the patience to move apps around, for me this makes apps harder to find.
I own this phone for a few mounts now and I used to it, but I still miss sense.
The hardware is great, I still can't believe how good the display is, everything works very smooth, but unfortunately touchwiz is light years behind sense.
Any way I'm sorry I didn't bought the sensation, but my next phone will definitely be a HTC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download appzorter from market. Rearrange apps alphabetically. Simples
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Thx, unfortunelley "this app is not compatiblewith youre device" maby it's because I'm ussing LPH rom, but it's good to know.
And I forgot to say, I came from a long series of HTC phones (diamond, touch pro, touch pro 2, wildfire, desire z), all of them are still in use today and work great, guess wich phone needed to go to service becsause microusb port mallfunction after a few mount of use... exactly the sgs2.
Great feedback thanks,having seen the videos of the new HTC X1 now I may just stick with HTC still lots to look at
Thanks again
sent from my leedroid powered Desire HD
combat goofwing said:
Great feedback thanks,having seen the videos of the new HTC X1 now I may just stick with HTC still lots to look at
Thanks again
sent from my leedroid powered Desire HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's a pretty tough choice between the X and S, they both have their pros and cons (S has the more powerful CPU(in spite of the 4 cores of the tegra3) and AMOLED; X the more powerful GPU, more storage and higher DPI)

I love Sense... Confessions of a AOSP lover

I've been a die hard AOSP guy. Came from a OG Droid then went to the Tbolt and helped port AOSP/Miui with that RIL but I hated it because it wasn't a full AOSP supported device. I got the Galaxy Nexus then a N7, N10 and finally a GSM Galaxy Nexus.
I swore I would be on AOSP the moment I got the device, but I held out. I tried it and I love it. There are some things I hate like the lack of quick notifications (4.2.2 issue more than anything) and a few quirks here and there. But I am in l am in love with the beautiful interface, perfect keyboard (AOSP, Swype, & Swiftkey had a three way and this is it's baby) and most of all I am in love with the gallery and camera app. It's a very intuitive interface on the camera although autofocus can be wonky. BUT that's all made up for by the gallery.... The events (initially annoying) is fantastic. I love Zoe because it adds just that little bit to the memory and I am loving the way highlights creates a montage of images to music. I wish the music had more choices but it is almost perfect. I have a 10 month old and it makes the memories that much more special...
Thanks HTC for putting your heart and soul into this device and coming out with the best smartphone I have ever used
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
altimax98 said:
There are some things I hate like the lack of quick notifications (4.2.2 issue more than anything)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can expand some notifications in sense by zooming (pinching) out, there are no toggles though (altough older versions of sense used to have quick toggles before anyone else got them but somehow htc decided to ditch them in sense 4...)
Until we get 4.2... I have WidgetLocker and NiLS that gives me notifications on the lock screen.
Honestly, i am also an AOSP lover and i was pleasently surprised by sense 5, the only things that i miss now is the notification panel for my shortcuts, but i can get by pretty easy.
Also, hi there One community
There is messing a lot of things on this unfortunate and basic sense 5. Widgets, most practical sense widgets gone, skins (there are not any) only three different a kinds of unlock, application list never gone, always there. If you close your phone and open it, application list is there. Like blink feed but useless if you cannot add more feeds... So sense is very nice but there is munch things that missing...
godutch said:
you can expand some notifications in sense by zooming (pinching) out, there are no toggles though (altough older versions of sense used to have quick toggles before anyone else got them but somehow htc decided to ditch them in sense 4...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Power Toggles or Notification Toggles apps... download from PlayShop
I agree, Sense 5 is much better than previous versions of sense, but the app drawer really doesn't do it for me, still prefer almost everything about AOSP
altimax98 said:
I've been a die hard AOSP guy. Came from a OG Droid then went to the Tbolt and helped port AOSP/Miui with that RIL but I hated it because it wasn't a full AOSP supported device. I got the Galaxy Nexus then a N7, N10 and finally a GSM Galaxy Nexus.
I swore I would be on AOSP the moment I got the device, but I held out. I tried it and I love it. There are some things I hate like the lack of quick notifications (4.2.2 issue more than anything) and a few quirks here and there. But I am in l am in love with the beautiful interface, perfect keyboard (AOSP, Swype, & Swiftkey had a three way and this is it's baby) and most of all I am in love with the gallery and camera app. It's a very intuitive interface on the camera although autofocus can be wonky. BUT that's all made up for by the gallery.... The events (initially annoying) is fantastic. I love Zoe because it adds just that little bit to the memory and I am loving the way highlights creates a montage of images to music. I wish the music had more choices but it is almost perfect. I have a 10 month old and it makes the memories that much more special...
