PandaHome versus GDE? Or Alternative Home Replacement?

[minyangmao]

Has anyone tried both PandaHome and GDE, and loves one or the other? Or does anyone have an alternative that's better than those two? No fanboy rants in this thread please;

PandaHome = free
GDE = not free

PandaHome = 36k memory usage
GDE = ???

PandaHome = Docks that pull open from the sides (like the app list from bottom or the notifications list from top, except you get six extra docks that are on the sides; freakin' awesome, I love it); this keeps my fav apps easily accessible on ALL homescreens. only downside is you can't put any widgets on the docks.
GDE = Does it have docks or some equivalent?

PandaHome = Themes not that impressive thus far
GDE = ??

Thanks for the help guys; $3 isn't that much to pay for an excellent Home interface, if indeed that's what GDE is.

 

[GrandMasterB]

I keep falling back to GDE. I have tried GDE, Panda, Open Home, Sweeter Home, DXtop. They are all good and different in their own ways but at the end of the day I fall back to GDE.

Marketplace is really nice in that you have a full 24 hours to try before they charge your card. If you uninstall before the 24 hours is up the refund is initiated automatically and you will recieve an email stating that a refund was requested and your card will not be charged.

So just give GDE a try , there is no risk , and you'll most likely end up keeping it anyways

 

[rzawora]

I like GDE but recently have tried the PandaHome. I think I like PandaHome better, but correct on needing more themes. Some of the themes made for the other programs work though, check the description of the theme itself for details.

 

[DGalt]

I really want to like pandahome more Because it provides a lot more options than gde. But gde is by far the smoothest homescreen app out there. Transitions from one homescreen to another are so much more fluid that it actually let's me NOT envy Sense UI's smoothness. If pandahome could achieve this then I'd switch to it permanently. Until then I'm sticking with gde

 

[El Blacksheep]

My only problem with GDE is the constant buggy nature of it.

- I can't change my wallpaper without GDE crashing.
- Landscape mode never looks right.
- Widgets stack on top of each other in layers, which I'm sure is taxing resources.
- Sometimes it'll just crash or glitch for no apparent reason.

As much as I love it when it's working properly, these issues are just too much to sweep under the rug. I'll stick to the default home screens until the issues are fixed.

 

[JonKyu]

Has anyone tried both PandaHome and GDE, and loves one or the other? Or does anyone have an alternative that's better than those two? No fanboy rants in this thread please;

PandaHome = free
GDE = not free

PandaHome = 36k memory usage
GDE = ???

PandaHome = Docks that pull open from the sides (like the app list from bottom or the notifications list from top, except you get six extra docks that are on the sides; freakin' awesome, I love it); this keeps my fav apps easily accessible on ALL homescreens. only downside is you can't put any widgets on the docks.
GDE = Does it have docks or some equivalent?

PandaHome = Themes not that impressive thus far
GDE = ??

Thanks for the help guys; $3 isn't that much to pay for an excellent Home interface, if indeed that's what GDE is.

I first tried out pandahome and was really impressed with it. But one of the things that really bothered me was the amount of resources it used when I tried, it was smooth but sometimes it would completely freeze up.

I really enjoyed the dock but was bothered by how you have to touch the tiny little arrows to bring them out and for some reason it just didn't "feel" right to have on the droid (they where vertical, and it did vertical scrolling, I feel this conflicts with the horizontal scrolling method of the android 2.0).

I then tried GDE to see what all hte hype was about, I saw the rotating cube thing and thought it was kinda gimicky but I figured I'd give it a chance. I love it!! It adds the functionality I need without changing the "feel" of Android 2.0 too much. It doesn't have the dock in the same way, but it does have an "application dock" which places a spot where you can put more than 4 shortcuts to and scroll through them without having to move away from the screen your on. I felt like this blended more with the android 2.0 more. Also there are themes but I find that I don't like most of them, hopefully they will come out with more. Right now I have the stock theme installed I wish they had a black version though.

SO IMO if your the type that wants to customize everything about your droid to the theme right to the font and background of your app titles then Pandahome can make you really happy. But if you want something that add more functionality without losing the Android 2.0 "feel" and detailed customization doesn't really bother you then GDE will be enough to make you happy. Free is hard to beat but for some reason I just couldn't hit the "refund" button for GDE. I enjoyed the UI enhancements too much.

 

[johnlgalt]

I am getting ready to install GDE - have tried Panda a couple of times and uninstalled it each time due to FCs and general responsiveness issues. I also tried Open Home (once) and am looking to try dxTop as well, and may even try sweeter home - but GMB said he has tried all of them and keeps reverting to GDE, so....

I'll vote probably in the next couple of days.

In the meantime - can this be made a sticky?

 

[mrthundercleese]

My only problem with GDE is the constant buggy nature of it.

- I can't change my wallpaper without GDE crashing.
- Landscape mode never looks right.
- Widgets stack on top of each other in layers, which I'm sure is taxing resources.
- Sometimes it'll just crash or glitch for no apparent reason.

As much as I love it when it's working properly, these issues are just too much to sweep under the rug. I'll stick to the default home screens until the issues are fixed.

Thank you sir. Stability has been the #1 issue on every home replacement I've tried (openhome, dxTop, and Pandahome). I, along with others I'm sure, would really appreciate it if more people chimed in on stability. Of the home replacements I've tried, Pandahome is easily the most stable on my droid.

I don't care how fast it goes or how many screens I can add or how fancy the dudads are if it crashes . I'm currently using the stock home for this reason.

