[Vibrant General] s15274n:
Below is a summary of each home replacement. I am adding this here to save space in the Tips & Tricks Thread.

TouchWiz brought a lot to the table. Frankly, it exceeded my expectations. That said, I prefer a more stock look. I also like options that developers have added into home replacement apps like Launcher Pro, ADW and Zume.

There are a number of threads debating which is better. I am NOT going to get into that. But, I thought a thread that pointed out the options/differences would help users select the home replacement that is best for them.

Below are my thoughts on the apps. I am NOT an expert on any of them. Please feel free to add stuff that I may have missed. Let’s refrain from debating or why you feel one is the best. To be frank, nobody cares.

LauncherPro:

LauncherPro is maintained by one developer and it’s not open. You can visit his site and pay for Launcher Pro Plus that will give additional features (please see hit site located here for more details on Plus, I am going to focus on the free version that you can get in the market). Full disclosure, I have Launcher Pro Plus. I really don’t need the extra bells and whistles it brings, but I wanted to support him and I would encourage you to do the same.

The developer has pointed out that he built this around a 2.1 base, and that is starting to limit what he can/wants to do (also making it a large app). That said, he will be starting from scratch in an attempt to make it lighter and faster with more options. Ironically, this app is plenty fast and there are options to adjust the speed of items.

I personally think that one of the main advantages is the scrollable dock. You can have up to 5 app icon shortcuts at the bottom. For every screen you have (I only use 3), you get another dock… so I have 15 spots at the bottom to add apps. It’s not limited to just app’s also. I have a shortcut to reboot my phone (Quick Boot app Activity) and a one touch button to call my wife… you get the idea.

Other Notable Features

:

-	Hide apps from your app drawer

-	Choose the number of rows/columns on the home screen (not limited to 4x4) and your app drawer.

-	Ability to resize widgets (perhaps only for Plus?)

-	Count notifications for gmail/sms/missed calls on the dock icons

-	Change the background of the docks and the icons

-	Hide the notification bar (no finger swiping to open/close it though from the home screen - but you can set swipe gesture from the dock)

-	Ability to switch to the 3d app drawer

-	Make backups so you can easily restore your settings (widgets need to manually re-added)

Zeam:

I am new to Zeam so I do not know much about the developer or its progress. What I do know is that it’s a very light (approx 860kb vs LP which is just under 4MB), clean and a fast launcher. Some of the things I have noticed:

-	Like LP there is the ability to run in full screen (no notification bar), but you can also set gesture swipes to hide/show the notification bar (unlike LP). There are many more options for the gesture swipes including (Open applications, go to default screen, previews, pull down the notification bar, and opening the dialer).

-	You can choose the number of screens and set the default and hide icon labels (like LP and ADW)

-	I mentioned swiping up/down could set default actions. You can also double tap the screen to perform an action. I use this to open my dialer for example.

-	You can turn off the animation when opening the app drawer. This makes it show instantly, but you cannot adjust the animation speed.

-	Like LP you can change the dock background, but you cannot make it a custom background like LP.

-	The dock also allows you to scroll and setup as many icons as you want (no limit that I can tell), but adding them and moving them around is not very easy. It’s still very nice to have quick access to many apps and have them not taking up valuable home screen space. LP scrolls in blocks of 5… this dock you can just scroll left to right.

-	There does not appear to be a way to save your settings like with LP for easy restoring.

ADW:

ADW unlike LP is open source. For that reason alone many people prefer it. Of all the launchers, this appears to have the most options. If you want to tweak colors, resize widgets, change the # of columns/rows and use gesture swipes - this is very inclusive. One thing ADW does not have is a scrollable dock station like LP/Zeam.

I feel like I am being slack for ADW, but to be fair it has so many options I really do not feel like typing them all up right now. It’s easily the most customizable, and thank God it has a feature where you can backup and restore like LP.

Another feature it has that others are missing is the ability to download themes from the market. With LP you can download docks and icons, or use apps like metamorph… but with ADW you have the ability to easily apply full themes. ADW has a large following so there is no shortage.

In closing, I strongly urge you to try them all. Perhaps you will fall in love with one… perhaps you will find features you cannot live without (that TW did not offer), and maybe you decide to support these developers! Please be respectful of others. I know there will be an idiot below posting why so and so is soooo much better, please just ignore them and don’t let my efforts of trying to help those not familiar get spoiled.

If you would like to try these, I would suggest an app called Home Switcher. This is the easiest way to switch launchers and set the default.