Thanks HTC for putting your heart and soul into this device and coming out with the best smartphone I have ever used
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm right there with you. I usually prefer the look and feel of AOSP - I couldn't stand Sense 4 or Sense 4+ - but Sense 5 is surprisingly good. It's almost as coheisve of a user experience as AOSP, if not more so.
I prefer a few things about Sense to AOSP – most notably the camera and the e-mail app. It also has some nice widgets, though nothing I couldn’t live without. I’ve actually come to kind-of like Blinkfeed when I have a few minutes to kill, but again, it’s nothing I couldn’t live without.
Occasionally, it even feels more cohesive than AOSP – for example, you can swipe left and right through e-mails in the e-mail app, the same way you can in the Gmail app. The last time I tried the AOSP Android mail client, it still didn’t support that, which was mildly infuriating.
Finally, Sense 5 is at least polite enough to try and compliment the Holo theme of AOSP – TouchWiz and Sense 4, on the other hand, look and feel like someone glued Gingerbread to Jellybean.
(I will still be SwiftKey 4 Life, though )
I never even setup Blink Feed... Thought it was stupid from the get go.
I installed Nova and have been loving the drawer and all the other great features.. the stock app drawer is lame though
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Yeah I'm not a fan of Sense and put another launcher on pretty quickly. I would love to move to something like CM10 but until I hear things like the camera has no loss in quality or the IR sender is working then it's a no go. I just hope that HTC at some point change the layout and allow the notification panels. Also their lockscreen is like arse!
What do you mean with notification panels, you mean the extended notifications with reply, read etc? Because these have already been implemented in sense.
Silellak said:
(I will still be SwiftKey 4 Life, though )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do find HTC's keyboard really great and full of features but I too think SwiftKey is the greatest (wish they had more themes)
...at least till Minuum takes over the wold
altimax98 said:
I never even setup Blink Feed... Thought it was stupid from the get go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think BlinkFeed is awesome. No more "what to do I'm bored" whenever I have a 2 minutes to check my phone. All the content I'm interested in is right there, waiting for me on the homescreen
I absolutely love sense 5 on this phone. I admit I have had to as Nova and other launchers run like ass on it, but it's faster and smoother than any other launcher anyway, and blinkfeed is brilliant.
AOSP CM etc are so ugly and featureless compared to sense. There is no single feature on 4.2.2, CM, AOSP or any launcher, I would now take over sense.
All I would take is the gallery app fom HTC One X or from the Xperia Z
Well done HTC.
+1 to the OP!
I love Sense 5, running my device stock/unrooted for a week since I got it and really don't miss full AOSP atm. Great work by HTC devs with Sense 5.
Ok... Here's my confession... I love TouchWiz. Sense too. These two skins are far better than AOSP.
Sent from my HTC Droid DNA using XDA Premium HD
Hi, my name is xcomputerman and I'm a Sense lover.
My previous phone was a Galaxy S II. I managed Touchwiz for a few months but couldn't stand it anymore, so I finally went back to AOSP. For a while I spent time with ParanoidAndroid, then later gave up the joys of hybrid phabletism for the sheer purity of CM10.1. It was Android nirvana. Or so I thought.
HTC's Sense 5 has blown me away. It is better than stock Android. Flat out better. I'll say it. I do have a couple of niggles with it (I'd rather have BlinkFeed as a home screen widget instead of the way they have the launcher set up), but man. Sense is slick. Slick, refined, polished. The email client is five times better than the stock Android one. The SMS app is gorgeous. The dialer is so sexy. The fonts are clean. I had this longstanding annoyance with AOSP email in that the formatting in Exchange email replies was always a little different/weird, but HTC does it right. Everything looks cohesive and well thought out. The camera app is brilliant. The syncing is really well done.
I'm not looking to go back to an AOSP ROM anytime soon. As it is, despite my annoyances with the sense launcher, I'm even hesitant to replace it with my favorite (Nova).
Well done, HTC. Well done.
rizevnarastek said:
I do find HTC's keyboard really great and full of features but I too think SwiftKey is the greatest (wish they had more themes)
...at least till Minuum takes over the wold
I think BlinkFeed is awesome. No more "what to do I'm bored" whenever I have a 2 minutes to check my phone. All the content I'm interested in is right there, waiting for me on the homescreen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me though BlinkFeed doesn't seem grown up enough. The selection is very limited and the app drawer is a nightmare lol
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD
The things you like have nothing to do with the skin of the phone. HTC could have just made a new gallery, camera and keyboard app without changing anything else.
