Android Version Debate: Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich vs Touchwiz vs HTC Sense

Fire_Bird said:

just looked up that whole breaking of tethering thing, very interesting.

i just hope to see a revolution in hardware at some point this coming year.

not gonna lie, i would have liked to see a little bit more of a revolutionary google phone. (but i ultimately cant complain because i still am sucking wind with the iphone 3gs haha)

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I don't think you can really go wrong seeing where you are coming from. Just about anything you get will be an upgrade in hardware, performance as well as user experience. It sounds like you are really doing your research and I have a feeling you will get the right device no matter what. The only two things I would suggest would be to actually get each phone in your hand and see what you really think and to maybe start a thread in the Sensation forum as well as the SGS2 forum to ask what people like and/or dislike about their phones. People are typically pretty honest about their user experience, but you have to take some comments with a grain of salt. We are on a forum after all and it isn't typical for people to come here just to shout about how much they love their phone. You could also visit the rooting section for each phone to figure out what type of developer support there is, if rooting is something you think you might be interested in.

Fire_Bird said:

yummmm key lime pie!!!! haha
that is a good summary of the compromise that is made in each of the manufacturers!
in my, admittedly limited, experience, samsung has the best screen, which is a VERY appealing feature, cuz no matter what UI, widgets, and other crap you have on your phone, you're always looking at that screen.

as you may have figured out by now, I am a HUGE overthinker
every product i plan to buy I do hours and hours, and sometimes months of research, before I make a decision. happened with my laptop, TV, Bike, DSLR, Speakers, even frying pans... and now phones!

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I'm the exact same way. That is the way I found this forum and the reason I joined. Some of us are just nuts I guess.

The only way I can typically break down and make a decision is to actually make a need list and a want list. I'll go through and figure out what I actually need my phone to do along with the things I really just want it to do. Once I've broken that down then the decision is typically pretty easy. My problem was that Verizon has three pretty top notch devices coming this November, but the Galaxy Nexus really has what I need and want so it made everything easier.

Fire_Bird said:

oh man, that is so much easier said than done for me. I'm WAY too critical at the same time!!!

need:
phone
email
texting

want:
everything else these phones could even possibly think of including....

result: get a $60 phone with a $35-40 plan...

not happening haha!

the galaxy nexus is definitely a sweet phone (although no known canadian carriers lol) but it wasn't a big change in tech. although, historically, i guess the nexus phones haven't been tech leaders. i was thinking of just waiting for the next big tech change. but then who is to define what a big tech change is? it would just suck if i wait until the galaxy s3 or the next flagship htc just to find out that it isn't all that much better than the nexus. WHY CANT THEY ALL JUST COME OUT AT THE SAME TIME!!!! haha

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Wow, my need list is so much longer than that.

The Nexus devices are typically the same as whatever is currently out there at the time. I consider it one of the ways that Google chooses not to overly compete with the other companies.

In the iPhone world the waiting game can make sense. There is one new phone a year and it has typically been a good sized leap for each device. In the Android world the waiting game could have you sitting on the sidelines and waiting forever. There will always be a new and better phone just over the horizon and when it comes out something else will be just announced and the cycle will continue forever. The only thing you can really do is to wait for something that is solid and grab it when it comes. As I was saying before, if the phone is popular and the developer community supports it everything is ok.

Vanilla over any manufacturer overlay, any day! Although out of all the manufactuer UIs, Sense is probably the one with the most eye candy.

So will I be able to put ICS on a galaxy S2 or do i need to buy a samsung nexus instead??

Apologies i'm new...

No doubt the S2 will get ICS eventually...sometime ...just a matter of time.

Reading folks' replies, I can see why I prefer Sense over everything else. When it comes to smartphones, I mainly care about:

smooth, bug-free UI

screen size and quality

battery life (battery life on my Incredible 2 is outstanding)

form factor

UI capabilities out-of-the-box (without having to root or do any heavy modding...ICS has some nice out of the box capabilities, which is the only reason why I'm considering vanilla again)

The interesting thing about this whole debate is that many of the features in vanilla Android have been duplicated/replicated from OEM skins. Google is trying to get OEMs to not skin the OS and the best way to do that is to offer an OS that doesn't need skinning. Many of the features of ICS (notably the lockscreen) have been taken straight from Sense. The advanced camera features are strangely similar to what is offered in Motoblur. People may dislike 3rd party skins, but when the features of those 3rd party skins crawl into vanilla no one complains about them.