 

[Barbara]

I've not tried. I'm waiting until the instability reports stop.

 

[minyangmao]

Thanks for the replies, votes, and info everyone!

PandaHome making me unhappy lately...lagging quite a bit, etc; I may just go back to the normal default home screen like one user said...I dunno...appreciate more feedback.

 

[johnlgalt]

I am using Home++ (I know I said I was gonna get GDE, but then I found Home++) - it ain't laggy at all, but it does have issues with certain widgets I have tried to put on its home screen.

I am power cycling the phone now to see if it makes a difference. If not, then I am off to try GDE.

 

[ginigma]

I'm waiting for the developers of the Home replacements to fix their issues with Android 2.0 and the Droid. I'll start testing them in a few weeks/months and hopefully one becomes a standout.

 

[Redflea]

I'm waiting for the developers of the Home replacements to fix their issues with Android 2.0 and the Droid. I'll start testing them in a few weeks/months and hopefully one becomes a standout.

Boring!

C'mon, join us in the deep end. Worst case you get a force close or two, and in the meantime you can be a part of creating the cutting edge!

 

[SCdroid]

I just DLed Home++ and it's not bad at all. Even though its beta seems a lot more stable than GDE (i uninstalled it bc it kept going black) also if you delete all of the widgets on the main home screen before putting them on the replacement homes then they will work.

 

[johnlgalt]

I *did* delete the widgets on the main screen (hell, I deleted everything) but they would not work on Home++ - until I power cycled.

And the AccuWeather started working after several minutes (so I presume that this was because it need to actually finish downloading the forecast info before it would allow me to see it).

Oh, and I cannot try out GDE - b/c Google Checkout won't let me pay for an app not in USD using Amex.....

 

[SCdroid]

But sadly still not enough features or stable enough to replace the main OS home.

 

[johnlgalt]

It has more than enough features for me - it has a 4th screen, and the neat little navbar at the bottom, the ability to hide the taskbar...

I don't need a lot of bells and whistles - I want productivity - like someone else said in the Home++ thread in And Apps forum, as soon as someone makes a clean interface without a lot of bells and whistles, preferably with just more home screens that is stable and allows looped scrolling, I am there.

 

[SCdroid]

True. I probably should have rebooted before i made my final judgement.

 

[johnlgalt]

lol - it's all good - I started typing out responses 3 different times after installing Home++ before I realized "Oh, wait, I haven't tried this yet...."

 

[SCdroid]

Hey, where is the Home++ thread in the application forum? i couldn't find it. thanks.

 

[bruceo]

really liked gde but it fc a lot and the application menu scroll was smoother than native but still choppy. Been using dxTop and have really been liking it. Just got updated a minute ago and i see that the dock icons are much bigger, which is very nice.

Try the application curtain and scroll the icons you almost feel like you are scroillng icons on an iphone, extremely smooth.

It has 2 curtains an all apps and a most recently accessed app queue, you can slide those curtains away and there is a permaenet dock where you can place youf 5 most used apps like phone, mail, contacts, GV etc. Nice to have phone button on every screen. Youdont need to slide the curtains back because they can be popped up by holding back arrow or menu. So far no lagginess or FCloses after 3 days of heavy use.

 

[HardCache]

Ive used both, I like pandahome better because it provides the most additional features.

GDE give you the dock at the bottom with a 2 customizable buttons, which are nice, but not a lot of benefit.

Pandahome gives you the configurable side docks that can hold multple icons each, and the ability to show apps in alphabetical groupings both of which are very useful!

However I will concede that GDE is definitely more smooth running. Pandahome needs some work to run a little smoother. I did notice that if you turn off the automatic orientation it runs a little better, but it will still hang-up/lag at times. if they can get these issues under control it will be A++.

 

[Redflea]

Just bought dxTop to give it a try and it gets HUGE kudos for one thing - it brought in the desktop icons from the stock Droid home page.

That's a great feature...you can always change things, but being able to start w/my preferred setup in a new home screen (including shortcuts that are tedious to recreate) is excellent. Gold star to the developers...all home screen developers should have a "do you want us to import home screen icons/widgets/shortcuts from any existing home screen?" option.

What I don't like so much about dxTop is tha it seems easier to get "lost" in terms of what screen you're on, even w/the dots. LIkely just the change in design adding the new vertical geometry, but it will take a little getting used to. Srolling in the app list is good, but not completely smooth/amazing. home screen scrolling is good...just slight unevenness to it.

I don't like that it turned off my pattern lock setting...that's a big no-no. Don't mess w/my security settings!

Pandahome holds promise, but performance just hasn't been great for me.

Haven't tried openhome in a while, I'll have to take another look at that one.

I'm starting to feel like I need a 12 Step program for home replacement apps...

 

[DGalt]

i don't get my dxTop took away the middle homescreen. 5 screens with the diamond configuration (one in the middle, then one to the top, bottom, left, and right) would have been much better imo (I am currently using 5 screens and if I find a contacts/bookmarks widget I'll need at least 1 or 2 more).

 

[bruceo]

dxtop is a little confusing at first but I think the idea was you could get to any desktop with 1 swipe. It added a lock screen which is nice but since it doesnt have music control I just unchecked it to use the droid lockscreen and pattern. App curtain scrolling is certainly the best of all the current droid home replacements about as good as the Sense on Eris or Hero (which is actually sad to say that the droid should strive to perform as good as sense, no kudos agin to Moto/google