Just because someone is an AOSP lover doesnt mean that they love all the stock android apps as well.
And lol at the person who said that cm10 looks bland, well you know you can just theme it however you like!
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app
Gambler_3 said:
The things you like have nothing to do with the skin of the phone. HTC could have just made a new gallery, camera and keyboard app without changing anything else.
Just because someone is an AOSP lover doesnt mean that they love all the stock android apps as well.
And lol at the person who said that cm10 looks bland, well you know you can just theme it however you like!
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most themes are horrid . If you like a clean theme your going to have hard time with cm. And sooner or later everyone gets over flashing. I did it for 3 years but now I know it's not even worth it and for such people sense is more then perfect. Clean simple and elegant.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
I love Sense 5 too, but I miss the big Gallery widget very much! Don't understand why they threw out so many of the old widgets.

Sense 5 vs Google Edition Discussion

What do you guys think, normal HTC One because its features or the Google Edition for fast updates and a better look?
At first point I was really excited to see HTC One GE thinking that I'll definitely buy that version. But, I ended up buying Sense version of this phone and have to say that by using my brothers Nexus 4 and my Nexus 7 all the time, I love Sense 5.
The biggest problem for me with previous handsets, even One X was that Sense slowed down the whole device. I felt like it's stopping some of the great power which is hidden inside the gem so I kept rooting the phone straight away.
With One, I haven't thought about rooting it ever before. Sense 5 is very light, modern and fast. As a fan of Flipboard I am also loving blink feed.
So I guess Sense 5 wins for me but I it's only a matter of taste.
I went back to sense 5 its just that good! and theres nothing like the speed of Aosp on a dedicated nexus device. its just not the same on a non nexus device
I did a comparison
jwtrockz1998 said:
What do you guys think, normal HTC One becuase its features or the Google Edition for fast updates?
(Just tell me if there is another thread about this and I will delete this one)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashed the full GE rom and ran it for 3 solid days. I have to honestly say that
Sense is better. Here are my observations:
1 - Battery life - BOTH excellent
2 - Lag - Sense has less lag
3 - Sound - This one to me is very important. Listening to mp3's on the device
both with Beats Audio ON the Sense rom has MUCH BETTER sound. Everything sounds
richer, more bass just sounds great. On the GE rom the sound was tinny. no comparison.
4 - Remote is back - controlling my complete home theatre.
5 - Email system on Sense is better for my corporate account
6 - Call quality - Again MUCH better on the Sense rom. Louder and clearer. Had calls fade in and out as reported on this and other threads with
the GE rom.
7 - Video recording - NO comparison - Sense is MUCH BETTER
8 - Camera - Again Zoe and the Sense enhancements - No comparison the Sense is better
9 - LTE speeds on the Sense rom blew away the GE rom, same exact location yielded almost 50% increase
in speed on ATT using speedtest.net.
I am glad I did the trial so I would not wonder how the GE rom would perform.
I did manage to get my 64 gb. Developer Edition back to Stock. I am S-off, unlocked, and super CID. I am a happy camper.
CC
If I didn't already have the ATT version I would probably opt for the GE version. I have been running the GE ROM since the first one was cooked up the day after the GPe's went on sale. I just love the look and feel of it, and there isn't anything I really miss about SENSE. I will tell you that Sense 5 is by far and away the best manufacturer skin/overlay I have ever used. It is light and fluent and it's much better to look at than TOUCHWIZ. The post above me stated many compelling reasons to stick with Sense, but for me personally I am happy on the GE ROM. I was perfectly happy before the GE version was even announced and I could be just as happy running Sense 5 permanently.
I noticed that anyone that already has seen the nexus experience, is kinda happy to see the change and likes sense. Personally I am an example of it. Went from the n4 to this, and I didn't even feel the need to root this unroll like the 4th day of owning it. Usually I do it the first few hours.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
I believe Paul over at [email protected] is working on a switch which allows users to have both on the phone at the same time and then just switch between the 2, so basically best of both worlds
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Google edition for me. I actually ordered one, but when I saw how long it would take to get it, and since I had an upgrade, I just cancelled, ordered one from ATT, and flashed the google edition rom.
I just like vanilla a lot more than any skin.
