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Touchwiz UI vs Sense UI on Android

Hi guys,
Saw the Samsung Galaxy S and love it! The hardware is great!
But I read a lot of previews that the Touchwiz UI is not as good/fun as the Sense UI by HTC.
What's so good about the Sense UI and what's so bad about Touchwiz?
Also, if there's a cooked rom for Samsung Galaxy S with Sense UI, will it affect the way HD video is being played on the phone or even the HD recording? I'm sure Samsung did some tweaking on the software (maybe Touchwiz media player is better than Sense media player?) to fully harness the hardware capabilities. So will there be a performance drop if Sense UI is used instead of the stock Touchwiz UI?
Thanks for your replies in advance.

wulunzun said:
Hi guys,
Saw the Samsung Galaxy S and love it! The hardware is great!
But I read a lot of previews that the Touchwiz UI is not as good/fun as the Sense UI by HTC.
What's so good about the Sense UI and what's so bad about Touchwiz?
Also, if there's a cooked rom for Samsung Galaxy S with Sense UI, will it affect the way HD video is being played on the phone or even the HD recording? I'm sure Samsung did some tweaking on the software (maybe Touchwiz media player is better than Sense media player?) to fully harness the hardware capabilities. So will there be a performance drop if Sense UI is used instead of the stock Touchwiz UI?
Thanks for your replies in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find touchwhiz very ugly. Sense UI is nice and simple, ORIGINAL (the new touchwhiz on the galaxy s is an iphone knock off IMO) and it has GREAT SOCIAL INTERGRATION like in sense ui 2.1 you can import all your facebook friends as actual contacts now.
I prefer the Sense UI over touchwhiz.

UberMario said:
I find touchwhiz very ugly. Sense UI is nice and simple, ORIGINAL (the new touchwhiz on the galaxy s is an iphone knock off IMO) and it has GREAT SOCIAL INTERGRATION like in sense ui 2.1 you can import all your facebook friends as actual contacts now.
I prefer the Sense UI over touchwhiz.
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Click to collapse
I will never understand why people would want a full screen weather plugin. It's impractical and any kind continuous animation drains your battery very fast.
TouchWiz may not be as funky as HTC Sense, so all the < 15 consumers will go for that. I like the well-organized main screen of the TouchWiz interface. It's showing useful information (TEXT) put together from various widgets.

HTC sense is a work of art. The best OS GUI I have ever used on any hardware platform ( PC, Phone, Microwave oven ).
I have an Aria and just got the Captivate and have used it for 24 hrs.
So on Captivate, even with Launcherpro loaded, Touchwiz is, by comparison, clunky, ugly, and often requires two or three taps to accomplish a task that is done in one task in HTC sense.
However, Touchwiz is light years beyond windows mobile 6.5 which just disgusts me to even type about it.

Can you put Sense on a Captivate?

LauncherPro or ADWLauncher are the best, production company skins/themes always lack key elements that make android so snappy and crisp as it should be enjoyed

So I have played with sense on the HD2, Hero, Magic, and MyTouch Slide, (not counting the g1 bc is was always slow and never really stable).. I have used TouchWiz on the Vibrant and a behold 2....
Sense was really clean and simple to me back in the day.. The black on the lo res screens just look good to me, I loved the flash lite, Every aspect it touched on just got a little cleaner.. that said it slowed the phone down horribly.. The Slide has changed that.. it seems responsive and more customizable to the average consumer... hopefully that wont just be a mytouch series thing.. but no live wallpapers and no bettercut,
Touchwiz was taken off the behold 2 as soon as I could.. It was just an epic fail.. especially after using almost every android phone so far... I dont even have to explain myself on that one... And then the vibrant came out... I was really reluctant until I got to play with it... Im more pleased with the ui but its not a step up from vanilla.. not like sense is..
its a personal preference but I prefer vanilla android...

