HTC and Samsung Theme app showdown

HTC and Samsung announced flagship phones Mobile World Congress earlier this year and both mobile manufacturers had a new Theme app integrated into their custom user interfaces. Let’s dive into those integrated apps and try to point out some high and low points each has.

For starters, I’ll say that HTC’s theme app has more features and is harder to find cons with since it does just about everything Samsung’s app does and more. It seems obvious that HTC put more effort into the strategy behind their theme app. HTC built a social aspect to the theme app that basically does the work for them by encouraging the community to create new themes from basically any wallpaper or picture out there. Other viewers can rate peer themes further encouraging the community to create more and you can even personalize downloaded themes to be a better fit for your style. Samsung’s themes are built by internal designers and there’s only a handful to chose from compared to the long, multi-categorized list in the HTC depot.

Update: Just before I returned my S6 review unit I noticed third party-designed themes that I didn’t see earlier into my review. Although they aren’t user/community designed they are able to be rated

So, what settings or areas change when a new theme is applied? Here are ones that stuck out to us, but if you notice more and want to point them out in the comments that’d be great.

From the table above, the only thing Samsung had that HTC didn’t offer was enhancements to folders on the homescreen with influence from the color palette of the theme so the back of folders on the home screen are modified while HTC’s stays semi-transparent throughout the multiple themes we applied. With HTC reigning in with more modified areas we will add that areas Samsung’s theme applies to are a bit more detailed. For instance, Samsung’s game theme has pixelated parts around the theme like in the calculator or keyboard. Most of HTC’s themes have custom backgrounds and lots of color influence.

While you get a little more detail in a few areas with the Samsung app, HTC rocked it out with the sound enhancements. When building your own Themes you can set the ringtone, notification, and alarm from a ton of sounds. Look for a sound that rhymes with a mood or go to town scrolling through the endless amount of tones. Good job HTC!

We think HTC has outclassed the competition with its Theme app, but to keep it fair, Samsung obviously put a lot of effort into the custom themes so kudos to them for putting some pressure on HTC.