Stopped using Nova because gesture animations started to get janky on my Note20 and persist on my S23 Ultra.
Been using Lawnchair since then.
The animations seem to be much better on nova beta 8 / android 13 here’s a video I just took: https://giphy.com/gifs/KzsTFd0JIvCc9MWI52
Idk if it would be the same case with Samsung’s android ui though. Lawnchair is still a good choice, just not actively being developed right now.
I’m still on Nova because it just works so right for me, many others I tried didn’t.
My needs are very basic
- A home screen I can place icons in specific positions (eg not forced auto sort)
- folders (drag multiple icons on top of each other to create a group/folder)
- Message count on icons, e.g my Whatsapp icon should show a little number indicating amount of new messages
- and finally, an app drawer showing all apps in a single list (without any fancy grouping)
Maybe this is normal now but years ago Nova seemed to be the only one that offered all these basic features together
I wanted a consistent launcher across different devices over time. I eventually settled on Nova Launcher, paid for it, and really liked it. I have been using it for about a decade. I just abandoned it a few hours ago because I finally determined why my tablet was grinding and halting. Nova Launcher was using over 600 MB of memory as well as leaking memory. My tablet is running like it’s brand new again. I am unhappy about not being able to use it, but I’m a lot happier that I’m able to use my tablet again.
Smart Launcher 6 has matured and is very fast and stable.
I personally use Neo Launcher because it has a unique feature.
