HTC SENSE vs SAMSUNG TOUCH WIZ

[liquidmonkey]

have a htc desire and really like the sense ui they put over android.
but with the samsung galaxy s II announced, i'm really thinking of making the switch but am unsure of the touch wiz ui they use.

do you like your touch wiz ui?
has anyone experience using both?

thanks!

 

[snapper.fishes]

It's a matter of personal taste. I dislike HTC Sense and much prefer TouchWiz.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I'm the opposite. I absolutely love Sense. I've never used Touchwiz so I can't voice an opinion on it.

 

[Gevis]

I love Sense. TouchWiz, was meh (I came to a Fascinate after an Eris though, so I had Sense first).

I ended up going with LauncherPro on my Fascinate and I love it.

 

[Usta]

I'm the opposite. I absolutely love Sense. I've never used Touchwiz so I can't voice an opinion on it.

Same here. Sense makes more sense to me.

 

[EarlyMon]

It's a matter of personal taste.

^This!!!

Plus - how can people who haven't used both know which they prefer?

Without experiencing both, you can only know if you like the one you've tried.

The OP already knows how Sense is.

 

[Shocky]

It's a matter of personal taste. I dislike HTC Sense and much prefer TouchWiz.

Same, Touchwiz is much more organized imo, I found Sense a bit weird and apps menu is a mess, same as default google, but that's just me.

 

[A.Nonymous]

^This!!!

Plus - how can people who haven't used both know which they prefer?

Without experiencing both, you can only know if you like the one you've tried.

The OP already knows how Sense is.

Personal taste is for the birds. We all must be the same. We are Droids!! We are Borg!!

 

[novox77]

There's two main aspects when evaluating a user interface:

1) user friendliness (or user experience in web2.0 jargon)
2) aesthetics

While I'd agree that it's purely user preference when it comes to the aesthetics, HTC sense wins hands down on user friendliness. It's one of the company's missions to create an interface of enablement. Having things work the way you expect them to work, keeping related items tegether, and minimizing the amount of touch strokes to achieve a particular task. When you evaluate Sense vs TouchWiz in this manner, there's a world of difference.

That said, there's nothing really wrong with TouchWiz. It works just fine. But expect HTC to be the pioneers in UI design. They aren't just copying iOS. They do their own research to figure out how to make the UI a better experience. More Android manufacturers ought to follow HTC's example, as the Android UI (experience) is a common complaint among iPhone defectors.

 

[dan330]

i think sense is better for more the general public...
they just want the .. nice look... easy to change looks... easy to operate..

 

[dan330]

There's two main aspects when evaluating a user interface:

1) user friendliness (or user experience in web2.0 jargon)
2) aesthetics

While I'd agree that it's purely user preference when it comes to the aesthetics, HTC sense wins hands down on user friendliness. It's one of the company's missions to create an interface of enablement. Having things work the way you expect them to work, keeping related items tegether, and minimizing the amount of touch strokes to achieve a particular task. When you evaluate Sense vs TouchWiz in this manner, there's a world of difference.

That said, there's nothing really wrong with TouchWiz. It works just fine. But expect HTC to be the pioneers in UI design. They aren't just copying iOS. They do their own research to figure out how to make the UI a better experience. More Android manufacturers ought to follow HTC's example, as the Android UI (experience) is a common complaint among iPhone defectors.

that was well said... total agree...

and Earlymon is right.. you really cant know .. till you use both for a few days... most will only like what they know.
example: I have never used a Motorola... I think HTC is better.

 

[EarlyMon]

do you like your touch wiz ui?
has anyone experience using both?

I've met a number of people who prefer TouchWiz over Sense - many, as you see, simply prefer Sense.

 

[Speed_419]

I have used both and have found that I prefer using ADW EX...LOL With that being said, I will probably be upgrading from the Fascinate to a HTC because of the complete lack of support offered by Samsung with regard to OS upgrades. The only thing that I will truly miss is Swipe. Hopefully someone will have a way for me to install it on my new HTC when the time comes!..

