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Hi all!
As per topic, actually.
I hope this is the right section to ask for this, as I want to make it specific for the Desire ROMs and not all the ROMs with Sense or No Sense.
I plan on getting an HTC Desire and having a custom ROM right away (that is, after going through all the required process of rooting etc.).
My question is the following:
What should I ask myself when choosing between a Sense and No Sense ROM(other than the UI experience)?
While doing a research through the forum I found some answers, however nothing was too informative. E.g. I found out that if one wants to play games in a custom ROM he should go for a No Sense ROM.
Is it because Sense ROM affects the performance or is it because of the way its settings are that does not interact with games well.
Does this happen to other kinds of applications as well?
Is there anything else that one needs to keep in mind when chosing for a ROM when it comes to Sense or No Sense?
Why go for Sense and why for No Sense?
I realize this is too much to ask, but as I searched through the forum and did not find anything specific, I believe that this will be helpful information for Desire newbies like me.
Thank you!
This may not answer your question in the depth you asked but from my own experience after using roms with and without sense I prefer the ones with sense.
Did not find any appreciable difference in speed but prefered sense roms from a purely aesthtic point of view.
Best idea is to get the phone and try different roms to see what you like. There are so many roms and everybody has their favourite that you will not get a definative answer.
The fun part is, once you are rooted you can test all ROMs and see which work best for you.
You can either spend hours trying to find an answer to this particular question or you can just try a couple of them and see what works best for you.
Sense comes with a couple of wonderful apps, which you lose (like the FM-radio) when you use a non-Sense ROM.
I don't need them per se, so I am currently on WhiteXperience, which is non-sense.
This ROM is extremely fast with low battery usage, which makes it great for playing games.
New ROMs come out every day and they get better and better each day.
A Thread with a question I also want to know since several weeks
If I get a no Sense ROM do I lose all HTC specific programs.
Widgets, ok, no issue. I don't use them either. Use Launcher Pro.
But programs, especially the mail client, how's that? Do I have to search a new one from the Market? I don't think there is one available as powerful as the HTC one.
I prefer using the sense roms cause I get the sense dialer which I much prefer over the stock Android dialer, including the contacts manager. However in using adw launcher as it feels much faster than the sense interface
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Rymon said:
E.g. I found out that if one wants to play games in a custom ROM he should go for a No Sense ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not heard that one before! I've no problems playing games with a Sense ROM.
Regards,
Dave
I love sense and can't do without it now. Sense-less roms feel really empty and boring to me now.
Doesn't really answer your question, but there are a couple ROMs that have the UI portion of sense (i believe its called rosie) removed and then had the dialer/contacts/etc ported to work with stock or alternate launchers. Iirc Cyanogen is one like this... might help you out going that route too..
As to the actual question.. I have noticed that non-sense roms do seem to be a noticeably faster, but its usually cause most are highly tweaked for increased performance and usually include a2sd+. A lot of the sense roms are also tweaked as well, but usually include the froyo a2sd, which doesn't seem to be as much of a performance boost. Onto of which most of the tweaked to the sense based roms are for UI improvements, themes, etc. And not as hardcore performance based...
Just my 2 cents... IMHO... Take it as you will
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
sbdags said:
I love sense and can't do without it now. Sense-less roms feel really empty and boring to me now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a Motorola Milestone previously so I'm used to the stock Android.. if you want something with a little more umph, I really recommend LauncherPro (and LP Plus). My fav launcher by far!
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
mikeandjaimie said:
Doesn't really answer your question, but there are a couple ROMs that have the UI portion of sense (i believe its called rosie) removed and then had the dialer/contacts/etc ported to work with stock or alternate launchers. Iirc Cyanogen is one like this... might help you out going that route too..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just an fyi, but CyanogenMod is most assuredly *nothing* like this.
CyanogenMod is based on AOSP Android, but has been significantly customized from the original source. It owes nothing to the Sense frameworks that HTC have built into their own version of Android.
Regards,
Dave
foxmeister said:
Just an fyi, but CyanogenMod is most assuredly *nothing* like this.
CyanogenMod is based on AOSP Android, but has been significantly customized from the original source. It owes nothing to the Sense frameworks that HTC have built into their own version of Android.
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry yeah I worded it wrong.. I should have said sense-less ROMs that have some of the sense components ported. My bad, but thanks for pointing it out.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Thank you everyone!
I will follow your advice and try out different ROMS of both UIs (Sense and non-Sense) and see which of the two I prefer.
I will most probably start with a Sense ROM and if I stumble upon any issues I will try the other one as well.
Can you please point me towards two or three ROMs of each UI that I should definitely try out?
