What does HTC sense change over regular Android?

[cp1]

So I hear people saying that they hate sense, or they love sense. I've never had an android phone before (the last time I bought a phone was 2005). So I've had my incredible for awhile, and without a reference I'm not sure what sense added.

I know they have some sense only widgets, but beyond that, how is it different from plain jane android?

 

[mrspeedmaster]

So I hear people saying that they hate sense, or they love sense. I've never had an android phone before (the last time I bought a phone was 2005). So I've had my incredible for awhile, and without a reference I'm not sure what sense added.

I know they have some sense only widgets, but beyond that, how is it different from plain jane android?

Well for starters. Sense's Launcher doesn't work in landscape mode. I use the Launcher Pro now; replacing the default launcher.

There are some other issues I will briefly mention. The UI is very inconsistent. E.G. search button works within some apps and it doesn't work in other Sense apps. UI elements overall do not have a consistency. When you hit the "add" button in favorites, it doesn't really add them. It just take you to another page and you have to use the menu on the bottom to add them. Sloppy programming.

I much prefer the ugliness of plain jane Android over the slick,prettiness of Sense because it is more consistent.

 

[JuniorNA]

yes, Sense is the UI in short, and HTC sense is a different user interface than Moto Droid, or N1, or even a Blackberry UI. So when someone says the SENSE interface sucks, or Sense is great, think of it as the windows skin that you can install on a windows OS to have a launcher, options to add things, options to go back, forward, delete..etc. It's the core of the phone in terms of user input and user interface .

 

[dcharag]

If not for the quick QWERTY keyboard, which I just about have to have, I could do without Sense. I had a Moto Droid for about a month before taking it back in anticipation for the dinc and really liked Android's stock UI. But I certainly don't hate Sense.

 

[zombii matt]

i hate sense because of the launcher, music player, and the car panel all lack landscape views.

 

[Excedio]

Sense also have much more native integration with social networking. My wife has the Moto Droid with the stock Android UI and I much prefer my Sense UI.

Also, Sense has 7 screens...Moto Droid has 3.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I've never used a Droid with the stock UI. I personally like the Sense UI although I have nothing really to compare it against on the Android platform.

 

[srmccoy]

I've used both the standard Android UI (Moto Droid) and the Sense UI (HTC Eris). The best analogy I've come up with is that the stock Android UI is very reminiscent of Windows 98-2000, or XP if you prefer. It works well, but it's not very flashy or pretty.

Sense on the other hand is more akin to Windows Vista or 7. It's prettier, glossier, and overall feels more polished in many places. There's a bit of bloat that comes along with Sense, which is again similar to Vista the above analogy.

After spending considerable time with both, though, I find that I much prefer Sense to the default UI. I will say that the default UI in Froyo, however looks more appealing to me than Sense. Much of the same gloss, without the bloat from what I can tell.

 

[JuniorNA]

I've used both the standard Android UI (Moto Droid) and the Sense UI (HTC Eris). The best analogy I've come up with is that the stock Android UI is very reminiscent of Windows 98-2000, or XP if you prefer. It works well, but it's not very flashy or pretty.

Sense on the other hand is more akin to Windows Vista or 7. It's prettier, glossier, and overall feels more polished in many places. There's a bit of bloat that comes along with Sense, which is again similar to Vista the above analogy.

After spending considerable time with both, though, I find that I much prefer Sense to the default UI. I will say that the default UI in Froyo, however looks more appealing to me than Sense. Much of the same gloss, without the bloat from what I can tell.

Thats actually quite perfect, the bloatware on windows 7 is more unwanted than wanted, compared with cityID, twitter, etc apps on Inc. that you can't remove, but on windows it can be removed but you have the right metaphor. it's perfect

 

[Tangent]

Well for starters. Sense's Launcher doesn't work in landscape mode. ....

It might just be the TMobile customized version of sense, but my Slide's launcher works in landscape...

 

[srmccoy]

It might just be the TMobile customized version of sense, but my Slide's launcher works in landscape...

It's not Sense at all, just a customized version of Android 2.1,

 

[nickdog670]

It's not Sense at all, just a customized version of Android 2.1,

Isn't it called HTC Espresso? I think it's only relation to Sense is a few Sense widgets, everything else is different.

 

[srmccoy]

Isn't it called HTC Espresso? I think it's only relation to Sense is a few Sense widgets, everything else is different.

I'm not sure if they've named it or not. A lot of manufacturers do custom Android installs. A common misconception is that the Droid X is using some form of Motoblur, when in reality it's a completely custom one-off version of Android that they haven't named yet. Just another example.

 

[Tangent]

It's not Sense at all, just a customized version of Android 2.1,

Straight from HTC's users manual for the Slide(pdf, see page 179):

Platform Android™ 2.1 (

 

[srmccoy]

Straight from HTC's users manual for the Slide(pdf, see page 179):

It's actually a heavily modified Sense variant. When It Comes to Android, Software Makes The Difference — T-Mobile Agrees

They basically started with HTC Sense, but T-Mobile heavily modified the UI using their own ideas. The UI is very specific to that one device/line, only on T-Mobile. It's quite removed from Sense UI in the traditional...well, sense.