 

[dan330]

^^^ speed..
that was great ... walking around the question.. and not really giving any answer to his question.

to your swype inquiry... HTC added swype to the EVO in an update... and if I am not mistaken, it also came with the EVO Shift. so you have a good chance it will come with other future devices.

 

[Segfault]

The correct answer to your question is "install Launcher Pro".

 

[toomuchgame441]

I like Sense over Touchwiz... but after a while on my Evo I got tired of Sense and installed ADW, its nice. I'll eventually return back to my Sense homescreen tho.

 

[IOWA]

^This!!!

Plus - how can people who haven't used both know which they prefer?

Without experiencing both, you can only know if you like the one you've tried.

The OP already knows how Sense is.

Being someone who owns Sense UI, Vanilla Android, and TouchWiz UI android handsets, I believe I can be of some assitance here.

Vanilla - Ah my first Android handset. I actually prefer vanilla to any of the UI 'enhancements'. Why? Both Sense UI and TouchWiz handsets have custom framework that messes with some of Android's really cool functionality. Like pairing & using a Wiimote controller with my EVO, for instance.

Sense. Sense UI is ok. It has a few things that I do like about it, very few, in fact. The phonebook is terrible. The only thing I like about the phonebook verus vanilla is you can search by phone number through the dialer. I can't stand the sense launcher, what a waste of space. I immediately replaced the EVO homescreen with LP+ the second I got my EVO. (After yelling at the RadioShack guy from trying to install ATK on my EVO. He asked why, and I thne proceeded to school him in front of the entire store, which was during black friday weekend no less, so the store was packed. Guy shouldn't have questioned my wishes.) Actually to be completely honest, there isn't anything I like about Sense UI.

Sense UI is highly over rated, and messes with quite a few of the phone's functions. No thanks. Sure the eye candy does look nice, but that's not worth the performance drain/memory hog that Sense UI is. Especially since most if not all of the graphical elements of Sense UI can be replaced with a few apps, such as LP+.



Now on to touchwiz. The newer TouchWiz isn't that bad, actually. I find it much easier to use, and more organized than Sense UI. I especially like the widgets in the notification bar (which I added to my EVO, btw) for quick toggles while inside of an app/browser.

The main thing I don't like about these UI layovers is their heavy integration with social media. Facebook, twitter, etc. I really don't use twitter, so why is it integrated so deeply into my phone it's nearly impossible to remove without an AOSP build? (Thank you cyanogen!)

Your best bet is to see what phones are the most supported by home brew devs, as they will be your lifeline to keep your phone running lean, fast, mean, and updated long past when the carriers forget about your phone. (I'm lookin at you Samsung.)

 

[Guamguy]

I got both. I think HTC Sense is overall better, when you add up the scores. But Touchwiz scores better in certain areas.

Where Touchwiz is better:

1. The lockscreen. Best default factory lockscreen of all the Androids.

2. The notification bar. Again, i would rate what Samsung did as the best. Great pick of color and theme, nice coloring of the icons, great selection of widgets right on the bar.

3. They know when not to extend too far. Touchwiz feels closer to stock than HTC Sense. It retains a look in many of its apps that is not too far from the stock Android. it keeps the Gallery stock.

4. The side swiping of the application screen has less visual choppiness than the scroll up and down method on HTC Sense or the "long ago in a galaxy far far away" scroll look on the standard Android Froyo.

Now HTC Sense

1. The killer widgets. Nothing beats their carefully crafted, consistent look of the HTC widgets. On the third generation HTC Sense, there are now over 67 of them.

2. Ability to save a scheme, change, don't like it, go back to your previous.

3. Great social networking integration. Touchwiz is working on it too, but Friend Stream is more comprehensive. It has its own interface and sync layer to Facebook that is more feature complete than the original Facebook app for Android.

4. Offline navigation app.

5. This one matters to the data rationers. In the 2nd generation Sense, you got a mobile data on and off from the power button. In the 3rd generation Sense, you got a widget that turn mobile data on and off.

