Isthmus

I found a fantastic home replacement app for my Moto Droid. I'm sure many of you are aware of it, but I recently discovered it so I thought I'd share.

When I got my phone I was unhappy withthe stock screen set up, so I looked for a replacement. I chose DxTop because I loved it's one-swipe layout and its customizable app dock. However as my phone's usage increased, I soon discovered that DxTop simply didn't give me the kind of room I needed to organize my apps on the desktop (though their app-drawer organization was fantastic). I Gave a few other home replacements a try and finally started using Helix launcher. with that I got 7 screens and an app drawer like that on the N1. I liked the layout, but found the application buggy (force closes constantly), and a bit slow. a few days ago I saw a recommendation fro LauncherPro Beta, so I gave it a try.

LauncherPro Beta is similar to Helix Launcher. It has 7 screens and it has an app drawer modeled after the drawer in the N1. however that is where similarities end. Launcher pro Beta is a smaller software. It is much more stable and it is blindingly fast. As with similar replacements, you get 4 customizable app icons on the task bar. The app drawer uses the same fading effect as the N1 app drawer, but it lacks transparency and it is not set in 3-d mode. The end result is that apps lack a little of the cool scrolling animation, but the app drawer is responsive and fast. what I liked the most is that LauncherPro beta borrows the helicopter preview navigation from Sense UI. Pinching any desktop will give you a view showing all your desktops as fairly large icons (as opposed to Helix's side by side row of tiny icons). Screen transition is very fast. the same speed is evident in screen swiping and returning to the home screen.

The only downsides I've observed are that there are minimum options for customizing. You can set the number of screens, your home screen, and the behavior of your home button, and that's about it. Live Wall papers and widgets are supported, but I find that occasionally the more elaborate widgets have a tendency to fail on loading. The software is FAR more stable than helix launcher, but not quite as stable as DxTop (it forced closed on me a couple of times but then automatically reloaded). From what I can see at least for now the software is built for speed, usability and efficiency. If you can live without the ability to modify every little aspect of the software, you might just find this to be the home replacement for you.

It's called a beta, and I'm sure there is still some development going on, but it is already pretty damn good. try it out and see what you think.

gmjlopez

It is a good app. I just switched to ADW.Launcher a few minutes ago. It has similar features and runs great so far.

__________________
EVO FTW!!!!

Isthmus

I forgot to mention ADW (thanks for the reminder). I tried that one too and found it to be very polished and feature rich. I loved the fact that it was highly customizeable. However, It was noticeably slower than Launcher pro, and I couldn't warm up to the froyo style app bar. I didn't like how it relgates persistent apps to a secondary layer below the two main apps that are visible at either side of the app drawer. I found that flipping open that secondary layer was a bit of a pain and half the time I ended up opening the app drawer instead of the secondary layer. Also quick screen navigation wasn't as intuitive as with launcherpro.

They both supported home screen reorientation, but launcherpro just did it faster.

If it was faster, had a cleaner way of toggling between screens, and found an easier way of opening the secondary app bar, it would definitely be the home replacement to beat. I just preferred the speed and functionality of launcherpro over the style and ultimate stability of ADW in when used on the Droid. The choice might have been different on a phone with higher hardware specs.