Sense 3.0

Just saw the New Sense 3.0 on the newly announced Sensation. Will our Desire S going to have a taste of that new UI?
Sent from my HTC Desire S

It depends on how the hardware can cope with the new sense. Probably, but not likely

So indeed the answer is no... Have a look at engadget website (I am not allowed to post links yet...)
"HTC Sense 3.0 will only support Sensation, EVO 3D, Flyer and newer devices, older hardware left behind"

Okay, I've already read the article. But what would be Android's next version? Will it have hardware specifics too?

titus1 said:
Okay, I've already read the article. But what would be Android's next version? Will it have hardware specifics too?
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The Desire S has 2.3.3 Gingerbread, which is currently the latest version of Android for phones. As for Ice Cream (of unknown numbering), there's no telling what hardware requirements Google may impose, so we won't know if Ice Cream will make its way to the Desire models.
TheUndutchable said:
So indeed the answer is no... Have a look at engadget website (I am not allowed to post links yet...)
"HTC Sense 3.0 will only support Sensation, EVO 3D, Flyer and newer devices, older hardware left behind"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not entirely true. In their first tweet, which everyone is quite well aware of, HTC said that Sense 3.0 won't be supported on their older models (including the Desire S) due to the limitations of their older hardware.
However, in a later tweet, which many people may have overlooked, they mentioned that while they can't port the whole Sense 3.0, they have been trying to port other improvements that aren't so performance-dependent to the older models.
As a result, while older hardware may not be able to run Sense 3.0 to the satisfaction of their QA division, there are other features that can be brought in. In fact, from the leaked HTC Desire Gingerbread ROM, we know that HTC is trying to bring, amongst other things, the very useful Fast Boot feature to the old HTC Desire. Fast Boot does not eat up additional CPU cycles or occupy extra RAM in order to realise its benefits, so it is an ideal candidate for them to bring to their older models without hampering their performance.
Lastly, if it helps you sleep better, rest assured that the developers at xda are working hard at porting the inevitable leaked ROMs to the old models, though the quality of the experience is anyone's guess.

The guys in the desire hd forum have a leaked sense 3.0 rom....stumbling block seems to be the screen resolution.
Im sure sense 3.0 will be unofficially supported on most of the 2010/2011 htc devices
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using Tapatalk

Whether it gets it officially is one question.
But this article shows that people are already trying Custom ROMS on the Desire HD with it.....so once our device is unlocked/rooted it will only be a matter of time
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/desire-hd-gets-the-first-ever-pyramid-port-yes-sense-3-0-too/

the hd2 with old outdated hardware even got the port. so clearly htc is lying abt compatability. they just want the new sense on their latest flagship phones so ppl will buy it.

The reason for haddware capability is that the sense takes up 3gb storage, the sensation has 4gb rom, but 1gb accessible; the 3gb is used up by the rom + sense
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

olyloh6696 said:
the hd2 with old outdated hardware even got the port. so clearly htc is lying abt compatability. they just want the new sense on their latest flagship phones so ppl will buy it.
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This has been discussed ad nauseum on xda, but it always bears repeating to note that the HD2 is anything but outdated. A 1 GHz single-core processor and 512 MB RAM is a very common spec in the current range of phones. By the same yardstick, we would be calling the Galaxy S and HTC Desire 'outdated' as well.
I won't discount the possibility that they're doing this to increase the appeal of the Sensation, but let's keep in mind that Sense 3.0 has only some incremental updates. People won't go for the Sensation just for some cool 3D animations and a fancy lockscreen, and for the same reasons, a lot of us won't miss it too. Besides, they do need some differentiating factor for their flagship model that takes advantage of its hardware.

well the reason i consider the hd2 outdated hardware is that it has the 1st gen cpu snapdgragon, which has been suceeded by the mich more powerful effiecitne 2nd gen. S if htc ae limiting the update on the dhd for
'a weak hardware'(2nd gen cpu) than the hd2 (1st gen) gets the update working smooth
so clearly it isnt much of a hardware requirement!

