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  • yeah, I mean if I had to choose one I guess I would go with blur.  And seriously not trying to make a joke here, but its because I like the color blue and like the dialer.  and bc the ladies love it.

  • I haven’t experienced Touchwiz, a friend of mine has a Razr and I played with it for a while, and I own a Rezound.  I like the Sense skin, mostly because it has very useful widgets, it links your contacts across many programs, phone, e-mails, facebook, etc.  I like the look of the weather clock, I actually used the Fancy Widgets copy of it on my OG Droid.  Some say it is huge bloat and that it slows down the phone, meh, my phone is lag free and fast so I am happy.

  • Touch wiz 4.0 is the best launcher on Android.
    It is better than the stock ics/stock android launcher due to its gui simplicity and quality.

  • Having used all skins, I would choose Sense. Hate the chubbiness of it lately, but can’t argue with the widgets. Hands down the best. I can’t wait to see the improvements they’ve made to it. I dislike MotoBlur because of the lockscreen & color scheme. TouchWiz seems too childish & cheesy. And LG, seriously? Personally, I feel skins should be an option left to the consumer. Android is all about openness and it should be left for us to choose. I hate seeing incredible hardware getting bogged down with shi**y software

  • If I had to choose a skin, Sense obviously. Mainly because it isn’t dependent on a shade of blue, it doesn’t resemble anything other than just that, Sense, and because I love HTC devices.
    I have a Bionic, hate blur, had a Fascinate, hated Touchwiz.. even newer versions like on the GSII, not a fan.

  • Blur: Practically stock plus good features. I dont like touchwiz, its to colorful and makes the phone almost cartoony (But I can live with it). Sense (Non ICS) sucks, it need a app dock.  

  • Sense is the most distinctive but unfortunately the most obtrusive… Guess I’d actually have to go with touchwiz…

    But I use golauncher as my daily

  • I’ve never used anything but stock (OG now GNex). But if I had to pick a skin I guess I’d go with Blur for its Smart Actions functionality.

  • I would have to say Blur also. The skin on the Bionic wasn’t that bad and had some nice features.

  • this reminds me of the south park when they had to pick a new mascot between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

  • Of course, stock ICS would be my first choice. If I HAD to choose an OEM skin, I’d pick HTC Sense.

  • I had to choose a skin last year and I picked Sense. At the time I didn’t know much about it but I read many positive reviews.  

    Now that I’ve used it for several months I really do like it.  Sense includes about 50 widgets that are quite useful.

    In addition I think Sense just looks better than any other skin, with Blur being the least attractive.

  • That video is too funny. If I had to choose, I’d choose touchwiz or sense because there’d be a greater chance I could root and flash a custom rom. Blur no way

  • Motoblur, because it is the least intrusive. I hate sense because there is to much bloat, and I hate TouchWiz because it is to i*hone like.

  • I like stock better than anything, especially ICS, but my favorite skin is the MIUI skin.  I actually switch from stock to it every few weeks before I switch back.

  • If stock Android is gone for good, I would get an iPhone.

    Sorry, but I’m not going to ever let carrier bloatware touch my phone ever again.

  • Honestly? Touch Wiz (Post-Fascinate). These days Samsung seems to be making a phone/tablet that’s actually complete. If you ask me, Stock (while great for opportunity) has been pretty bare-bones until ICS came around. 

    I enjoy Motoblur as well but the launcher (and its cheesy effects) is terrible. I love the widgets though.

  • I actually enjoy the use of Blur, I like how it ‘blurrs’ things together, makes it a unified experience, although ICS does a pretty good job of “blurring the lines” 😉

  • If someone held a gun to my head and made me choose (and yes, that’s what it would take to make me use a skin), I would probably choose Touchwiz.  Sense is just plain awful in every conceivable way, and Blur is not very aesthetically pleasing, like it was designed by engineers, not UI designers.

  • Having used all 3,I would choose blur that’s out now. Its pretty close to stock, but has some nice widgets. I could do with out the blueish color as they don’t always look good with when trying to change the”look” of your phone. Sense is way out there, nice features, but a little overboard. Touch wiz is to “kiddie like”. I had stock on my od, it is really blan but easily changed. It’s all a matter of taste, what works for one may bug the crap out of another.