A.Nonymous said:

The interesting thing about this whole debate is that many of the features in vanilla Android have been duplicated/replicated from OEM skins. Google is trying to get OEMs to not skin the OS and the best way to do that is to offer an OS that doesn't need skinning. Many of the features of ICS (notably the lockscreen) have been taken straight from Sense. The advanced camera features are strangely similar to what is offered in Motoblur. People may dislike 3rd party skins, but when the features of those 3rd party skins crawl into vanilla no one complains about them.

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The dialer looks exactly like the TouchWiz dialer. Is that how the dialer was before?

King_Bean said:

Reading folks' replies, I can see why I prefer Sense over everything else. When it comes to smartphones, I mainly care about:

smooth, bug-free UI

screen size and quality

battery life (battery life on my Incredible 2 is outstanding)

form factor

UI capabilities out-of-the-box (without having to root or do any heavy modding...ICS has some nice out of the box capabilities, which is the only reason why I'm considering vanilla again)

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Battery life on sense is terrible when compared to AOSP. Getting rid of that CarrierIQ crap and bloat does WONDERS for the battery.

IOWA said:

Battery life on sense is terrible when compared to AOSP. Getting rid of that CarrierIQ crap and bloat does WONDERS for the battery.

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I hear you but my HTC Droid Incredible 2 has way better battery life than my D1 (vanilla) had. I do realize that the Thunderbolt and Evo had sub-par battery life, though.

IOWA said:

Battery life on sense is terrible when compared to AOSP. Getting rid of that CarrierIQ crap and bloat does WONDERS for the battery.

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I don't agree. I had terrible battery life on my DInc. I rooted and got rid of all the bloatware. My battery life was still terrible. Made no difference at all.

A.Nonymous said:

I don't agree. I had terrible battery life on my DInc. I rooted and got rid of all the bloatware. My battery life was still terrible. Made no difference at all.

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Did you run AOSP? Did you remove CarrierIQ from the framework? (Or use a ROM)?

IOWA said:

Did you run AOSP? Did you remove CarrierIQ from the framework? (Or use a ROM)?

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I've run various ROMs including Cyanogen (which I think is ugly BTW). None of them resulted in any significant improvement in battery life.

A.Nonymous said:

I've run various ROMs including Cyanogen (which I think is ugly BTW). None of them resulted in any significant improvement in battery life.

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Then maybe its time to replace the battery lol. CM7 is what you make it.

IOWA said:

Then maybe its time to replace the battery lol. CM7 is what you make it.

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You may be right. It is just so boring looking from the get go. Sure, I could toss alternate launchers, an alternate camera app, an alternate this and an alternate that on there and make it look nicer, but once I've done that why not just stick with Sense? If I get an extra 30-45 mins of battery life (which is so little that it could just be the way I was using the phone that day), it's just not worth it to me.

A.Nonymous said:

You may be right. It is just so boring looking from the get go. Sure, I could toss alternate launchers, an alternate camera app, an alternate this and an alternate that on there and make it look nicer, but once I've done that why not just stick with Sense? If I get an extra 30-45 mins of battery life (which is so little that it could just be the way I was using the phone that day), it's just not worth it to me.

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It all depends on your situation. However, the targetted audience for cyanogenmod is people like me who dont mind tweaking here and there to get the best performance. Personally, i get a full days use out of one charge and thats with more use than most people here.

Hi

I just registered after seeing this thread - it's dead and dated now but I think I can help potential new recruits to the Android world who are in a similar dilemma.

All user interfaces that are skinned onto vanilla android are there mainly for 2 reasons

1) Ease of use (for non android fanatics who are typical users like myself)

2) Differentiation - phone manufacturers need to differentiate their phones in some way - remember hardware in many current phones is very similar and it's the UI that makes them really stand apart (apart from the obvious physical look)

For me I was using the HTC Hero for 3 years. The phone is simply awesome - and the Sense skin was perfect (it slowed the phone down somewhat but tbh I do nothing on my phone that would result in the world imploding if my apps didn't open instantly). The Sense skin made the transition to my first ever smart phone effortless and really improved my understanding and acceptance of the android platform. Skins were a brilliant tool to get people into using android platforms and because of the various types they have undeniably helped android becoming the power player it has become in the mobile phone OS market it is today.