As for the battery efficiency of the ROM I do not worry. I have stumbled upon a couple of threads that IMHO give the best advice I could get when it comes to managing several phone settings in order to reduce power drainage.
Try this one, you can remove Sense very quickly if you want, but Sense Dialer will stay, which is better anyway.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=741661
You wouldn't go wrong trying the Cyanogenmod ROM, its a non-sense one, but as stated before, very tweaked.
As regards one of the other posters, an excellent replacement for the mail app is K-9, you'll find it in the market, and its been my mail app of choice since I owned my G1, it handles IMAP very well, though I've not tried it with an exchange server, so can't comment there
Hope that helps
Tried many sense and non-sense roms. This is what I found:
HTC Sense roms have:
- Better Gallery, faster and with better zoom
- Better Dialer, faster, sleek and functional
- Better and nicer graphics for contacts
- Better camera application. Touch focus (coming to non-sense), better autofocus
- Better integrated Clipboard and selection mode
- Some other HTC applications for News, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, Weather, etc. But these can be replaced more easily
- Some nice widgets for the above applications. They have a very nice graphic appearance
- (subjective) better memory management, I find AOSP builds too aggressive in some regards
- Nice touches like usb-plugging choice, Bluetooth FTP, etc
- Medium-high auto brightness levels
For Non-Sense roms you get:
- many kernels to choose, OC, UV, etc. At least until htc froyo source is released
- crazy high benchmarks if you OC
- much more configurability, mainly for the interface
- configurable Auto-brightness
- system wide equalizer
- some stuff I don't use (so I don't know well) like OpenVPN
- WiFi N ?
- Cyanogen Renders (in some)
- many new tweaks and releases every week
personally I really don't mind the bugs and quirks you sometimes get in AOSP roms, but I can't really live with the available alternatives to the HTC Gallery, Dialer and Camera.
Anyway these are some of the possible replacements for HTC stuff:
- Email client -> Maildroid
- Dialer -> Dialer One
- Gallery -> .... uuuuhmmmm .... errrr..... either Stock 3D Gallery or Just Pictures. They are both crap in my opinion
- Camera -> Vignette or just use stock Nexus One
- Home Launcher -> Many to choose
- News -> Feedr
- Twitter -> official client
I mean, what will I lose if I choose to use a rom without sense?
Do I get less battery drain?
you'll lose:
Sense Launcher, Sense Widgets - this can be fully replaced by Launcher Plus Pro, or, if you don't like the look of Sense Widgets by ADW.Launcher
Sense programs, like mail, calendar, ...
FM Radio
HTC Sync - you won't be able to sync your Desire calendar with Outlook directly any longer. You'll have to buy third party software to do this via the Google cloud or you use an Exchange Server.
Because the HTC Froyo source got released now, as it seems, you'll also be able to undervolt Sense ROMs now.
However, non Sense ROMs are lighter, more customized and contain some essential features which I miss on Sense ROMs: Bluetooth HID support.
Why get rid of sense?, its amazing!!!
you will also loose htc dialer and htc contacts
I love sense because of the widgets I keep it for that.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Agreed. I love everything about sense. It makes the phone great. If I wanted senseless I could have bought an N1.
Sense is the reason desire is the best smart phone! I would not dream having a smartphone without it...
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Sense is very nice but I see that there are many roms that don't contain it. So, I was wondering if it realy is neasecery, or what is better in a non-sense rom, and if a non-sense rom is less hungry for battery
I have two Desires - one has a Sense ROM and the other is running CyanogenMod. There are one or two small things I prefer about the CyanogenMod ROM, but a great deal more I prefer about Sense, but there are others on this forum who will tell you the opposite, and be equally correct because it is just an opinion.
One thing I will say though is that you will often hear that non-Sense ROMs are "faster" than Sense ROMs. In my experience, if there is a speed difference, you can only really tell in benchmarks - in general use I feel my Sense phone is every bit as fast as my CyanogenMod phone. The same is true on battery life - both seem to sip about the same amount of power.
I don't think there is any real alternative other than trying out a non-Sense ROM for yourself and making your own choice.
Regards,
Dave
You can undervolt Sense roms of course. Also now with S-Off you can remove the Sense apps you dont need easily from the phone.
After playing with a non-Sense rom I am back to a Sense one mainly because I cold not live with the battery drain and I can now customize the Sense apps.
On Alex 1.7 and with light use I can almost go 3 days on a battery... with a non-Sense rom I could barely make 24-36h (wipe before flash and few apps installed, no sync), so it's clear in my case which rom type drains more battery.
Also this Alex 1.7 Sense rom is smooth as silk and I never get any apps or the whole phone crashing (daily occurence in aosp rom for many people?).