6. Unified email box. Something Google should do.

7. One hell of a software keyboard design. I never substitute the keyboard of any of my HTC phones.

 

[IOWA]

I got both. I think HTC Sense is overall better, when you add up the scores. But Touchwiz scores better in certain areas.

Where Touchwiz is better:

1. The lockscreen. Best default factory lockscreen of all the Androids.

2. The notification bar. Again, i would rate what Samsung did as the best. Great pick of color and theme, nice coloring of the icons, great selection of widgets right on the bar.

3. They know when not to extend too far. Touchwiz feels closer to stock than HTC Sense. It retains a look in many of its apps that is not too far from the stock Android. it keeps the Gallery stock.

4. The side swiping of the application screen has less visual choppiness than the scroll up and down method on HTC Sense or the "long ago in a galaxy far far away" scroll look on the standard Android Froyo.

Now HTC Sense

1. The killer widgets. Nothing beats their carefully crafted, consistent look of the HTC widgets. On the third generation HTC Sense, there are now over 67 of them.

2. Ability to save a scheme, change, don't like it, go back to your previous.

3. Great social networking integration. Touchwiz is working on it too, but Friend Stream is more comprehensive. It has its own interface and sync layer to Facebook that is more feature complete than the original Facebook app for Android.

4. Offline navigation app.

5. This one matters to the data rationers. In the 2nd generation Sense, you got a mobile data on and off from the power button. In the 3rd generation Sense, you got a widget that turn mobile data on and off.

6. Unified email box. Something Google should do.

7. One hell of a software keyboard design. I never substitute the keyboard of any of my HTC phones.

As for the keyboard, the Gingerbread Keyboard blows 'em all away hands down. I've pretty much used 'em all as well.

Some of us see the intrusive social networking integration as a burden, and not a plus =/

 

[Guamguy]

Gingerbread keyboard is good too. But I like the HTC keyboard because it is so easy to access symbols simply by pressing the key longer.

If you think HTC Sense is intrusive, you should see Twitter for Android "Follow Your Contacts" feature. It will sync your contacts, then reveal to you their Twitter alias. Considering you can sync your Google, Facebook and Yahoo contacts into your master contacts list, Twitter for Android can take all of them and reveal their Twitter identities for you to follow. (This feature is not available on Twitter for IPhone).

Cool and creepy at the same time.

 

[liquidmonkey]

thanks for all the input everyone!

the reason i was asking is that the galaxy sII looks like a sweet mobile with loads of great features. my next mobile will be have a 4.3" screen BUT then i saw a rumor on an upcoming desire HD2 so i'm gonna wait and see how that stacks up to the galaxy sII whenever it gets announced.

 

[Guamguy]

I need to add something.

On the third generation HTC Sense (Desire Z/HD and all introduced after since), using the notification bar to display and flick among last used apps or task switching, is pure genius.

As for the Galaxy SII, we don't know what cool features the Touchwiz 4 has, it is not the same as the Touchwiz 3 on the Galaxy S. In fact, it looks like there are quite a bit of differences.

I should note that Touchwiz 3 also had improvements when the Galaxy S updated from Android 2.1 to 2.2. It should be noted that HTC doesn't update its UI when the OS itself is updated. That's probably why they can update their handsets quicker and more often. Samsung on the other hand, includes UI layer improvements packaged along with the OS update. This makes the process to get the update slower but you get considerably more usability improvement.

 

[EarlyMon]

Sounds like Samsung prioritizes TW over Android.

 

[Jammy]

My favorite is Vanilla

I prefer Sense to TouchWiz and am still to try MotoBlur...

 

[picklesNICKLES]

IMO Sense is the only android skin I've ever encountered that is actually desirable,

however nothing touches stock launcher if you want a smooth experience.

I have the Captivate Galaxy S and touchwhiz is a wannabe iphone skin that makes everything slower.

basically it's no good