I agree with you. There's nothing to stop us from running Sense 3.0 on our current phones, but to my knowledge, the Sense 3.0 port isn't always that smooth on the DHD, let alone the HD2. The obvious problems with screen resolution aside, it's true that it's working so far, but such tests have so far been done at a low level of activity (fresh boot), and without all the cached programs and background processes one would expect in a typical Android phone that is used on a daily basis. When you start factoring in the demands of placed upon a phone to complete everyday tasks, lags and other issues will start cropping up, especially with an interface as heavy as Sense 3.0.
I mean, you could run AutoCAD on your home desktop now, and it might even work with something simple like drawing a rectangle, but that doesn't mean it'll continue to work so smoothly when you're using it for a normal workload, like designing an automobile. Sounds somewhat exaggerated, I know, but hardware does matter where a smooth user experience is concerned.

Madrenergic said:
I agree with you. There's nothing to stop us from running Sense 3.0 on our current phones, but to my knowledge, the Sense 3.0 port isn't always that smooth on the DHD, let alone the HD2. The obvious problems with screen resolution aside, it's true that it's working so far, but such tests have so far been done at a low level of activity (fresh boot), and without all the cached programs and background processes one would expect in a typical Android phone that is used on a daily basis. When you start factoring in the demands of placed upon a phone to complete everyday tasks, lags and other issues will start cropping up, especially with an interface as heavy as Sense 3.0.
I mean, you could run AutoCAD on your home desktop now, and it might even work with something simple like drawing a rectangle, but that doesn't mean it'll continue to work so smoothly when you're using it for a normal workload, like designing an automobile. Sounds somewhat exaggerated, I know, but hardware does matter where a smooth user experience is concerned.
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good point. anyway, at the end of the day, it really depends what the user prefers; the latest best software to compromise for a slower, slightly laggy phone, or for the official updates.
IMO, i will be quite happy with what htc have to bring to the Desire S (their version of 3.0) I'm not to bothered about the fancy 3d spinning cubes, but i'd like the new lockscreen, and weather widgets (we should hopefully get the new weather thing as the WP7 HD7has it on a single core 1st Gen Snapdragon CPU)

olyloh6696 said:
good point. anyway, at the end of the day, it really depends what the user prefers; the latest best software to compromise for a slower, slightly laggy phone, or for the official updates.
IMO, i will be quite happy with what htc have to bring to the Desire S (their version of 3.0) I'm not to bothered about the fancy 3d spinning cubes, but i'd like the new lockscreen, and weather widgets (we should hopefully get the new weather thing as the WP7 HD7has it on a single core 1st Gen Snapdragon CPU)
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Definitely. That's why we love xda. There's just so much choice and freedom to do what we want to our phone that suits our tastes. I hope the devs here manage to hack Sense 3.0 so that everyone can flash it to enjoy. I, on the other hand, have to be content with what Samsung gives me. Cheers.

[Q] Is it time for HTC to change it up?

We have come to love HTC for their brilliant designs, powerful hardware, and impressive software advancements, but as a long time HTC fanatic I can't help but feel like HTC is resting on their laurels. I am an EVO 4g owner at the moment and had the privilege to play with an EVO 3d. The 3d is a great device but the advancements are not that apparent at first glance. More specifically sense. If you have ever spent some time with s sense 2.1 device it seems to be basically the same. The changes are mostly cosmetic. If I wanted more of the same I would go buy another EVO 4g. I a not angry or anything but I will be skipping the 3d. HTC hassle far not impressed with their dual core offerings and I will hold out for something else from another manufacturer. What I am saying is having an OS with "basically" the same "feel" is getting old. The power of the 3d has its appeal for custom roms but sense has lost a lot of its appeal primarily because stock Android has made vast improvements.

You wouldn't take a 3D over a regular Evo?
With all due respect, unless you're using apps that benefit from a dual-core processor, you're really not going to see a difference between your already powerful 1 GHZ Snapdragon in your Evo and the 3D's dual core.

I would take it if it were given to me but my point more specifically was about sense. The hardware is powerful, but the software HTC uses is getting to be old. That is all. They need to refresh it. Basically what I am saying is that I think its time for HTC to offer a new "experience" with their phones.