Sense sucks. I despise it. But too many of this phone's features rely on it. So I continue to use it.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
For the first time, I actually like using a OEM skin, Sense 5 is great, I'm probably flashing a new ROM every day since I can't decide.
I switched over to the GE ROM. Having used Cyanogenmod for the past two years or so, I've grown accustomed to vanilla Android, and much prefer its aesthetics and familiarity (even if it's missing the CM tweaks.) As far as Sense goes, I did not find myself fully exploiting it while I used it; some features not even being used once (Blinkfeed, highlights.) Using Zoe felt foreign to me. Other aspects of the UI felt too busy for me. Didn't like the white menus and the font. Aside from this, I liked Sense as much as the next person. I liked the way the camera app was setup, and preferred the stock web browser over Chrome.
In my experience so far, the GE ROM performs just a touch better if, for any reason, its better app integration. For example, Poweramp's lock screen overlay would sometimes not show up on Sense, and a number of one-button headsets wouldn't properly control the app. Both of these features are fully operational on the GE ROM. Another example; Chrome performs noticeably better on the GE ROM (smoother scrolling, on par with the stock Sense browser.)
On the downside, I do not care for the GE camera at all -- especially its UI. It performs up to snuff, but seems to lose its footing in extremely low light situations, unlike the Sense camera. The GE camera opts for flash much more often, as well.
Finally, I should add that I get better battery life on the GE ROM.
At the end of the day, for a device I typically interact with for 45 seconds at a time, I'd rather be using the GE ROM over Sense. I really think a lot of it just comes down to the familiarity.
i prefer sense style and apps, google edition look very poor. :S
I'm glad someone started a thread like this.
I've always hated Sense (since the Windows Mobile days!). Every time I bought a new HTC the first thing I did was see if a AOSP rom was available for it. I just didn't like how ugly the UI was and how sluggish it made the phone feel. AOSP just seemed simpler, faster, and cleaner. Minimalism is my thing.
When I got the HTC One the first thing I did was change the launcher and tried to get the UI to look as close to AOSP as possible. I didn't even give Blinkfeed a chance. In my head it was gonna be just like the other bloated crap HTC put on their phones. The camera was nice and took decent pictures. I didn't care too much about Zoe's mostly because I just didn't see the hype surrounding it, but maybe I'm using wrong lol. The speakers are awesome.
Then the GE ROMs came into play. I was so excited I could barely contain myself. I flashed the GE ROM and instantly loved it. I had it for about a week or two. I then started to miss the camera from Sense, and the audio, and the power saver feature, and the gallery. I loved the GE ROM and it's minimalism, but I felt that my phone wasn't being used to its full potential. So, I gave myself a challenge. I was going to flash back to a Sense ROM for a week and use it as HTC had intended. Well, a week had gone by and I still have a Sense ROM. I actually love it! Blinkfeed is very handy. All of the HTC apps are actually really useful. I find myself using my phone a lot more now. I think I'm just gonna stick with Sense for a while.
I'm using the GE ROM right now but once I saw there was an Android Revolution ROM I instantly downloaded it and made a backup of GE. I've been on a Nexus S for a while and I'm starting to get bored of the AOSP look and feel. At least until the new version is out.
I prefer Sense, but I just wish some things were done differently, especially on the UI front. For example, I wish that the dock on the homescreens was the same as the one in the lock screen, instead of having that hideous black background. Also, they need to better optimize it for high pixel density screens; everything looks too big, especially the menu bar! Speaking of menu bar, why did they change the notification shade to fully black, instead of the see through AOSP one? I definitely prefer the AOSP gallery app and its better Picasa/G+ integration, so I'm running stock Sense, with the AOSP camera/gallery app apk installed, so I can choose whichever one I want I love Sense music player, especially the karaoke mode! Overall, is say that Sense I'd better for me, especially UI issues aside, I can't think of anything that AOSP does better.
I love HTC Sense5 more than Google Edition, because the BlinkFeed is very friendly for me,
it can show me lots of information in the same time.
Went from sense to GP edition with logo as recent apps. Its just absolutely no contestb I don't miss a single thing.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
I brought the sense version and used that for a while and didn't mind it, but last weekend I did the conversion to the Google Edition and it's great, I do miss the highlights and blinkfeed, but I have been using flipboard which is much better than blinkfeed and the google look feels less heavy than the sense rom lol if you know what I mean. Most people don't like the google camera app but funny enough I actually like it lol.
vash1053 said:
Sense sucks. I despise it. But too many of this phone's features rely on it. So I continue to use it.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22DInQuPll0

Categories

Resources