Incredible, Sense UI

[nalpakj]

Hello all,

I'm a BB guy looking in the near future to switch over to a droid of some sort. I can review and consume the technical specs easily enough but one area I can't (or haven't yet) find good information on is exactly what the Sense UI brings to the table for HTC devices like the Incredible, that isn't available on devices from other manufactures like the Motorola Droid.

Can someone either give me some insight, or point me to some detailed information on the difference between a Sense and Non-Sense (I'm sure that term won't stick) UI?

Thanks...

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

http://www.androidcentral.com/review-htc-legend-android-21-and-new-sense-ui

is a good overview of senseUI. It's something you will either love or hate

 

[Adiliyo]

htc's website also details it a little (at least the older 1.5 version of sense) if you go to their droid eris page. but the AC overview is quite good and an excellent place to start

 

[photog]

Here's a review that focuses a bit more on the UI and less on the phone. http://www.androidcentral.com/review-new-htc-sense-android-phones

I just got a Droid 5 days ago, and I've been contemplating whether or not I should turn it back in before 30 days to get the Incredible. From this review and a video I saw on YouTube I think I like my Droid with HelixLauncher better.

 

[Dapke36]

On that, the Incredible will be faster and newer, but the Droid has 1) a proven track record for stability (structural and software), and 2) a very large modding base that keeps pumping out custom themes and ROMs.

Edit: Oh, and cheaper too. Which is always a good option

 

[Adiliyo]

plus the keyboard, if you actually use it, that is a big plus for the droid, but if (like me) you don't, then you might want the incredible if the lighter / thinner design is more your thing.

i don't think the droid will be cheaper (with vzw's pricing) than the incredible, the droid is still 199 isn't it? i can't see verizon pricing the incredible for more than that.

apple has basically forced the 199 price for smartphones. maybe the only good thing they've done for consumers ever.

 

[kilofoxtrot]

plus the keyboard, if you actually use it, that is a big plus for the droid, but if (like me) you don't, then you might want the incredible if the lighter / thinner design is more your thing.

i don't think the droid will be cheaper (with vzw's pricing) than the incredible, the droid is still 199 isn't it? i can't see verizon pricing the incredible for more than that.

apple has basically forced the 199 price for smartphones. maybe the only good thing they've done for consumers ever.

How can the Moto Droid be worth the same price as the Incredible? Spec-wise they are not even close. I see a price drop on the Droid when the Incredible is available at $199. With the Eris gone in May, the Moto Droid is basically taking its place and the Incredible becoming the top dog Android phone in VZW's lineup. Not to take away the Moto Droid's reputation as a great phone, because it still will be. Assuming a price drop, it will be a tremendous value too.

 

[Adiliyo]

how exactly are they not even close? the incredible has a slightly faster processor, internal memory and a higher mp camera

being that the devour sits at 150, i don't think they'll price the droid the same as it.

if i was doing the marketing, it would make sense to have them both at 199, and tell people if they want a physical keyboard, buy the droid, if you like touchscreen keyboard, buy the incredible.

the average user won't know what a snapdragon or an A8 is, and for them, they are both plenty fast.

 

[twinturbostang]

how exactly are they not even close? the incredible has a slightly faster processor, internal memory and a higher mp camera

Slightly faster?? Yeah, like twice as fast almost. 550MHz vs. 1GHz

 

[KeilwerthSX90R]

Re: the new Sense UI, does anyone know if the Exchange Activesync support is improved from previous versions? On the Sprint Hero, EAS policies that required remote wipe and a PIN lock were not fully supported. Based on the Desire or other phones already out with the new Sense UI, is there any indication that this has been addressed?

Thanks

 

[Romple]

Slightly faster?? Yeah, like twice as fast almost. 550MHz vs. 1GHz

Clock rate != speed.

well... I should say it's not the only determining factor. The dead horse of the Droid's (and other devices) A8 vs Snapdragon has been beaten enough already though...

