An earnest question about Sense(and why you like it)

MrSmith317

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Ok, I'm bored at work reading threads and keep seeing "I love Sense" and I won't buy X manufacturer's phone because I Sense is awesome, etc... Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I'm a minimalist, maybe I'm doing it wrong(or is that only Apple?), but I don't get what the attraction to Sense is. I'm not saying I hate it, but I don't not hate it. So what attracts you to Sense? More importantly(to me), if you like Sense have you ever used an AOSP(Stock) Android phone/ROM and what were your impressions?
 

CeeDotSmith

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I am one of the ones that loves Sense. I had a Nexus One before running vanilla Android and I loved that phone too. The things I love about Sense go as follows:

I love the 7 screens. It may be a tad much for most, but for me... the more real estate the better! And I do use all 7 screens.

The widgets... the widgets... the widgets. :D HTC's interpretation of basic function widgets are incredible (IMO). I love the 'People', 'Agenda', 'Task', 'Clock/Weather' , etc widgets. They are polished and just have an overall look of quality. It's like HTC's team put a lot of thought into what a good widget should look and function like. And they hit the nail on the head.

Overall, the skinning of Sense is soo user friendly. My mom had the Evo 4G and she LOVED it. She is not the most tech saavy individual either. I could go on and on, but those are my main points on why I love Sense. Don't get me wrong, I'd take a Vanilla Android device anyday as well because I'm just an Android enthusiast. But something about Sense keeps me running to HTC with my money. Every HTC phone I've had, I've kept for more than a year. And for me that's a lot because I'm the type of person who tires quickly with devices and I'm quick to replace one when I get bored.
 

MrSmith317

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So a lot of that sounded to me like(maybe only to me) design over function. I mean most of the reason I like vanilla Android is that everything just works. Taken at one of the easiest points, I hate the sense keyboard and don't like that I have to replace it. I'm glad that I can, but I don't feel like I should have to. Also, I've never been a big widget person, mostly because I'm not above using the app directly to get what I want. Maybe not being a big social networking person I missed the boat...
 

CeeDotSmith

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So a lot of that sounded to me like(maybe only to me) design over function. I mean most of the reason I like vanilla Android is that everything just works. Taken at one of the easiest points, I hate the sense keyboard and don't like that I have to replace it. I'm glad that I can, but I don't feel like I should have to. Also, I've never been a big widget person, mostly because I'm not above using the app directly to get what I want. Maybe not being a big social networking person I missed the boat...

Yea, I guess you could say it is more of design. I don't think it performs task differently than Vanila, but rather just performs them in a slightly different way. And of course HTC added little features here and there that are not seen on Vanilla. I do agree about the keyboard; it is not the best. Even with calibrating, I still tend to miss certain key strokes. I enjoy Swype, but I hardly use it because it throws me off. Example, I'd get soo used to Swyping and then I would change phones and have a hard time going back to tapping keys.

And yea, being a widget person I probably appreciate the HTC widgets more when choosing my next devices. I think that is one of the main selling points for a lot of people. Folks that are not too much into widgets or would rather have more customizations for widgets, would care less about HTC's.
 

BBEgo

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I just love the layout and design. My first Android device was the Incredible. While the battery life wasn't very good, the feature set was fantastic. After I rooted it, I tried a few AOSP ROMs. Sure the battery life was Better, but I missed the Sense interface too much to stay with it for long.
Then I got to see Sense 3.0 and 3.5, and I was hooked again. The eye-candy is a big part I'd the experience for me.
I'm a PC gamer, and i look at console versions of the games i play and think to myself I couldn't imagine playing on those platforms because the graphics are so lousy. The PC interface probably seems weird and clunky to console guys, but even they concede that the graphics on PC destroys what their systems can do. I think that's the difference with Sense. It's just PRETTY.
The visual experience is what it's all about. Oh, and the widgets are really nice too. iPhone users gasp when they see my rotating 3D home screen with all the widgets for quick changes to basic settings, scheduling, lists and social media. They're like 'Whoa, that's REALLY cool'. The big screen, amazing camera and 4G all knock them out too. I tell them 'well to be fair, your battery life kills mine. And your phone's operating system appears to be a bit more stable. Sometimes I have to restart if things get weird'.
To me, Sense 3.5 is the best UI out there. When people tell me how cool they think my phone is, I firmly believe that Sense is one of the main reasons why.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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I like the widgets. The overall look of the UI makes the phone elegant. I love the keyboard. I use it in compact mode and it makes it so enjoyable for me to type and accurate. HTC just does a great job skinning Android.

HTC Rezound
 
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CeeDotSmith

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I just love the layout and design. My first Android device was the Incredible. While the battery life wasn't very good, the feature set was fantastic. After I rooted it, I tried a few AOSP ROMs. Sure the battery life was Better, but I missed the Sense interface too much to stay with it for long.
Then I got to see Sense 3.0 and 3.5, and I was hooked again. The eye-candy is a big part I'd the experience for me.
I'm a PC gamer, and i look at console versions of the games i play and think to myself I couldn't imagine playing on those platforms because the graphics are so lousy. The PC interface probably seems weird and clunky to console guys, but even they concede that the graphics on PC destroys what their systems can do. I think that's the difference with Sense. It's just PRETTY.
The visual experience is what it's all about. Oh, and the widgets are really nice too. iPhone users gasp when they see my rotating 3D home screen with all the widgets for quick changes to basic settings, scheduling, lists and social media. They're like 'Whoa, that's REALLY cool'. The big screen, amazing camera and 4G all knock them out too. I tell them 'well to be fair, your battery life kills mine. And your phone's operating system appears to be a bit more stable. Sometimes I have to restart if things get weird'.
To me, Sense 3.5 is the best UI out there. When people tell me how cool they think my phone is, I firmly believe that Sense is one of the main reasons why.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

What he said, LOL. I agree...
 