Aosp roms are great if you like messing around with your phone all the time, but you cant get away with the fact that Sense roms just work.
Respect to all the rom makers Sense or non.Sense.
Thanks for all the responses, you helped a lot =]
Nutsonfire said:
After playing with a non-Sense rom I am back to a Sense one mainly because I cold not live with the battery drain and I can now customize the Sense apps.
On Alex 1.7 and with light use I can almost go 3 days on a battery... with a non-Sense rom I could barely make 24-36h (wipe before flash and few apps installed, no sync), so it's clear in my case which rom type drains more battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mhh, something wasn't working properly then. With very light use I can also get 3 days battery life.
Else it's difficult to compare, because it heavily depends on how you use the phone. Playing around, surfing, ... drastically reduces battery life.
However, at the moment I use DeFroST 5.0 with HAVS kernel and the battery life looks perfect to me.
Nutsonfire said:
Also this Alex 1.7 Sense rom is smooth as silk and I never get any apps or the whole phone crashing (daily occurence in aosp rom for many people?).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should be fixed now. AOSP roms had a few issues, but at it seems as if they're ironed out.
Nutsonfire said:
Aosp roms are great if you like messing around with your phone all the time, but you cant get away with the fact that Sense roms just work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Somehow true, sometimes, but sense roms also have bugs often, and a not working revision, which gets fixed in the next release.
So if you want a stable ROM use the stock. If you want some customization, use a custom sense rom. If you don't use sense features, replaced it with other apps/widgets/tools, and need some AOSP rom features, then get an AOSP rom.
i dont have a Desire atm, but i plan on getting one soon (or possibly the DHD). I like sense, especially the new one which allows you to theme it. But something i've noticed with sense compared to stock is that HTC have removed a lot of animations. Like when opening an app or closing it. It instantly opens or closes with no animation. Stock android has a sort of zoom in zoom out animations.
From what i understand, HTC have set the options to "Some animations" in the settings by default. Could someone here go into Settings, Sound and Display, Animations, and set it to All Animations and report here if they see any changes?
htc contacts, gallery , dialer , camera and video , radio, weather ,friendstream are light years and galaxies far away from the aosp android ones...
Hi everyone,
I don't know if it's just me, but i've noticed that when browsing the internet, in froyo roms scrolling, and pinch-zooming is quite choppy and not smooth at all ocmpared to sense roms.
Can something be done about it? or is it to do with the libraries and drivers used in these froyo roms?
well i won't my experience with froyo browsers was bad, but i can say nothing beats sense.. i'm using fallah rom (legend based sense rom), and browsing is a treat, add to that the quality video and pics this rom gives, it just fantastic.
I have to say that i havent got any problem with smoothness, but if u want, u can try out another browsers, like Miren Browser
i tried that and that is much more smoother than the stock one, but luckily i havent got any problem with the stock.
Smooth scrolling is in Sense roms. In non-Sense roms like CM is non-smooth scrolling
same here....i used tegro for a while with launcher pro only for the sense browser. i wonder why ....ui of cm is really fast...but browser ugly slow...
+1 here
any Froyo ROM I have used, the browser is very choppy and not smooth like Sense..
adding the flash (in)capability to that is the main reason I switched back to 2.1 sense roms..
lefsp said:
+1 here
any Froyo ROM I have used, the browser is very choppy and not smooth like Sense..
adding the flash (in)capability to that is the main reason I switched back to 2.1 sense roms..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, flash incapability sucks, flash was one of the main reasons i bought a hero instead of a iphone.
I had my Desire for about a year now, and i tried lots of ROM's all from Sense, AOSP to MIUI,
but haven't could decide me of which one i should choose.
I'm not the biggest fan of miui, it's smooth but it's iphonish...
I like lot of the aosp rom's, because of the 'cleanness' and speed.
Sense looks nice but is a bit slow I think, but thats just my opinion.
Have u any suggestions for either a fast sense rom or anything?
I tried most ROM's here on XDA, but i'm always coming back to Oxygen.
300mb+ free space on NAND after system flash ftw. also speed.
Here's my opinions on the different types of roms. MIUI is iphonish yes but it is AOSP and runs really well. Out of the pure AOSP roms, I prefer CM7. The stuff that has been added to it is awesome. It's smooth, stable (avoid the early releases of CM7). Currently though, I am using AceSMod Lite. I found that this AceSMod is a pretty stable and the best battery life rom out of all the Sense roms. I have pretty much tried all roms except the pure Sense 3 roms.
At the end of the day, it's just best to try out all the roms and see which you like the best. There is no "the best" rom out there. They are all different from each other.
