Sense 4.0 overview

**Crispy** · 04-13-2012, 02:27 AM

Most thorough review of Sense 4 yet, he actually goes thru a number of areas most reviews fail to cover -

[URL]http://www.droid-life.com/2012/04/12/video-htc-sense-4-0-overview-on-the-one-x/[/URL]

And I have to say, every time I see the One S/X I admire it more and more, its such a beautiful design, and I feel sad no one will ever say that about the E4GLTE.

Wish it didn't have all that lag and delay opening apps, but we have to blame Android and not Sense for that too. And i find it amazing that an official Google app (Reader) still shows that ugly menu bar.

Another good point is how Sense has an app and sd parition, just like a phone with sd cards. I believe HTC did it to enable USB mass storage, and just like phones today, the sd 'parition' won't be visible on the phone when mounted to pc. It will be interesting how the E4GLTE handles this.

**Cory Streater** · 04-13-2012, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by ECrispy

Most thorough review of Sense 4 yet, he actually goes thru a number of areas most reviews fail to cover -

With all due respect, kind of a lame thing to say considering your at AndroidCentral, and clearly a lot of work went into this as well: AC's Sense 4.0 Overview

**harold42483** · 04-13-2012, 10:38 AM

Wow i must say i am surprised. There is quite a bit of lag going on there. And this is a quad core. Could the lag come from the processor firing up the other core. I know the 4+1 architecture allows for a single smaller core to do basic functionality and then when need the other cores jump in. Maybe thats why there is a bit of lag. It may also be Sense. I guess we will have to wait til we se a review with a S4 processor

**harold42483** · 04-13-2012, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Cory Streater

With all due respect, kind of a lame thing to say considering your at AndroidCentral, and clearly a lot of work went into this as well: AC's Sense 4.0 Overview

Well i see why he would also use another site for information, I can't blame him. You have to get both sides of the story. I must admit Phil's been on a bit a pro-Sense campaign as of late. And i think This is the link you ment to post:

http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-se...te-walkthrough

Which by the way is a great review and covered almost everything.

**Phil Nickinson** · 04-13-2012, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by harold42483

Wow i must say i am surprised. There is quite a bit of lag going on there. And this is a quad core. Could the lag come from the processor firing up the other core. I know the 4+1 architecture allows for a single smaller core to do basic functionality and then when need the other cores jump in. Maybe thats why there is a bit of lag. It may also be Sense. I guess we will have to wait til we se a review with a S4 processor

I'm willing to bet that didn't have the software upgrade I've got on my One X.

**Starfleet Captain** · 04-13-2012, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Phil Nickinson

I'm willing to bet that didn't have the software upgrade I've got on my One X.

Which is exactly why I do not EVER base my purchasing decision on just ONE SINGLE REVIEW. When the OG Evo came out, there were reviews that trashed the phone (Especially its battery life) for various reasons (iPhone 4 Euphoria in many cases, whose release at the time, was right around the corner). But it ended up being the best cell phone I ever owned (Save for the Evo 3D) and I, as well as many others learned to manage the battery life well. I always consider multiple reviews to get the complete picture.

Software issues can be fixed.

**Crispy** · 04-13-2012, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Cory Streater

With all due respect, kind of a lame thing to say considering your at AndroidCentral, and clearly a lot of work went into this as well: AC's Sense 4.0 Overview

I've read the AC review and it is also great. The 2 reviews are complementary in my opinion, the one here goes over pretty much all of Sense and how it has changed in 4.0, the one I linked mostly talks about how Sense behaves and his own opinion. And it has some new information.

**Tkbredx** · 04-19-2012, 11:31 PM

To be honest, I wasnt that big of a fan of Sense. In fact I was waiting for the root or app to switch from Sense to stock ICS, but after reading Android Central's review I have decided its not that bad and I actually like it, (although I still think ICS on a Nexus is wayyyy sexier lol).

**NicksGarage** · 04-20-2012, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by ECrispy

Another good point is how Sense has an app and sd parition, just like a phone with sd cards. I believe HTC did it to enable USB mass storage, and just like phones today, the sd 'parition' won't be visible on the phone when mounted to pc. It will be interesting how the E4GLTE handles this.

If it is similar to how they did it on the EVO View tablet, when connected to the computer you see two drives if you also have an SD card installed. It lists one as sdcard and ext_sd. I figure it will work the same way on the new phone.

**olsonn** · 04-20-2012, 01:12 PM

A noob-ish question about Sense 4.0:

If I'm seeing things correctly in the review videos, there's a "recent apps" button on the new EVO 4G LTE. You hit it, and (with Sense 4.0), you get a screen where you have to *scroll* side-to-side to select the recent app you're looking for.

This is worse than the "old" way, IMO: A long-press on the Home button in the original EVO 4G gives you a thumbnail images of your 8 most recent apps pops up. Then you just tap on one. No scrolling, no searching right to left. Less time wasted.

Am I seeing this correctly for Sense 4.0 for the EVO LTE? If so, that's disappointing.

**Dreamliner330** · 04-20-2012, 01:16 PM

If the EVO LTE has a millisecond of lag on the interface, I'm not getting it and I'll probably end up with the next iPhone.

I'm tired of Android quirks and lag. Jailbroken iPhones do much of what I need...If only Google apps were better...

**Mikey47** · 04-20-2012, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by olsonn

A noob-ish question about Sense 4.0:

If I'm seeing things correctly in the review videos, there's a "recent apps" button on the new EVO 4G LTE. You hit it, and (with Sense 4.0), you get a screen where you have to *scroll* side-to-side to select the recent app you're looking for.

