Nova Launcher
Nova Launcher is arguably the most popular launcher to ever grace the Play Store. This beautiful app, created and managed by TeslaCoil Software, is the power user’s dream. It has garnered praise from nearly every Android publication on the Web, and it just keeps getting better.
Case in point: we first reviewed Nova Launcher way back in 2012 and concluded, at the time, that Nova was the best launcher available. Three years later, even with increased competition, we still believe that Nova is a top contender.
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What Makes Nova Launcher Great?
The greatest aspect of Nova is its focus on user customization. It provides a number of different settings that you can adjust to create the screen layout of your choice, including multiple home screens, different icon sizes and grid layouts, subgrid positioning for more flexibility, icon padding, etc.
Nova also alters the app drawer. Icon sizes and grid layouts are also adjustable here, but you can switch into a list layout if you prefer. Not only that, but Nova provides a more organized drawer for widgets as well, grouping them by app for optimal organization.
And whether you’re going through home screens or the app drawer, you can enable infinite scrolling that wraps around when you get to the end and you can change the way pages are animated as you switch between them.
Folders on the home screen allow icons to be grouped together in ways that save space and improve organization. Nearly everything on the home screen can have its color changed: labels, folders, tabs, etc.
Docks are the final tinkerable aspect. The dock, which sits at the bottom of the home screen, has a handful of different visual options like background shape and icon designs. Nova allows anywhere from 1 to 5 dock pages that you can swipe between independently from the home screen.
Even on a device as old as the Galaxy S3 Mini, Nova performs well. The animations are smooth, the transitions rarely lag, and all of the actions feel responsive.
While the free version of Nova is perfectly acceptable, you’ll want to upgrade to Nova Launcher Prime ($5) for the full feature set: screen and icon gesture actions, unread counts, custom tabs and folders in the app drawer, hiding apps in the drawer, and more visual effects.
Apex Launcher
Apex Launcher is one of the oldest free launchers still standing today. The funny thing is that Apex Launcher is often compared to Nova Launcher with the conclusion that both of them are pretty much neck-and-neck in terms of quality, yet Nova is the one that gets all of the fame and recognition.
That isn’t to say that Apex is a Nova clone or anything like that. It has its own flavor, its own nuances, and its own reasons to convince you that Apex may actually be better than the highly-acclaimed Nova. I reviewed Apex back in 2013 and my opinion hasn’t changed: this launcher is a beast.
What Makes Apex Launcher Great?
The first point of interest is the range of sizes available for home screen grids. A lot of launchers, including Nova, limit you to somewhere around six rows and six columns, but Apex allows you to push the limits up to ten rows and ten columns. It’s a bit cramped for a small screen, but amazing for bigger phones and tablets.
Apex also has separate settings for Portrait mode grids and Landscape mode grids, meaning you can optimize the screen layout based on the way you’re holding the device. Other home screen features include infinite scrolling, visual transition effects, and a few other small style tweaks.
The app drawer customizations are great — Portrait and Landscape layouts available here too — but Apex offers something in its free version that Nova only offers in its paid version: hidden apps. Apex lets us hide all of those apps that we never directly launch from the drawer, reducing clutter.
Another Apex freebie that’s a paid feature in Nova? Home screen gestures. You can assign actions to the following five gestures: pinch in, swipe up, s
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