More and more Roms, whether they are sense-based, AOSP or MIUI, become very similar, with the main (marginal) differences lie in :
included or excluded apps (especially for Sense roms important: htc bloatware ftw?)
the activity of the developer (-team)
boot flash
hboot layout
Technically most of them use the same kernel (snq anyone?), the same scripts for a2sd (or forks thereof) and such.
So, as you may have noticed already, in the end it's all up to personal preference. I've been trying a lot of roms myself, and usually end up with GingerVillain again.
Why? I like its clean and light set up, the OTA app for upgrading & mods and because I've been running Richard Trip's Roms when defrost was released.
(with included acknowledgement of the CM7 dev team ofc! )
Regarding sense roms, I used SGBS (sense 2.1) for a while and InsertCoin.
AuraxTremeGinger on Oxygenr2 hboot with LauncherPro is the best by far for me. I have sticked with it the longest period of time after flashing all kinds of stuff. It could be a little smoother as it is based on leak, but the stability is epic. So I have created myself fast, reliable ui with lots and lots of space. In your face aosp
erklat said:
So I have created myself ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what it's all about in the end: personal user experience with a phone, what's beneath it - sense, aosp, miui, whatever - doesn't matter all that much, as long as it works for you.
Another one here running GingerVillain 2.7
Was the first ROM I tried and loved it from the start. I added Launcher Pro to it the other day because the home screens were a bit sticky, and now it's running lightning fast!
Love the fact that it has the CM7 tweaks in it and LP adds even more options.
So glad I rooted my phone.
Personal preference comes down to it does
Also, many threads of this exact topic there are
Sent from my CM7.1 Desire using XDA Premium App
Totally agree with meaple. Except for the fact about sense roms, have not tried any them very long, because I like the cleanness of aosp roms like oxygen and redux. This is why I stay with oxygen at the moment (redux gets since nearly three months). Seems to be perfect for me. Also tried cm7, but it has too much hacks which I do not need.
The ROM changes all the time on my phone. I like Oxygen, Redux and sometimes Sense ROM with Sense removed (eg using this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1027804). most of the ROM has one or 2 problems which bugs me.
In the end I find I always go back to my plain stock HTC ROM+rooted+A2SD (and no other hacks). It seems to give me the least amounts of issues.
Im using the latest InsertCoin sense rom (1.0.9) and its very smooth and stable.
I've tried them all from MIUI to the AOSP roms and for me anyway this one feels like the complete package.
My favorites are:
Sense: InsertCoin stable hybrid (2.1 + 3.0)
AOSP: Oxygen
MIUI: none (sorry MIUI fans)
I actually cuite like sense roms, it's just that.. i feel like it uses a lot of power even when it's on standby. That is cuite annoying i think.
Right now i'm using Oxygen though.
no matter what ROM I go to, I always go crying back to cyanogenmod ... it's reliability, performance and general features are unbeatable by anything else.. simply the most awesome ROM available
CM(Nightlies) hands down.
Tried a few sense roms, but I actually hated them.
Even when they are cleaned of most of the bloatware,they still feel overloaded to me.
Haven't tried MIUI so far.
Reflex S 2.1.7. with gingerbread by Neophyte
Been using RCmixS until the recent InsertCoin update(1.0.9).. Two of the best sense ROMs available..
As the title says, I'm interested to know which os / skin you are using (/ will use when the ota is available) and why? Whether you're using the new stock ROM or the latest version of android. Please share your experiences too (performance, battery life and bugs).
Thanks!
I like Sense WAY more than stock AOSP...
It adds so much functionality to android, and i like the look of it much more..
With Sense 5, it is smooth as ever so no need to have any aosp rom just for seed's sake
Don't like AOSP, never have.
That said I actually prefer Sense 4+ over Sense 5, from a purely visual point of view.
AOSP all the way. I just love how good multitasking is in CM10.2. On sense (even 4.2.2) if I switch to another app via recent apps i still get 0,5-2sec lag. The screen just shows a screenshot of my device and then loads the app... Having more apps open means more lag. On AOSP if it runs out of ram it just suspends the app... next time you open the app it reloads.
I can have 4 apps open in aosp and move between them in what seems like nanoseconds
On Sense if i have 4 apps running and i try to switch between them it always reloads and there is atleast 1sec lag.
AOSP has always been smoother aswell (atleast for me). Sense 5 improved a lot but AOSP still seems smoother.
Edit: I do like the way recent apps are shown in Sense 5... AOSP recent apps is visually more appealing but Sense 5 recent apps just seems so much more comfortable to use.
Comparison threads are not allowed
Where are the cakes?