Did you miss sense 2.1/3.0 or something? How about the new unibody designs, or the improvement of the speaker grilles? Oh! How about making the first ever WiMax and LTE phones.
Good, cause it never happened. /s
You know who needed to change it up... Motorola. You know who changed it up? Motorola. HTC is constantly innovating, maybe not in a way that's obvious or important to you but there are many people who love HTC devices just the way they are. HTC is moving, constantly improving. The sense overlay on gingerbread is amazing. If you haven't used it yet, don't bash it. HTC is doing good things...

Wasn't the first evo basically an HD2 anyway?

BenKranged said:
Wasn't the first evo basically an HD2 anyway?
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Basically with a different cosmetic changes, different os on the nand, different radio, etc etc.
But I agree with the post on Motorola. HTC did change a lot with Sense cosmetically, but what do they really need to change internally? 2.3.3(or .4?) is the base os used for Sense 3.0. Motorola is still on Motoblur that is eh....Still not so well...

I have used sense 2.1/3.0 (MIKG is great ) and while it is good cosmetically it really doesn't add anything but umm...cosmetics. I am not talking hardware here as stated. Sense just doesn't do much under the hood. All of HTC's advancements are all on the surface.

I think HTC has to be a little more efficient with their widgets and I would be happy. A 4x4 widget to show me my bookmarks seems like a waste of space to me.

I don't understand the arguement that HTC is falling behind or needs to change things up. Virtually all other Android overlays have remained the same, also. Touchwhiz, Motoblur, etc. for the most part look the same since they were created. HTC Sense is generally accepted as the superior interface, so why change something that isn't broken? Certainly on the hardware department, HTC is on par with the rest of them and the software is robust and very visually appealing. The widgets are huge and amazing, why change it? I love the changes brought by Sense 3.0 including the 3D effects and Quick settings tab. Sure, its not a giant leap foward.. but how can you leap foward if you are already ahead?

bellerophon90 said:
I don't understand the arguement that HTC is falling behind or needs to change things up. Virtually all other Android overlays have remained the same, also. Touchwhiz, Motoblur, etc. for the most part look the same since they were created. HTC Sense is generally accepted as the superior interface, so why change something that isn't broken? Certainly on the hardware department, HTC is on par with the rest of them and the software is robust and very visually appealing. The widgets are huge and amazing, why change it? I love the changes brought by Sense 3.0 including the 3D effects and Quick settings tab. Sure, its not a giant leap foward.. but how can you leap foward if you are already ahead?
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Click to collapse
I never thought of it that way, you make a very good point. Sense is a giant step ahead than all of the other UIs, maybe because they are so successful we expect them to always innovate?
What I would love from HTC is a very nice clock that is 4x1 and the ability to resize widgets. If they do that I am a happy camper lol .

agreed......hardware is blah

How many sense phones can u have? You won't buy an EVO 3d for the software if you own an EVO. Only for the spec increase. You already know what you're getting and what's the fun in that.

[Q] Why have Sense

Ok, maybe its just me.
Theres a lot of complaining about Sense, people on hear who would rather have any sensless rom.
Not wishing to sound like im causing an argument, but why do people who hate Sense, buy HTC phones. And not buy another Android phone, theres loads out there, some better than my Sensation, some worse.
Personally i like sense, running ICS, with Sense 3.5, and love it, but veryone has there own likes.
So why buy an HTC phone, if you dont want Sense?

the only thing i use sense for is for beats audio if it didnt need sense for it please say so then im gonna take an sensless rom don't see the point of sense exept keeping my homescreen to reload when much ram is used and as u know it uses at its own already around 50 mb of ram

I bougth my sensation just because the Sense, otherwise I would bought a Galaxy S2.
I like the sense features, the eye candy look and the widgets.
I recon that Sense is a resource eater, and it is has some bugs. It has been like this since touchFlo3D (predecessor of Sense in Windows mobile). Nothing is for free in this life.
The good thing is that there is a lot of options on this forum to change what we got from HTC.

ypsmav said:
I bougth my sensation just because the Sense, otherwise I would bought a Galaxy S2.
I like the sense features, the eye candy look and the widgets.
I recon that Sense is a resource eater, and it is has some bugs. It has been like this since touchFlo3D (predecessor of Sense in Windows mobile). Nothing is for free in this life.
The good thing is that there is a lot of options on this forum to change what we got from HTC.
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Agreed.
I just think Sense is the best OEM 'skin' and actually adds some useful features.

