Top 5 Android launchers for home screen

Android Launchers are also known as Homescreen Replacement Applications. Every manufacturer has their own homescreen app or android desktop app. You might now like the stock homescreen app as they don’t give much scope of customization.  Here comes the role of Launchers. They are highly customizable and enable you to use hundreds of themes in your Android Device. This is where Android proves itself to be more user friendly than a blackberry or an iPhone. We will share the list of the best android launchers here:

1. Go Launcher EX: It is the most popular launcher app in the android market with more than 50,000,000 downloads already. Apart from the scope of installing 1000’s of different themes, the launcher itself can give you device a big makeover.  It also gives you option to install beautiful “Go Widgets” such as GO calendar, GO clock, GO contacts, GO locker, etc on your device.  The best part it, all of this comes free.

Best features:  Beautiful widgets, thousand’s of themes, smooth flipping experience, extremely fancy home screen transition, user-defined folders to easily categorize apps, icon sorting, updating apps, uninstalling apps, etc.

2. Launcher Pro: Another great launcher which is lighter and simpler than GO launcher yet fast and very customizable. Widgets are locked in the free version. You need to paid/full version to unlock all its pro features. It works on almost all kind of devices. 3D app drawer feature of Launcher Pro makes it stand above all the other launcher apps.

Best features: Super-smooth scrolling, animated screen previews, upto 7 home screens, app drawer in 2D as well as 3D, etc.

3. ADW.launcher: This is one of the highly rated launcher apps in android market. It is somewhat similar to GO launcher EX except for the fact that ADW launcher has got a paid version too. Paid version gives you 5 different app drawer styles, 3D nexus one like app drawer, 2 different iPhone like app drawers, different desktop transitions, new icon configuration, editable desktop icons, etc.

Best features: Screen editor, 100’s of themes, icon editor, customizable main dock and hidden dockbar, etc.

4. MxHome Launcher: Not very old and famous launcher but it’s specialized in 3D effects on its “Theme Page”. There are not many themes available for this launcher but out of the ones which are there, I found Blue Watch to be the best.

Best features: Dynamic 3D G-sensor movement, various sound and graphic effects, 3D water bubble background effect, shortcut for 8 major apps, control tray, quick app manager, icon pack, etc.

5. SPB Shell 3D: So, this is it. The most expensive app in the launcher category. It pinches your pocket hard. Priced at around $14.85(Rs. 733.85) this is the best launcher undoubtedly. Rated very high by the users as well as by different reviewing magazines like: Gizmodo, ZDNet, Engadget, etc. Like other launchers it also offers you shortcuts, app drawers, home screen enhancement, icon manager, etc but the extra feature that it gives you makes your device stand out of the crowd. Swiping between the home screens is done by a rotating 3D sequence. Well the price is not the only downside of this marvellous app. You also need to have a pretty powerful phone to run it as its pretty heavy app.

Best features: 3D home launcher, smart folders, 3D widgets, collection of panels and widgets, etc.

Note: Well if you don’t want to shell out those extra $’s for a 3D home launcher, you can always opt for     Regina 3D launcher. Its free version does pretty much the same things as paid version but it is not supported on landscape mode