  • I like the Holo skin of ICS, next to that someone needs to build a LCARS skin, & third favorite is Sense from HTC.

    Blur is eh… although it’s gotten better.  Samsung’s (touchwiz I guess) I have never liked, neither have I ever liked LG’s… whatever its called skin.

  • Blur. It’s the lightest. Sense is its own OS at this point. Even though the new Sense is supposed to be lighter will wait to see that. 

  • I’d pick blur because it has the best dialer available and a few other nice apps like motocast and smart  actions, and the newer versions are the least intrusive on the stock OS. However, blur framework is hideous. Also the only other feature I like from any OEMs is the weather from sense, that shows the animation over the homescreen after you unlock the phone.

  • honestly, i love TouchWiz. Its fast, responsive, relatively lightweight (or it seems that way), the somewhat cartoony graphics look amazing on SuperAMOLED+ screens, the lockscreen is quite cool, and quick toggles are quite useful. Then again, i have a skyrocket and as you are all mostly on verizon, you dont have any good samsung phones (im ignoring the nexus) to choose from. 

  • That’s a toughy……I like HTC’s Sense skin, but I absolutely hate how much of a resource whore it is; and MotoBlur is decent enough now, but I hate hate hate the camera software, and lockscreen. I think I would choose Sense

  • I say Blur, simply because I am a stock phone guy, and I actually like the latest version of Blur on the Bionic.  

  • “Sense” hands down.      Non of the other can tough their widgets. Plus it’s cean, neat and professional. I would trade my nex for the world but i sure do miss my Sense widgets (Calander, Weather, e-mail client). If you use your phone for work, Sense can’t be beat.

    • If you purchase Launcher Pro their widgets are very close to Sense. Also Android Pro Widgets is close as well.

    • Apw widgets in the market are just like sense widgets plus they can be themed

  • i feel like i’m voting in the republican primary.

    i guess i would go with blur, although i’m not particularly happy about any of the options.

  • Sense. Blur on my D2 drove me nuts, it takes 10 minutes for the camera to load. Sense is fun.

  • I used to like touchwiz in the gingerbread days, but the ics touchwiz is horrid. I guess I’d go with blur too, however, as long as there’s availability, I’ll never own a device with a skin.

  • I would go with Blur.  For me, Motorola is the only company that really offers additional value through their skins and add-ons.  I thought TouchWiz might be awesome when I saw Samsung hype it for the GalaxyTab 10.1, but it wasn’t really helpful to me at all after I got the Tab.  However, my appreciation for Motorola’s work is mostly due to their implementation of Motocast, smart actions, and MotoActv, all of which I guess aren’t exactly Blur, but software items that come with Blur phones.  Even so, I found that the gingerbread version of Blur made the interface feel polished and a tiny bit more intuitive.  I would have actually purchased a Droid Razr instead of the Galaxy Nexus if it weren’t for the non-removable battery and the locked bootloader.  I absolutely need the ability to pop in a backup when I use my phone for work, and I enjoy geek activities.  I think Motorolla has some really great software features at the moment and I would be happy with a Razr Maxx if I had to replace my GNex.

  • If no stock Android options were available, if every Android phone on the planet had a manufacturer skin, I’d go with Apple.

    I’m as big an Android fan as anyone, but the carriers screw it up. The bloat the devices, and lock them down. If I have to deal with a locked down device, I’m sorry, Apple’s OS is cleaner and less bloaty.

  • My only exposure to skins is blur so my opinion must be taken with a grain of salt. I have become attached to motocast works flawlessly and is very helpful. The smart action options are spiffy as well with the ability to program phone settings by time and location or even events. That said, I do feel liberated for a while when I run a a custom rom without a skin but find myself reverting back after a few days because it may have some crap along with everything else, blur seems worth tolerating.

  • I have to agree and go with Blur if I have to use a skin.  It’s evolved to be the least intrusive of all of the major OEM skins.

  • I’d say TW. 

    Its not as invasive as other overlays, and adds some really nice features that you can see incorporated into custom ROMS like CM9. (slide finger on statusbar to control brightness)

  • I recently traded my Droid Bionic for an HTC Rezound, and I have to say, Sense 3.6 aint half bad.  I was really surprised, because the first thing I did with my Bionic was install a Blurless ROM, and my OG Droid and Xoom are both stock Android.  If you have to have a skin, take a look at Sense.  