This is worse than the "old" way, IMO: A long-press on the Home button in the original EVO 4G gives you a thumbnail images of your 8 most recent apps pops up. Then you just tap on one. No scrolling, no searching right to left. Less time wasted.

Am I seeing this correctly for Sense 4.0 for the EVO LTE? If so, that's disappointing.

If I'm not mistaken that's part of Matias Duarte's (sp?) impact on ICS not Sense.

**klau25** · 04-20-2012, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by Mikey47

If I'm not mistaken that's part of Matias Duarte's (sp?) impact on ICS not Sense.

yup, it's a feature of ICS, not sense. sense did change up a lil. instead of a small screen shots of recent apps, sense version takes up the whole screen. you can only see one recent app at once. I don't really like that.

**frozndevl** · 04-21-2012, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by dreamliner

If the EVO LTE has a millisecond of lag on the interface, I'm not getting it and I'll probably end up with the next iPhone.

I'm tired of Android quirks and lag. Jailbroken iPhones do much of what I need...If only Google apps were better...

Then you should go and get an iPhone already. There have been interviews where google people discuss how the interface threading of Android compared to iOS will almost always have some interface lag relative to the other. Apple puts the graphical smoothness at the highest priority.

**Phil Nickinson** · 04-21-2012, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by Mikey47

If I'm not mistaken that's part of Matias Duarte's (sp?) impact on ICS not Sense.

Sense 4 does it a little differently than stock ICS. In Sense 4, you swipe up to kill an app. In stock, you swipe left or right. Same premise, though.

**silverthornne** · 04-21-2012, 04:08 PM

Does sense require to create an HTC account like Motorola's Blur does? That's one thing I really dislike about the Atrix I got from my employer.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

**djw39** · 04-21-2012, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by frozndevl

Then you should go and get an iPhone already. There have been interviews where google people discuss how the interface threading of Android compared to iOS will almost always have some interface lag relative to the other. Apple puts the graphical smoothness at the highest priority.

Ok. That said, in the past few weeks, lots of apps have released ics optimized versions which feature enormous improvements in design and performance, particularly with scrolling. It is an exciting time to be an Android user in my opinion.

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**frozndevl** · 04-21-2012, 11:28 PM

Originally Posted by silverthornne

Does sense require to create an HTC account like Motorola's Blur does? That's one thing I really dislike about the Atrix I got from my employer.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

No, Sense doesn't requires sign up. Also, newer don't call them Blur phones also don't require a sign in.

**silverthornne** · 04-22-2012, 11:17 AM

Great to know. I was overcome with Galaxy Nexus release lust and if Sense would have required a login I would have used that as the excuse to get the Nexus! I can now continue to wait on the Evo LTE

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**Tkbredx** · 04-22-2012, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by silverthornne

Great to know. I was overcome with Galaxy Nexus release lust and if Sense would have required a login I would have used that as the excuse to get the Nexus! I can now continue to wait on the Evo LTE

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

Ha! Whats so bad about an HTC account?

**silverthornne** · 04-23-2012, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by Tkbredx

Ha! Whats so bad about an HTC account?

I don't see the need for it and it complicates things. Examples:

Samsung account: needed it once on my tablet, can't recall why. Couldn't recall the password either when I needed it!

Moto Blur account: stupid Atrix asks whether I want to save contacts to Blur account. Why on earth would I want to do that? Also, if two devices use the same account, at least on the Atrix you get a notification you can't remove about duplicate accounts. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Basically, that would be one more account to keep track of and I have enough as it is...

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

**Insp_Gadget** · 04-23-2012, 12:50 PM

Overall, Sense 4.0 looks pretty good. As far as launchers go, Sense, in my opinion, has always been a mixed bag. Some parts of it I really like. Other parts I could do without. (I'm currently running SPB Shell 3D on top of Sense on my EVO 3D.) I also use a variety of replacement apps for contacts, calendar, etc. To look at my phone, at first glance, you would not even know that it was a Sense-based phone. With Sense, it's the small, close-to-the-metal improvements over stock Android that make the difference to me... not so much the fancy transitions and widgets. I can get those (and do) from other apps/launchers.

As far as the DroidLife review of Sense 4.0 (and the One X), I think the reviewer was nit-picking because he doesn't care for Sense. His dislike of Sense was obvious from the start, but he tried to play it like he was being objective. I could clearly see his bias. For example, when he complains about lag when opening the app tray or switching between screens, he has to say things like "I don't know if you can see it, but...". In my opinion, if you have to ask your audience if they can "see" what you are complaining about, then your complaint doesn't seem all that valid. After all, if it's truly an issue, wouldn't we be able to see the lag without him repeatedly trying to reproduce it? I could see if we were talking about a second or two of lag, but he was complaining about microseconds--intervals so small that he had to ask if we even saw it. Personally, I couldn't see what he was complaining about.

I agree that multiple reviews from different sites are the way to go. I never base my decision on one review. Ultimately, I don't make my decision until I've handled the device myself. Even then, I know that some tweaking is often required for optimal performance. I appreciate the link to the review. It's always good to see different perspectives.

**Tkbredx** · 04-24-2012, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by silverthornne

I don't see the need for it and it complicates things. Examples:

Samsung account: needed it once on my tablet, can't recall why. Couldn't recall the password either when I needed it!

Moto Blur account: stupid Atrix asks whether I want to save contacts to Blur account. Why on earth would I want to do that? Also, if two devices use the same account, at least on the Atrix you get a notification you can't remove about duplicate accounts. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Basically, that would be one more account to keep track of and I have enough as it is...

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

Lol, point taken. It is pretty unnecessary