Quick Thoughts On Sense 5

[irishonion]

I thought you had said sprint.

Two different people

 

[Aquila]

The menu bar intrudes into too many apps and makes game play difficult.

This is ironic because it's mostly Samsung's "fault".

Lack of settings toggles is mind blowing. No lock screen widgets. At least for now.

This is the main reason they should never have released with 4.1

My problem with sense 5 is it seems at least a generation behind touchwiz.

For the above reason, you're right.. but it's because they're a version of Android behind.

Many little things add up to a boring and frustrating experience.

Yep. On this one I'd call Samsung and HTC even.

Overall, I like how Sense looks and interacts better than TouchWiz, but TouchWiz comes with many more features. IMO, compared to stock as a UI they're both terrible, as a feature set, HTC's camerea is much better, while Samsung's camera and several other features are better than stock. Those features aren't worth the trade-off IMO, but if stock was imaginary and the choice was Sense or TouchWiz, because for aesthetics I'd want sense, but for functionality I'd want TouchWiz, I'd buy TouchWiz every time. Android is awesome because you can make it look like whatever you want, therefore functionality has to win.

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If Sense 5 had half the features of Touchwiz, we would be saying the same thing about the One.

Exactly correct, I agree.

 

[ahaxton]

It's just Touchwiz. They need to optimize it better. If Sense 5 had half the features of Touchwiz, we would be saying the same thing about the One.

Sent from my HTC One using Android Central Forums

I don't know that I agree with that. Keep in mind this is just supposition on my part, but it seems to fit the facts. I believe the reason the One launched with 4.1.2 instead of 4.2.2 is so that they could take their time and optimize the experience. I've used the S4 and while I wouldn't use the L word, I would say that the experience is not as smooth as with the One. The One is the smoothest Android phone I've ever used, and after three weeks of use, is still as smooth as the day I brought it home. It is my belief that it is because HTC put an enormous amount of effort into optimizing the code, without having to jump ship half way through and start again with a new code base. Where Samsung had about four months to optimize their code for 4.2.2 along with merging in the features they?d probably already been working with on top of 4.1.2, HTC had nine months to get the software ready for 4.1.2 on the One. So, it is again only my belief that if HTC put the crazy amount of software features into the One, they would have taken the extra time to smooth out the experience before setting the phone loose on the world.

 

[Xsie]

Widget locker works pretty good for lock screen widgets. There are several apps that can get power toggles in the notification bar and look much nicer than the touchwiz implementation. That green Samsung is using just clashes with everything. I still love my gs4 but Samsung has no interest in making their ui consistent, fluid, and eye pleasing. HTC is at the far opposite end of the spectrum. I'm curious to see what a 4.2.2 update holds for the One.

Posted via Android Central App

I use Notification Toggle. If anyone misses having the toggles when you pull down your notification bar, this app is for you. And you can have so many different kinds of toggles. Worth checking out!

Sent from my HTC One using Android Central Forums

 

[kbp08tls]

I don't know that I agree with that. Keep in mind this is just supposition on my part, but it seems to fit the facts. I believe the reason the One launched with 4.1.2 instead of 4.2.2 is so that they could take their time and optimize the experience. I've used the S4 and while I wouldn't use the L word, I would say that the experience is not as smooth as with the One. The One is the smoothest Android phone I've ever used, and after three weeks of use, is still as smooth as the day I brought it home. It is my belief that it is because HTC put an enormous amount of effort into optimizing the code, without having to jump ship half way through and start again with a new code base. Where Samsung had about four months to optimize their code for 4.2.2 along with merging in the features they?d probably already been working with on top of 4.1.2, HTC had nine months to get the software ready for 4.1.2 on the One. So, it is again only my belief that if HTC put the crazy amount of software features into the One, they would have taken the extra time to smooth out the experience before setting the phone loose on the world.

You make a great point, and the importance of the part I emphasized in bold can't be overstated. The fact that Sense 5 runs great on last-generation hardware (E4GLTE) points to the great care HTC took in optimizing the code. Too many people get hung up on the 4.2.2 vs 4.1.2 debate, blindly believing in the "it's a newer version of Android, therefore it's better" mantra. No matter what the base is, it's all in how the code is implemented by the manufacturer (as long as it's at least within a generation of the latest version).