I want to like Sense, but I don't like the coloring scheme from 3.5 onwards. I felt black and gray looked better than just flat gray. The slider bar was nicer too, more rounded, not so big. 3.5/3.6 feel like a Step 2 childs toy. That, and it's so heavy. You can feel the lag going from the newest ARHD ICS to Virtuous Quattro, and you can feel it going from ARHD Gingerbread going to CM7. I'll take what makes my phone perform best - and looks best.

I bought a sensation for the specs, not for sense. It was the cheapest alternative.

ungraph said:
I bought a sensation for the specs, not for sense. It was the cheapest alternative.
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+1
I picked my sensation xe as an upgrade purely for the 1.5 ghz processor, first thing I did was install aosp rom and custom kernal. Sense seems such a massive drain on the phones resources, so much quicker without it. But I played with sense long enough to see it is very pretty, with a lot of novelty wow factor touches. For me I want performance over looks, my sensation looks identical to my previous rom on my last phone, just a hell of a lot more powerful
sent from my Sensation XE

Sense is getting better though. Its a brilliant idea.
Sent From My steak using A1 steak sauce app (Sensation)

Sense 3.5 will be coming to the HTC Sensation and with it it will bring much more speed.
What your forgetting, is Gingerbread never had pure dual-core support. Ice Cream Sandwich will bring that pure support and should, in theory, unleash the beast within.
Sense 3.5 was also initially aimed at lower end phones and because of this is much much less of a resource hog. If it can run speedily on the HTC Sensation XL and even on the HTC Explorer, imagine the possibilities on a dual-core phone? I've seen a screenshot of the task manager on a 4.0.3 build of ICS with Sense 3.5 and there was 400MB of RAM left over the measly 100MB were lucky to get whilst running Sense 3.0.
Hopefully somewhere in the near future we will have Sense 4.0. In fact, Sense 4.0 COULD make it into the final build of ICS for the Sensation. Looking at HTC's trend, I wouldn't count on it but I certainly wouldn't completely call it off.
People buy HTC phones because they are beautiful not only on the interface, but on the outside too and in the naming. Your iPhone isn't put together using an aluminum unibody is it? No, it's put together using cheap sheets of glass on top of a piece of plastic that says 'Apple'.
People buy HTC's mainly because they have common sense. HTC have the best build quality, the best support (normally), the best interface, and even sometimes have the quickest update rollouts. The EVO 3D was supposed to get ICS in January. That's a really fast update considering how long it took then to get the Desire HD on Gingerbread!
I love HTC.
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using XDA App

It just makes "sense" to use it
After all, you did all buy the HTC Sensation, haha
In the end it's all down to personal preference anwyay

I dont prefer sense but if it can be atleast aosp themed faux it
Sent From My steak using A1 steak sauce app (Sensation)

vabeachfc3s said:
I dont prefer sense but if it can be atleast aosp themed faux it
Sent From My steak using A1 steak sauce app (Sensation)
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Well that's the beauty of Android over iOS. We get a choice