  • I would go with htc sense, i had a droid x and razr, i cant stand to look at blur anymore, touch wiz is just stupid looking and makes me feel like im 5, so htc sense

  • Definitely Blur. It’s not a heavy skin at all, it looks pretty good, and Smart Actions and MotoCast are great.

  • HTC Sense 4.0.  I’ve used it — part of why it works is because it’s the OEM recognizing that, no, it’s not as good as Google (or Apple) at designing a whole UI, and it should let the strong points of the OS shine through.

    Helps, of course, that the One S and One X are fast and feel good in the hand (especially the One S), but there’s also just HTC reserving its efforts for the camera app and other places where extra work really matters.

  • I choose Nexus Skin 🙂 because if sets it apart from all the hundreds of other phones released every year.

    If only manufacturers would see that having no skin is actually more unique and would set there phone apart more than having a custom skin. You would think that they would release 1 or 2 phones a year skinless and see how the sales compared to their others. That way they could give the diehard android fans what they want but still have crappy skinned versions for the average Joe.

    • The question isn’t if you had to choose a skin or stock. Considering the nexus runs a base version of android by definition, there is no skin. so your answer is useless tolling because you are not choosing a skin but the base system.

      • Chill out dude, making a mistake is not useless trolling. Go cheat against your kids in Go Fish.

      • How is stating my opinion that I don’t like skins trolling? Why do I have to pick one if I dislike them all?
        That’s like saying who do you want to be president? Obama or Romney? Can’t I answer neither or Santorum? 

        Its not like I’m coming to an android site talking about my icrap just to get a response from people. That is trolling. 

        • It’s tolling because you aren’t answering the question, you are stating you don’t like any. Read the title…”If you HAD to choose….” taking your presidential example, If you don’t like the people on the ballot, and don’t have any interest either way on who wins, then it’s simple don’t vote.

          • from wikipedia – In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4] 
            How does my post provoke an emotional response from you? 

            The topic is android manufacturer skins and which one you like. I said I don’t like them. Seems pretty much on topic to me. 

            But your post accusing me of trolling brought things off topic and provoked an emotional response. So seems to me your the one trolling.

          • Ahh definitions…choose does not equal like. the question wasn’t which skin do you like it was if you had to choose. so for you to comment on liking stock is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. If the question posted was do you prefer stock android or skinned android and if so what do you like? then sure be my guest.. I love stock but that wasn’t the question posed.. SO with that i CHOOSE blur because it is the most similar to stock. If i am trolling, I am trolling the GNex fanboys…oh which btw I have a GNex i am selling…

      • Yeah anybody who reads this site knows that. It was my way of saying I don’t like any skins. That is why in my second paragraph I say ‘skinless’.

        Nexus phones are so lusted over for the fact that they are one of the very few ways you can get a stock experience anymore. Funny how the manufactures trying to differentiate themselves actually caused a stock experience to be a bigger differentiator than any skin.

  • Blur(Newest version ) hands down. All you really get from it is Icons, ICS blue color scheme, and Widgets. Love the screen transitions and blur apps (MotoCast, Smart Actions, Music Player )

    Sense has aged horrible and is WAY too intrusive
    and HUGE.

    Touchwiz is awful and cartoonish….. Just an ugly UI. It ruins there devices in my opinion

  • Bros, way too many trolls in here. It’s a legit question.

    I’d go with Samsung 100 times out of 100. My Rezound right now is stock, and without any applications open, Sense is using 610 (!!) MB of RAM.

    • I could not have put it better myself.  Ever since getting my Rezound, I miss Blur from my DX.  Sense is SO BLOATED.

      Even using a “clean” ROM, the bloat is almost out of control.  I feel like I don’t control my phone anymore. 

      I think my DX with CM7 could benchmark better than this thing with all the bloat.

      Ask me a month ago I’d tell you Blur is the worst, now it’s easily Sense.

      Blur is probably the best right now based on the time I spent playing with the Droid RAZR.

    • Bloated? My TB is stock and is running with 205 MB used and 297MB free, runs quick as when I first bought it…so is that what you mean by bloated?

    • so you would go with samsung 100 times out of a 100, except that one time you bought a rezound?

  • Can’t really answer this. My only two Android phones have been skinless- OG Droid and Nexus. My wife owns the Bionic, but she won’t let me use it out of fear that I’ll “mess with it.”

