Lawnchair launcher launched but is it better than oxygen launcher?

Lawnchair is a launcher which is based on Pixel Launcher with more customization options. You can change almost everything starting from icon pack to app drawer. I will give you an overview of features that Lawnchair has to offer. I’ll dive into sections of the launcher settings and talk about all the new features and options.

Lawnchair Features and Screenshots

• Google Now (a.k.a. Google Feed) integration (Requires the Lawnfeed add-on app)
• Android Oreo shortcuts and notification dots
• Icon Pack support
• Variable Icon Size
• Custom Grid Size
• Dock Customization
• Adaptive Icons (For Nougat & above)
• Optional Blurry UI for pretty much everything
• And much more!

Themes

In Themes category, you can change the shape of the home screen icons. Available options are square, rounded square, squircle, circle, and teardrop. This is the feature that a lot of the launchers added after Android 8.0 introduced Adaptive Icons. You can see square and squircle variants below. Shame on Spotify, Instagram, and Enpass for not adopting adaptive icons yet.

 

The next option is icon packs. This is a feature that pretty much all 3rd-party launchers have, but it’s not something you’ll find in the Pixel Launcher.

You can change the launcher’s color scheme to light or dark at any time. The “Auto” option changes the theme based on your wallpaper, but you can still select it manually. Currently, changing the color scheme only applies to launcher settings, application drawer, and Google Feed. You can see how Dark with OLED black theme looks below.

The next option, “Blur,” applies a blur to the dock, the drawer, and launcher settings. You can even adjust the percentage manually. This feature is currently buggy, but keep in mind that this is the first alpha of the version 2. Everything will be sorted out eventually and I’ve already reported this bug to the creator of Lawnchair.

Desktop

This is where the fun begins. You’ll see a lot of toggles in this category. Most of them are additional, while some of them are enabled by default. The first one you’ll see is the “At a Glance” feature, which is enabled by default. Additionally, you can add time and date to the widget by toggling the options just below. Notice the difference in the widget before and after toggling those options. Weather is not supported at this time.

 

Next option toggles the Google Feed (formerly Google Now Cards). Many users are upset that the Feed isn’t as informative as it was before. If you’re one of them, you can get Google Feed out of your sight by toggling this option off.

Next option lets you enable notification dots, first introduced in Android Oreo. You need to give the app notification access first, of course. You’ll see the full notification by holding an app’s icon.

Other features in this category contain adding icons for newly installed apps to the home screen automatically, changing grid and icon sizes, and enabling full-width widgets. All of them are self-explanatory.

Dock

You can also change the style of the dock. The available options are Rounded, Gradient, Flat, and Transparent, but Gradient doesn’t seem to work, at least on Android P. The Rounded dock adds a slight shadow effect. Also, notice the blur we added earlier.

App drawer

This category doesn’t contain anything extraordinary or super customizable. Here you can enable app suggestions and Google search, also hide apps and their labels from the app drawer. That’s it. Oh, you can also set a custom opacity for the drawer, but this feature is buggy at the moment.

Conclusion

There is also a “Backup” category that lets you backup and restore your settings, while the “About” category gives you an info about Lawnchair and its developers.

I personally think that Lawnchair is one of the best launchers available, simply because I love the stock Android experience. Rootless Pixel Launcher is also a good option, but it lacks all of the extra features and customization tools. You’ll want to install the Lawnfeed application as well if you want to benefit from the Google Now panel.

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ASUS announces ROG phone for Gamers.

Following in Razer's footsteps, ASUS has announced the ROG Phone, it's first "gaming phone". It may be a phone but it sure looks different than smartphone we've seen.

 ASUS has gone many more steps ahead of Razer to make this phone more appealing. Starting with the phone itself, it features the same aesthetic that plagues every gaming-centric computer out there. The front is all glass with cutouts at the top and bottom for a pair of stereo speakers. On the back is what appears to be cooling vents with a dual camera system and a sideways ASUS ROG logo. The logo features RGB illumination that can be programmed to display any color in different patterns and can also be used as a notification light. The back is also covered in Corning Gorilla Glass, just like the front. The phone is also water-resistant although no official rating is provided.

Apart from having a USB-C port and a headphone jack at the bottom, the phone also has an accessory port on the left in the center. The side port can be used for charging while gaming so the cable doesn't interfere with your hand. The headphone jack supports 24-bit/192Khz Hi-Res Audio playback and DTS Headphone:X.

The phone has three ultrasonic pressure sensitive zones. One is on the side like on HTC phones, which can be squeezed to activate the "X MODE", which optimizes performance by shutting down background tasks and turning the theme red. It also activates the fan on the optional AeroActive Cooler accessory, which also includes a USB-C port and a headphone jack that comes out the left side of the phone so they don't interfere with your hands on the bottom edge. The other two are on the two corners in landscape mode. These are called "AirTrigger" and work as virtual trigger buttons in games. You can map them to any function within the game as long as it is supported.

Internally, the phone packs a special, binned version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which clocks up to 2.96GHz instead of the usual 2.8GHz. It is paired with 8GB of RAM and a choice of either 128GB or 512GB of storage. A "GameCool" vapor-chamber is included to pull the heat away from the chipset and distribute it along the phone. The phone also includes 802.11ad Wi-Fi, which is still quite rare. The battery is a sizable 4000mAh with ASUS "HyperCharge" 20W fast charging.

The display is likely the star attraction. It's a 6-inch, 18:9 AMOLED panel with a resolution of 2160x1080. Most importantly, the panel refreshes at 90Hz and has a response time of 1ms. ASUS also claims HDR support and 108.6% DCI-P3 coverage.

The accessory support is quite extensive. Apart from the aforementioned AeroActive Cooler, there is the Gamevice controller, which attaches to either side of the phone. It includes a WiGig Dock for streaming the game on to a big screen over the fast 802.11ad connection. There's also a dock for connecting the phone to accessories like a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Lastly, there is the TwinView Dock, which has a clamshell design. The phone goes into the top part and the bottom part has a second 6-inch, 1080p display. The accessory also has its own 6000mAh battery.

The price hasn't been announced yet but the device will go on sale some time in the third quarter. Now, there's no doubt the phone is impressively specced, even if you don't plan on playing any game. However, the whole gamer aesthetic and silly brandings are as kitsch as they get. Secondly, the gaming scene on Android isn't exactly exploding, with most of the games on the store being of the casual kind that won't benefit from the various controller accessories in anyway. The more challenging titles are few and far between and also don't need a powerhouse device to run. Most of the titles also don't run above 60Hz as we saw with the Razer Phone, so the 90Hz refresh rate will only really be useful while navigating the phone's menus.

Lastly, it's likely none of this is going to be cheap, so the whole value proposition is already out the window. And having a whole ecosystem of accessories around one phone has never really worked well. There is no guarantee these will be compatible with future ASUS ROG phones or if there even will be any future ROG phones. So to expect people to drop a considerable amount of money on these with no guarantee for the future seems not so price worthy.

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