LAUNCHER 8 PRO vs Hola Launcher

Like Windows Phone 8, the design of Launcher 8 consists of brightly colored tiles on either a black or white background. The result is a simple and appealing design. Although simply changing the tile color is not as personal as wallpaper in conventional launchers. Fortunately though any color is possible on Launcher 8 not just the preselected colors on Windows Phone 8.

Windows Phone 8 was never designed to work with Android widgets but that doesn't mean you can't use them with Launcher 8. The developers of Launcher 8 have finally found the right solution to using widgets on the tile interface with new separate pages. In the previous version of the launcher, Launcher 7, the widgets would be squeezed into tiles and the result was rarely good. The new separate widget pages accessible with a swipe to the right are a big improvement.

Launcher 8 uses the same transition effects when opening apps and returning to the home screen as the Windows Phone 8. Not only is this appealing but apps seem to load quicker. The transition to open an app takes a few hundred milliseconds which gives apps extra time to load. The result is an interface that seems quicker than it actually is.

This feature may seem counterproductive at first but it provides a minimalistic appearance that stays true to the original Windows Phone 8. The notification bar will still appear everywhere else on your Android but Launcher 8 will be just tiles.

Launcher 8 supports basic unread counts like phone calls and text messages in the free version.

Hola organizes apps in folders such as Media, Education, Themes that are then accessible from the homescreen. If something gets miscategorized it can be fixed manually. Once one of the folders is open it's possible to swipe horizontally to switch between folders. All apps are also available from the app drawer where they are organized alphabetically.

Hola weighs just 2.3MB and does not use a lot of system resources.

There are so many ways to customize the home screen. And they're user created as well. There's so much variety

Hola is one of the rare modern launchers that works with Android 2.3 and later.