However what I believe will put many veteran android users off from Touchwiz, sense, blur etc is simply the updates - or lack of them.

My HTC Hero was dated from the off - due to a combination of HTC and Orange (my network carrier) stalling and eventually not sending out updates. This was because they claim the phone hardware was unable to accept new OS. This in part is true - but only because I believe the skins and additional bloatware added eats too many of the resources.

Now after careful thought I have purchased the Galaxy Nexus on a 2 year contract.

Why have I left the sense/touch wiz experience behind?

Simple - I no longer wanted to be tied to phone manufacturer/Network carrier limitations. If you have a phone that you want to last the full contract with the latest operating system (without having to go through the bother of rooting) then having a Nexus family phone is the only way to go in my book). Your phone will receive OTA updates and will be more future proofed until contract time ends.

The Galaxy Nexus is the perfect phone with ICS - forget about the "quad Core phones" - NO operating system is up to the task of even coming close to using the potential these chips provide - regardless of what you read.

ICS as stated before has taken the best bits of all the roms out there and tried to implement it the best it can. ---> This is in my view Google's way of getting people unify android completely - after the release of Android 5.0 I truly believe that Phone manufacturer skins will be pointless. Vanilla android will move to become a unified, simplified OS that unlike Apple's IOS will give the android fanatics the FREEDOM to modify it further without limits.

In summation - forget the hype you'll read about future phones ie SG3 (android and more importantly the apps available wont come close to potential of Tergra 3 chips), ignore Touch wiz/Sense revisions and updates and you will normally have to wait ages for nothing and go Galaxy Nexus.

I'm done

#1 Touchwiz 4 - Minimal with hardware acceleration
#2 ICS - Lacks hardware acceleration, doesnt feel any different to the gingerbread launcher imo.
#3 Sense - Bloated, uses allot of resources so can lag, out of memory errors can also occur.

None of the Nexus phones come with a hardware keyboard. That is the reason I have not considered getting a Nexus phone. I'm willing to make the tradeoff of slower updates and possibly not geting ICS on my phone to have a physical keyboard. I also like the Sense skin and so far, I haven't found any feature on ICS that makes me really want to get it.

I think this should end the debate. The Nexus S that was released a year ago has already received an official OTA update to Android 4.0. The new non nexus phones that were just released weeks ago are running an OS that is FAR INFERIOR (2.3, ICS is a HUGE update) and I don't expect then receive an update for months.

Why would you want to have a phone that when you buy it the OS is way outdated and won't catch up for months???

I really love the Sense experience, I love the way it handles social networking mainly and the clean looking widgets. Ive been using Sense since my HTC Hero, then the original EVO and now the EVO 3D. Something always draws me back even when i think I'm bored of it. I will be interested to see HTCs take with sense and ICS. Great thing is if I wanted to get the stock ICS I can always slap on a ROM when its available and stable. For now, Sense does just fine and runs plenty smooth for me.

chrlswltrs said:

I think this should end the debate. The Nexus S that was released a year ago has already received an official OTA update to Android 4.0. The new non nexus phones that were just released weeks ago are running an OS that is FAR INFERIOR (2.3, ICS is a HUGE update) and I don't expect then receive an update for months.

Why would you want to have a phone that when you buy it the OS is way outdated and won't catch up for months???

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Any applications require it? No

Unless there are features you require in ICS there's is no reason to choose ICS over Gingerbread right now, choosing an inferior phone because the software is newer is stupid especially when you know ICS will be rolled out in the coming months to most phones.

Most the users here probably couldn't name five improvements ICS provides, some would probably struggle naming one.

King_Bean said:

lol, most people on forums like this are PERPETUALLY itching for a new phone. I used to be like that.

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I share your "used to be like that" comment. But since I got into smartphones I am willing to wait until my Verizon upgrade time arrives to begin looking for a new phone. Even then I don't run out and get a new phone. I kinda feel that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

On the other hand I can except those who are changing phones often. I just think that there is a better way to spend their money than getting a new phone every 6 months or so or when some new feature or enhancement comes out.