When comparing SF Launcher 2 vs Microsoft Launcher, the Slant community recommends Microsoft Launcher for most people. In the question“What are the best launchers for Android?” Microsoft Launcher is ranked 8th while SF Launcher 2 is ranked 51st. The most important reason people chose Microsoft Launcher is:
It has different pages that help you to have your contacts, reminders, last files opened, and more.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to use, card-based interface
The home screen is organized into cards that can be scrolled vertically. Cards can contain widgets or collections of apps. Swiping from the left gives access to all apps and swiping from the right gives access to all widgets. These can then be added to the homescreen. It's possible to customize the order, color, transparency, size and what how much information or apps a card displays.
Pro Clean, material design inspired aesthetic
The look of the launcher is inspired by Android 5.0 Lollipop and material design. It follows material design color scheme, has a card-based layout and a Google Now-like, header with a stylized image of a city at the top of the homescreen that changes throughout the day.
Pro Easy to organize
It has different pages that help you to have your contacts, reminders, last files opened, and more.
Pro Simple design
Very simple drawer for productivity. Requires little time.
Pro To-do list reminder
It has a very helpful integrated to-do card/widget.
If you use Wunderlist, you may connect this, and have your tasks synced between Microsoft Launcher and Wunderlist.
Pro Utility page
Microsoft Launcher has a powerful utility page, which contains the card widgets, which are powerful widgets integrated within Microsoft Launcher.
It is a page which by default is to the left of your home screen.
Pro Notes card/widget
Microsoft Launcher has its own Notes card/widget, which you may use for easy to access notes and checkbox-lists.
Pro Icon packs
Pro Vertical scrolling
You may enable vertical scrolling for your home screen, which enables you to add multiple pages for your apps and widgets.
Pro Recents
Microsoft Launcher has a Recents card/widget, which can show you recent phone calls, social messaging, SMS, files, clipboard and camera activity.
Pro Gestures customisation
There's customisation for gestures, i.e double tap to lock phone, swipe up for app drawer, etc.
Pro Built-in search engine
Microsoft Launcher features a built-in search engine, which you may use to search the internet and your installed apps.
You may choose to use Bing, Google, or Yahoo as your search engine.
Pro Arrow Hub
Share files directly to your Arrow Hub, which you can connect to from a PC via an URL and your Microsoft Login.
Cons
Con Interface is not optimized for widgets that can be scrolled
Since the interface is based on vertical scrolling cards, widgets that can be scrolled (like a calendar widget) can get in the way of easily scrolling through the list of cards. It is possible to turn off widget scrolling in the settings to avoid these issues, but limits functionality of widgets.
Con High resource usage
Con Widgets not available for new page
Con Need microsoft account to use
Con Limited Icon Customisation
You can select icons from icon packs but not from individual icon images.
Con App organization
There is no option to automatically sort apps by type and put them into one folder. You'll have to do that manually, which is a pain in the neck if you have lots of apps and want to organize them into folders.