Sense vs. Touch wiz

I don't want to start a bunch of trouble here I just want give my opinion. As a long time sense user from back when it was windows mobile 6.5 to my sensation that I loved so much. I always notice the battle between sense and aosp. I liked many things about both and that's why I was using hybrids. In the end we where all chasing something. The sensation had too much lag and not enough power to drive htc sense. Sense was cool but bulky and slowing it down. I guess I was in denial that I baught a great phone and it never turned out how I hoped it would. I also noticed how many people talking bad about Touch WIZ. So many people said such bad thing about it and Samsung that I never even thought about it. Well with all the problems I had i decided to jump ship to the Galaxy s4. Let me tell you how impressed I am with the performance and Touch Wiz. Touch wiz is like the best of both worlds and has such a great layout. Many feature I never new existed. I just want to share this with you and hope some of you can relate to my frustrations I had with htc. The grass is greener on the other side and I wish I hadnt been so conviced by what I hear everyone say here on xda. In the end they were just people's opinions just like mine. Goodbye sensation people we had a good run. Many of you helped me so much. Hope to see some of you on the other side.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

Well, its hard to compare when you're comparing with Samsung's Top Notch Flagship.
I came from Samsung W, and boy I was so amazed by HTC I sworn I'll never go back to Samsung(unless its free or I just happen to pick one up somewhere).
From build quality to performance, (lets not compare S4, its completely overpowered), I can make my buddy with his S3 cry like a kid.
Sense Vs TouchWiz is strictly arguable, but I dare not say which is better. But when both placed beside AOSP its like child's play to me. Sense UI is known for its conveniences and functionality, and TouchWiz is more on userbased experience. So its never really comparable any way. And TouchWiz 3.0 is quite old already, so in the front of powerful device like S4, fluidity is a must or else Samsung better pack up.
All above is just my personal opinion. And the part about S3 is true because I can play most games more smoother on Senny(mostly because I have lots of RAM by killing nearly 50% of built in app in AOSP, never know. I get up to 300 free when I uninstalled default launcher)

of course, at least comparison should be fair.
take your time and compare S4 vs HTC One (on same chipsets).

I think it is really all based on individual opinion no matter where you go you will have lovers and haters in everything. It really just depends on what you like and what you use it for.

If you want to compare either do HTC sensation vs galaxy s2 or HTC one and galaxy s4. Either of those should be fair comparisons as they were from the same time period and is more fair than sensation vs s4. I think the problem you had with the sensation was the low ram and the (now) outdated processor
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I bet if you compare Sensation's with it's fake twin brother, Samsung S2, I'm willing to bet my left nut HTC will send Touchwiz home with a hat trick

sense vs touchwiz...
I cannot say which one is better but if you need eye candy with beautiness,Sense is much better but if you are a lover of nature or need something lite and easy to use,Touchwiz is better.

Wow you're telling the exact same story that happened to me I also was never really satisfied with my sensation's performence, even with AOSP ROMs. Some time ago I decided to buy a SGS4 and I was impressed by TW. It really is the best of both worlds, the functionality of a real UI like Sense and the speed and smoothness of AOSP. But still I have to say I somehow miss Sense. It's bulky but a very beautiful and elegant skin which worked super smooth even under 4.0.4 (Sense 4.1). And now I see that some devs are porting Sense 5 to the SGS4 and already have a working and pretty stable version of it and it makes me happy that I will be able to use Sense even though I'm not using HTC.
Sent from my flying Galaxy S4 GT-I9505

.TanTien said:
Wow you're telling the exact same story that happened to me I also was never really satisfied with my sensation's performence, even with AOSP ROMs. Some time ago I decided to buy a SGS4 and I was impressed by TW. It really is the best of both worlds, the functionality of a real UI like Sense and the speed and smoothness of AOSP. But still I have to say I somehow miss Sense. It's bulky but a very beautiful and elegant skin which worked super smooth even under 4.0.4 (Sense 4.1). And now I see that some devs are porting Sense 5 to the SGS4 and already have a working and pretty stable version of it and it makes me happy that I will be able to use Sense even though I'm not using HTC.
Sent from my flying Galaxy S4 GT-I9505
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Didn't know this well cmon pay the rezound some mind. Sense 5 s4 is great tho
Sent from my Infected Rezound using xda app-developers app

Sense is the best
I think, Sense is the best choice

You come to an Italian restaurant asking customers if they like pasta or sushi ,of course everyone will say pasta ...question more suited I n general android forum not here ...