MrSmith317

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Ok so I'm seeing a lot of "I like the widgets", so it must be that I missed the widget train. I mean yeah I tried a few but I don't need things jumping off at me like that. I do like useful widgets like the toggles(which I would actually prefer in the notification drop down) and audio manager though...hmmm I guess it just keeps coming back to aesthetics. Maybe ICS will open my eyes beyond the purely functional.
 

VickMackey#AC

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I dislike Sense for the following reasons as outlined in this thread:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ht...ird-party-launcher-whats-your-preference.html

and here

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ht...-else-still-annoyed-sense-unread-sms-bug.html

Also, I don't find the widgets that attractive or useful (cannot be resized). Besides, you can get better widets in the market without the enourmous drag and space that Sense takes up on the phone. It takes my phone almost 4 mins to boot, worse only is that dreaded Palm Pre. I'm currently using GO Launcher and of course, this will be my last HTC or skinned phone. Going for a Nexus next time around.
 

MrSmith317

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I dislike Sense for the following reasons as outlined in this thread:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ht...ird-party-launcher-whats-your-preference.html

and here

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ht...-else-still-annoyed-sense-unread-sms-bug.html

Also, I don't find the widgets that attractive or useful (cannot be resized). Besides, you can get better widets in the market without the enourmous drag and space that Sense takes up on the phone. It takes my phone almost 4 mins to boot, worse only is that dreaded Palm Pre. I'm currently using GO Launcher and of course, this will be my last HTC or skinned phone. Going for a Nexus next time around.

Did you try Scott's cleantool? It only uses temp root so it's not likely to break anything...and I and a couple thousand other people have used it to debloat, including sense.
 

vaportrail

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I like the new lockscreen. The widgets are nice, but I just went back to ADW EX which I had running on my Evo with CM7 and I feel back at home. It would be nice if Sense was reduced to widgets with ICS so you can run them with other launchers, sorta like Touchwiz on GTab 10.1.
 

dpham00

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the lock screen with weather is nice. other than that, there are other widgets that can do similarly what htc does. i have seen lock screens similar to sense, but when i tried it at least on my tb, it just didn't run well.
 

MrSmith317

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I searched but couldn't find an answer. Will it for the the Evo 3D? Also, will it wipe the phone?

Here's the original link to the script. [TOOL] - CleanTOOL 2.1.1 - 12/12 - The Relentless Pursuit of Clean! - xda-developers

It will for the most part work for the Evo as well since the root method is the same. You will probably need to edit the script to adjust the packages that are disabled since some won't be the same. If you need help with any of that, just let me know.
 

Evil Hamster

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I bought a Rezound, my first ever Android phone so Sense is what I'm used to.

I tried ADW launcher for a couple days, but it's ugly and offers no noticable performance improvement over Sense. I haven't tried any of the other ones yet, but not in a hurry to because I'm happy with the way my phone works now.

I even downloaded "beautiful" widgets for .10. I'm glad it was only 10 cents because they're also ugly compared to the built-in ones.
 

VidJunky

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I have to say that I haven't really owned a vanilla phone, so this is only experience from phones I've played with or helped a friend with, but Sense makes a big difference to me. The widgets are great as poster after poster has said, but for me the UI is nice. It seems more intuitive to me and seems to put things where you might expect them, and most of all it offers you more options than the other phones I've played with. I just couldn't imagine not having it after owning the Inc for 18 months.
 

Makisupa

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I used the DInc for a year and a half with stock Sense. I had no issues, and was a fan of Sense. Once I got the itch for a new phone I decided to root and flash some roms. The first rom I went to was CM7. It lasted for about two days, before I went to Nils Gingersense. It likely had a lot to do with familiarity, but I was not a fan of vanilla Android. I now have the Rezound and am loving it. I originally planned on waiting for the GN, but Sense (and some specs) were a deciding factor for the Rez.

I guess the main reason I prefer Sense is the aesthetics. With CM7 Beautiful Widgets was ugly. I couldn't find a launcher I liked. The other widgets I use weren't nearly as clean and/or functional.

My de-bloated Rez is perfect in my book. I'm anxious to see what HTC does with ICS.
 

MrSmith317

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Yeah, daddy missed the widget train...oh well its not like I don't have a million other things I probably missed out on too while I was busy being a script monkey in terminal emulator lol.
 

Dukins

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Basically I like Sense for the eye candy. I like having the option of having Sense has an alternate launcher when bored with stock asop type roms or launchers. I rarely use Sense. I prefer Go Launcher for more customizations. I don't hate it, just not to have the option. I had the original droid and it did nothing for me, I quickly sold it. Sense just gave me a sense of a little something extra.
 

TSwiftFan23

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I was hooked because of that damn clock lol. Ever since I decided I wanted an android phone that was what caught my eye and ever since then I was set on getting an HTC android with sense. Sense 3.0 has awesome widgets and a lot of eye candy like the carousel. But I also love HTC phones and the look of them and of course I wanted sense to go with it. Vanilla just isn't the same, it's too plain even with apps from the market to make it look like sense if you wanted. And the weather widget is nice. But basically it's what I've been used to and never even thought about getting anything else, but sometimes I do wish that I liked other phones because I hear that they are super fast and that HTC sense lags but I just can't bring myself to do it lol. I love HTC :)
 

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