 

[Adiliyo]

Clock rate != speed.

well... I should say it's not the only determining factor. The dead horse of the Droid's (and other devices) A8 vs Snapdragon has been beaten enough already though...

exactly.

i'm also talking in terms of the avg consumer, for basic tasks, they are essentially the same in performance.

we all know (i hope) that the arm11 cpu's running at 528mhz are nowhere near the performance of the a8's running at 550/600.

 

[thebizz]

And its the same for an a8 and snappy running at 1ghz

 

[Dapke36]

Slightly faster?? Yeah, like twice as fast almost. 550MHz vs. 1GHz

Keep in mind, Droid has a GPU as well. Also, it's been rumored that the Cortex is more capable in processing than the snapdragon, bringing down the disparity.

 

[doogald]

Based on the fact that Verizon prices the Devour where they do, it looks like they add a premium to the price for a phone with a keyboard.

I suppose it is possible, however, that they will drop the price of the Droid to $150, the Devout to $99. Those price actually seem more reasonable.

 

[Adiliyo]

And its the same for an a8 and snappy running at 1ghz

not quite.

it is faster, but show me a benchmark of some kind that shows it being significantly faster.

i doubt you'll find one that can show a disparity similar to that of the a8 vs arm11 cpus

Based on the fact that Verizon prices the Devour where they do, it looks like they add a premium to the price for a phone with a keyboard.

I suppose it is possible, however, that they will drop the price of the Droid to $150, the Devout to $99. Those price actually seem more reasonable.

i can see something like this happening after the completely pull the eris from the shelves.

 

[Romple]

Keep in mind, Droid has a GPU as well. Also, it's been rumored that the Cortex is more capable in processing than the snapdragon, bringing down the disparity.

"Snapdragon" is the name of the entire architecture. The Incredible has a Qualcomm QSD8650 which includes an AMD z430 GPU (might be called Adreno 200 now).
http://www.qctconnect.com/products/snapdragon.html#Benefits

The Droid's system is an OMAP 3430 made by TI which contains an ARM Cortex A8 microprocessor core and PowerVR SGX GPU. (OMAP™ 3 Processors - OMAP3430)

Cliffnotes: Incredible and Droid both have GPUs.

 

[LCW]

I've used both... have a Nexus...started with stock UI... used for a couple months... now running the Desire (Sense UI) ROM... far superior in many ways... keyboard better, notification bar better (dark vs bright white), calendar way better, contacts and messaging apps much better, web browser much better, Exchange calendar support (not even possible on the Nexus stock UI)... frankly, the Sense UI is better in almost every way where it differs from the vanilla 2.1 UI.... Google should just quit making phones... they suck at it...

 

[slinky317]

Not sure I really like Sense... it can be disabled, correct?

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Not sure I really like Sense... it can be disabled, correct?

Short answer?
No.

I'll explain -
You can disable the launcher. Sense adds a separate framework that gets loaded at boot instead of the standard Android framework.
http://forum.androidcentral.com/htc-hero/8647-remove-sense-ui.html
But don't automatically think this is a drawback. The Sense framework is very nice and very fast. The launcher and widgets, not so much. The stock Android launcher/widgets run better on the sense framework than they do with the AOSP framework, both in benchmarks and real world tests. Unfortunately, you can't use the stock dialer, contacts, calendar, etc etc with the Sense framework, and the HTC versions are slower. So it's a tradeoff.


Long answer?
The Incredible is an HTC product. Extremely modder/hacker friendly, and should see "stock" android ROMs in short order - provided Verizon did not request it get locked down.

I don't think they will. Vzw didn't seem to care that the Droid wasn't locked down, even after the 2.1 update where they could have easily patched it shut. The Eris was a tough nut to crack, simply because it uses a version of the kernel that wasn't very common and nobody really had looked into exploiting it. Once a way was found to root the software, the firmware and hardware is easy to manipulate, as it's designed to be.