We’re prone to mentioning HTC Sense in our reviews of their Android phones. But what exactly is Sense, and why do we keep bleating on about it?
What is HTC Sense?
‘Bundled’ with all their Android phones since the HTC Hero, Sense adds several clever functions to your phone, and some extra customisation to Android.
Because Android smartphones are already very customisable, often phone makers take this chance to smother users with rubbishy home-made apps and services.
This often makes phones harder to use, or require a lot of app and widget deleting, but with HTC, they’ve really added to the phone without getting in the way.
What does it look like?
Compared to other Android phones, the homepage (the main screen you arrive on after switching on your phone) will look a bit more sumptuous than other Android smartphones; with an animated rolodex-style clock, where numbers will spin around as time passes.
This widget can also be customised; switch it to an analogue clock with hands, move it to another screen to the side, or even get rid of it.
Another nice touch is that it displays the time alongside current weather conditions, not simply saying 'cloudy', but surrounding your clock with the appropriate weather conditions, bright sunlight, moody clouds and the rest.
You also can choose ‘whether’ to display the climate of your current location, or change it to another city, for those international jet-setters amongst us.
Another nice widget is Friend Stream, which combines several of your social media news streams into one place, with everything tagged as to whether it came from Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere.
On a separate app, you can do the same thing with news-feeds, getting all your favourite site’s latest stuff straight onto the wallpaper of your phone.
Doing everything at once.
Android does allow for several programs to run at once, but its often hard to figure out what’s running, but drag from the top of a HTC Sense phone, and a scroll-down menu will line up the apps currently running, app updates, completed downloads, missed calls can also be found here, making it very easy to keep an eye on what’s happening.
What is HTCSense.com?
Added in 2010, it borrows the best bits from Apple’s MobileMe, but even better, it’s free. Register your phone with the site, and you can then check online if your phone is ever lost, or worse, stolen.
Like that episode of Sherlock, you can then trace the phone’s movements on a map, and see where it ends up. You can also lock the phone, even sending a message, contact details or offer a reward to anyone who might have 'picked up' your phone.
Hush up, face down.
Some of the best bits of HTC sense have nothing to do with the Android tweaks, but clever ways of how the phone ‘senses’ its environment.
It’s happened to most people, you’re talking with your friends, or having a meeting at work, and someone fumbles as their starts to ring, on full volume. They fumble to hang-up the call, but end up answering it, and then have to apologise to the person at the other end , and then the rest of the people sat there.
But, when a HTC Sense phone begins to ring, by flipping the phone screen over to face down, the phone will automatically let the call ring out- in serene silence.
Another ingenious addition works in the reverse. If your phone senses, through its passive light sensor, that it is currently in a pocket or bag, it will ring out louder, hopefully meaning less missed calls and messages. Get it out of your back, and it will thoughtfully turn itself down again.
HTC Sense and Android: Very compatible
Despite the fact that Sense is actually HTC toying with a pure version of the Android phone system, they’ve been very good at making sure their phones play nice when new versions of Android are made available by Google. Other phone-makers, take note.
These upgrades will often add great extra features, like the ability to create wireless hot-spots through your phone’s 3G network, or video-call compatibility.