  • I’ve only owned the OG and the Nexus, but I’ve used both blur and sense.  I’d say I like sense the best over vanilla.  It feels more fresh and snappy than blur. 

  • After going D1 > Bionic > GNex, I feel like I’d rather go back to a rotary phone before having to deal with a skin again.

  • TouchWiz (The version found on the SGS2, with the launcher as modded by Frogger on XDA)

    The modded launcher allowed widget resizing, column/row changes, home placement, # and location of items on dock, themes….

    Note: Frogger is not correct…he uses “leet” spelling, and I can never remember which letters are substituted..

    The current TW4 launcher modded to work on the G’Nex functions, but I do miss the mods and landscape is borked…not to mention the lack of TW email, contacts, etc…which were all *greatly* improved over the TW version included on the SGS 1 (TW 3).

    TW4 and TW ICS is fast, beautiful, and actually *adds* useful features…

    • I would go with blur as well because of the built in apps, to is too iphoney and sense is too much like a chubby fat girl who used to look good back in the day that had too many kids

    • You could also say, “If [insert ROM here] adds it, it’s a feature; if an OEM adds it, it’s bloat.”

  • Still sticking with Sense, although the newest TouchWiz on the GS2 is unobtrusive. Blur…. I just can’t get over their garbage gallery and terrible icons. It is much improved… but still has a ways to go.

    • agreed that motorola’s gallery app is horrid, but that’s the beauty of android, the market errr..uhh play store…has many options to enhance user experience to their liking

      • All the OEM galleries, and stock as well, suck. Quickpic is the best I’ve found, it syncs everytime you it and is very fast unlike the stock apps that wont show your newer pics or are very slow at syncing all of your new stuff. I still hope someone makes a gallery that supports sub folders, thats one feature thats missing on all gallery apps.

        • LOVE QuickPic! My RAZR was good out of the box; with themed GO Launcher EX (with widgets) and QuickPic, it’s pretty much perfect.

      • True. Easy fix. I answered as if it was to be used “stock” out of the box…

  • I’d definitely go with Blur, given the option (tho, WTF can’t they have it in black?) The launcher is decent now, and I love the social networking widgets/app.

  • I’ve never had to use a skin. My only two Android phones have been the OG Droid & G-Nex. THANK GOD.

  • …I’d actually go with TouchWiz 4. Though I’m not as nuts as that guy, I’m a big fan of it. It’s great compared to stock GB.

      • Not troll, just honest… it’s a lot better than GB, though AOKP is a lot better than TW. But I still enjoy TW a lot, it’s what I’m running happily on my SII.

  • It depends on the end user! For my parents and girlfriend, I would recommend Sense. It gives you the most useful widgets in the prettiest package!

    For me I would choose blur because it has a minimal effect on the appearance.  But then again I have a Gnex and would choose Vanilla any day of the week!

  • Before my Galaxy Nexus I owned an HTC Incredible.  I love HTC Sense.  My home screen is still somewhat modeled after the HTC Sense style.  

    I have to say though, the skins are getting better and better.  Maybe it’s the upped specs and better screens that are making the difference too.  But I’ve tried my friends’ TouchWiz phones and they look and feel good.  Maybe sluggish on the S1 but otherwise good.

    • i agree here. touchwiz on my wife’s fascinate, and later on her charge, was buggy and laggy as hell. 

      a buddy of mine has a sprint Galaxy SII (the skyrocket i think?) and that thing is ultra smooth. interesting to see how ICS will work on it.

  • I ran stock blur on my DX for a while before I got my GNex. I was surprised on how many things stock ICS was missing that blur had. So my vote goes to blur.

  • I think out of all of them, the newer blur is probably the best. I’ve used them all and find blur to be less annoying.

  • I would take Ninjablur, easily. Some of Motorola’s recent work even successfully improves on stock, and it’s much less radical than it used to be.

    Sense is evil. I know this isn’t the requested information, but my LEAST favorite is Sense. It’s actually the only UI that would prevent me from buying a device. I’d take any other UI over Sense.

  • I agree, Blur until I see if Sense 4.0 is better.  However picking your poison is never a fun.

  • i guess blur.  that would be a sad day.  still waiting to see how they screw up ice cream blurwich

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