Switched to Google Now Launcher - few questions

[randomgecko]

I'm basically only 3 weeks into using Android after 8 years with iOS so I'm still learning it but this morning I switched to Google Now Launcher. Seems cool, seems snappy and I guess this is the default skin, right? Anybody else using it and liking it over the default?

Few questions I have - I was using the 5x5 layout on TouchWiz... I'm guessing this isn't possible on Google Now as I can't find it? Also, I've read a few things about excessive battery drain over TouchWiz... has anybody else experienced that? Final thing, notification badges aren't possible, is that right? May have to completely get used to the notifications being top left and in the pull down, but I do dig that. It's just years of notifications badges to reprogram my mind away from!

 

[TylerLV76]

I believe the Google Now launcher is 4x4 only on certain phones. If you scale your display to "smaller" in the phone display settings you may default it to 5x5, not sure though. I would try Nova Launcher as it has all the features you want. Its free unless you want to add badges. Heres my experience with badges as I too came from many years of ios back to Android. Forget about them and dont look back. Even with the badges apps in the play store and Nova, they are hit or miss and more of an aggravation than necessary. The reason these devices dont have badges from the start is you have icons in the notification bar as well as an LED notification light. I gave up on badges a while back and have never missed a notification or missed the feature of badges on my icons. Ive actually grown to love not having the clutter on my screen from them.

As for battery drain, thats a topic that affects some and not others. Read through the forum and youll find a ton of helpful battery threads.

 

[pjwk81]

I just installed it there to see and I have 5 wide on the home screen anyway. Maybe something to do with the display scaling? I've mine on condensed.