 

[Godric37]

You make a great point, and the importance of the part I emphasized in bold can't be overstated. The fact that Sense 5 runs great on last-generation hardware (E4GLTE) points to the great care HTC took in optimizing the code. Too many people get hung up on the 4.2.2 vs 4.1.2 debate, blindly believing in the "it's a newer version of Android, therefore it's better" mantra. No matter what the base is, it's all in how the code is implemented by the manufacturer (as long as it's at least within a generation of the latest version).

If there was a 'killer feature' in the 4.2 i guess i might be a little irked that its not available but as far as i can tell 4.2 is pretty minor. That said i agree fully that HTC went with the winning strategy by sticking with 4.1 which allowed them to release 3-4 weeks before the S4 did. Allowed them to have a more solid code base and the proof is in the pudding.. its sold like a rock and smooth as hell. Not only that Rumor is 4.2 is about 2-3 weeks away for the HTC One and that will include sense 5.1 which is going to add a bunch of things people have been wanting (better control toggles, a solution for the menu bar at the bottom, etc)

 

[bhavanchopra]

im an android noob, been a blackberry and iphone user prior to my new htc one.. need some help and advice.. which is better to use, the htc sense applications grid, or a google home screen? at the moment i have so many home screens, i have the blinkfeed one, and then lots of google home screens with all my apps, but then i also have the htc applications launcher, and it all just seems a bit confusing to me. im also worried that this may be draining my battery, by having so many pages with duplicated apps.. is it better to have all my apps on google home screens and launch from there? or better to delete all the app shortcuts from the google screens and even delete them, leaving only the htc blinkfeed screen with access to the htc app grid launcher... any help would be appreciated, im a total newby to android and would like to know what to do, to enhance my usability and battery life... thanks

 

[kbp08tls]

im an android noob, been a blackberry and iphone user prior to my new htc one.. need some help and advice.. which is better to use, the htc sense applications grid, or a google home screen? at the moment i have so many home screens, i have the blinkfeed one, and then lots of google home screens with all my apps, but then i also have the htc applications launcher, and it all just seems a bit confusing to me. im also worried that this may be draining my battery, by having so many pages with duplicated apps.. is it better to have all my apps on google home screens and launch from there? or better to delete all the app shortcuts from the google screens and even delete them, leaving only the htc blinkfeed screen with access to the htc app grid launcher... any help would be appreciated, im a total newby to android and would like to know what to do, to enhance my usability and battery life... thanks

First off, I wouldn't worry too much about additional battery drain due to multiple homescreens with duplicated apps.

As far as basic set-up, you're going to get almost as many options as there are people in this forum. For homescreens - generally, you'll want to put a few widgets (clock/weather, music, contacts, calendar, whatever) and maybe some shortcuts to your most-used apps, arranged in folders if you wish. As far as the app drawer, I like to use the "custom" option, with my most-used apps arranged at the top and in folders.
I would go through the post your homescreens thread in the stickies to get a general idea.

 

[Godric37]

im an android noob, been a blackberry and iphone user prior to my new htc one.. need some help and advice.. which is better to use, the htc sense applications grid, or a google home screen? at the moment i have so many home screens, i have the blinkfeed one, and then lots of google home screens with all my apps, but then i also have the htc applications launcher, and it all just seems a bit confusing to me. im also worried that this may be draining my battery, by having so many pages with duplicated apps.. is it better to have all my apps on google home screens and launch from there? or better to delete all the app shortcuts from the google screens and even delete them, leaving only the htc blinkfeed screen with access to the htc app grid launcher... any help would be appreciated, im a total newby to android and would like to know what to do, to enhance my usability and battery life... thanks

I'm a bit of a noob too but caught on pretty quickly. There are basically 2 views in android when you hit the center toggle touch icon on the task bar at the bottom. 1st main view here is your shortcut page which you spend most of your time in... you can have custom backgrounds, widgets, etc.... If you scroll all the way to the left on the shortcut view you will get to HTC One's BlinkFeed page. you can't get rid of it but you can more or less ignore it if you want. Then there is your app page (solid black background) which display almost all of your installed apps.

I basically just removed any shortcuts to apps I know ill rarely ever need from your shortcut pages and put the most most used ones on the home page... You can specify which shortcut screen you have to be your homepage... it doesn't need to be Blink.

As for battery life just look at Settings>power>usage. That will give you a basic over view as for whats using that battery the most. let your phone idle for a few hours and take a look at it. Phone Idle should be the main thing using the battery at this time.