Best Home Screen Apps - Compare/Contrast

[o2bnclemson]

I've had my Eris for about 3 weeks now and don't have any complaints about the stock Home Screens, but I've seen a lot on here about DXTop, Panda, GDE, and perhaps others. I know everyone has their favorites and that it's very subjective, but what are the objective differences between the various Home Screen replacements and, other than aesthetics, what advantages do they offer?

 

[Roy Aguilera]

Panda is a decent home replacement app.
Pros:
-Up to 11 home screens.
-Free
-Uses free Panda, Open Home and AHome themes
-2 Customisable side tabs to keep extra apps in.
-Indicator shows you which screen you are on.
-Widget Redraw is fast
-You can select which screen is the home screen
-You can hide icons

Cons:
-Beautiful Widget and Weather Widget Donate do not update.
-Cant get rid of the bottom screen indicator

DxTop
Pros:
-Allows screen capture
-Customisable drawer
-Allows you to hide icons
-Easy screen navigation
-Has a built in task killer
-Bottom tabs slide so that you can have 5 custom Icons on all screens
-Has a screen indicator which tells you which screen you are in.

Cons:
-Laggy at times.
-Sometimes switching screens looks sloppy. If you go from one screen to another you will see a 3rd screens icons.
-Slow widget redraw.
-Limited to 4 screens

GDE
Pros:
-Fast
-Fast widget Draw time
-Up to 7 screens
-4 different screen trasitions
-Has Fast Fling (allows you to go from screen 1 to screen 3/4/5 with a quick slide of your finger)
-Lets you select which screen is home.
-Has a widget that allows you to scroll though apps on a single screen
Cons:
-No drawer organizer
-No screen capture.


Check out the GDE and dxTop threads we have here. You will get a ton of info there.

 

[Mr.Miagi]

Beautiful Widgets DOES work on panda, I am using it for the past 2 weeks and its awesome.

 

[Roy Aguilera]

Beautiful Widgets DOES work on panda, I am using it for the past 2 weeks and its awesome.

Really. It will not update on mine. I tried it about 6 times and no luck. When it would update (time) it would go back to the time I installed the widget when I scrolled. I have had no luck with it. That is my only gripe. Same thing happens on my wifes Droid. I just tried it on 2 coworkers Droid (just to see) and same issue.

 

[mrdonbonjovi]

Home++ is another free one I would try. Out of dxTop, GDE, and Panahome I like this one the best. It has the least amount of crashes.

 

[zyxwvu44]

i used openhome full for a while, i just got tired of the laggy transitions...then i went back to my normal screen, and its still a little laggy, trying ot figure our what could be causing this

 

[largeselection]

I have used DxTop quite a bit and am currently using GDE.

Just a GDE clarification- while you can't organize the app drawer into "categories" like you can with DxTop, you can put folders into the app drawer (the folders take up one row each and have titles as well as counts of apps within). So when I slide up my app drawer, I have nearly the same functionality as the "categories" within DxTop. It's not as simple to set up, but it works well and since GDE is so quick I don't notice any lag trying to open one of those folders.

Currently I think I give slight advantage to GDE since it is quicker.

 

[LAADB]

Home++ is another free one I would try. Out of dxTop, GDE, and Panahome I like this one the best. It has the least amount of crashes.

i hadn't heard home++ in any of the theme discussions until you mentioned it and thank you! i just downloaded it and am instantly in love.

 

[Adiliyo]

i like Home++ and dx top as my two go betweens.

lately it's been home++ for me.
panda and GDE feel too cluttered and messy to me.

 

[brendanb]

Home++ is definitely the best and it's free which is even better. I used to use dxtop, but the redraw as it was mentioned earlier isn't very good. Home++ is definitely the most unique and once you get the hang of all the functions it's awesome to use.

 

[korp#IM]

I haven't tried Home++ yet but Panda is far faster than dxTop .... I just wish you could scroll up and down for other pages and not just side to side. :-(

 

[mclarryjr]

Gde and Dxtop are my favorites

 

[gottria]

Where did you guys find Home++? I searched for it in Market and nothing.

 

[LAADB]

Where did you guys find Home++? I searched for it in Market and nothing.

typed exactly what you put; Home++. The first result that comes up is "Home++ Beta."

 

[gottria]

typed exactly what you put; Home++. The first result that comes up is "Home++ Beta."

Weird, only thing I get is Flip Clock Beta, same developer. Could he have taken it down?

 

[Adiliyo]

what device are you using?

 

[gottria]

Stock Rom Sprint Hero. Just tried again and nothing.

 

[gottria]

Even scanned the QR Code and still can't find it.

 

[Adiliyo]

it probably needs 1.6 or later to work

 

[kek0000]

I'm using the GDE home screen and I gotta say that it's been the best so far that I've tried. I have a number of widgets running and five screens and works smooth. Exiting out of an app and getting back to the home screen is really fast, too. Oh, and I'm using the myTouch 3g.