We've highlighted a number of them at the bottom of this article.Ĭustomisability at its best. If - however - you want a launcher to help you be more productive, or you want a launcher with a minimalist user interface designed to reduce your screen time, there are plenty of those as well.

Suffice to say, if you like toying and customising, there are few that offer the granular options Nova Launcher includes. In fact, Nova Launcher is so in-depth, it could probably do with its own entire explainer and tutorial feature, so we'll leave that there for now. You can choose how many rows and columns of apps you want on the home screen and in your app drawer, and even fine-tune the way the Google search bar appears. Nova Launcher lets you do things like change the size of your home screen icons manually, as well as installing custom icon packs so you can change the way they look too. It comes as both a free and premium version, the latter gives you many more options and is definitely worth the outlay if you just want your phone to look the way you want it to. As well as offering a look and feel which, by default, feels a lot like the Pixel, it also lets you control every element of your phone’s software experience. The Nova launcher brings a visual experience which is much more like the stock/standard Android look and feel. If you have a device from a Chinese manufacturer like Oppo or Xiaomi - or a heavily skinned device like one of Samsung’s - and you just want a more stock Android-like experience, the best launcher to download is probably the Nova launcher.

How to choose an Android launcherīefore choosing a launcher, it's worth considering what you want from your Android phone. From creating completely custom widgets that look and act the way you want, to changing the size and style of app icons. Choose the right one, and you can use all manner of tweaks. Launchers for Android do still have their purpose though. Even Google made it a key part of the experience with Android 12, which saw a big shift in design and personalisation, expanding on it further with Android 13. There's been such a demand for customisation that - over the past few years - we've seen manufacturers add far more customisation choices directly into their own software. Best Android phone: Which is the top Android phone to buy today?.

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