How to breathe new air into your 2yo phone: install and use a new launcher. Just installed the one from Microsoft and looks and feels awesome

Where do these trolls come from?

Oh no! He's saying something good about Microsoft! Throw stones!

How does a launcher affect performance, a part from adding extra bloat to an already bloated OS?

@electrineer huh, what?

@RantSomeWhere I do. Not into that.

@feroza it doesn't, but it looks nicer, that's the purpose of my post, sometimes you want to give it a face-lift. And my phone never felt bloated, even after updating it through two major versions.

@Mayhem93 Oh, my mistake, I somehow added "performance" to the post in my mind.

Personally, Nova FTW ! Super fast , really simple and very customizable. The one from Microsoft is actually pretty good tho.
Also, quick tip : on Android, under developer option you can reduce time taken for animation. It feels way better after that.

@MrEliptik I've used nova before, now I'm just trying something new, besides I want to be able to receive and send text from my win 10 laptop

How to breathe new air to a 5 year old smartphone? Just install the latest official OS from the manufacturer. It’s faster and has no bloatware.

@lastNick my 2 year old HTC 10 barely has any bloatware and it's almost as fast as I'd love a phone to be.

@Mayhem93 Are official updates available?

@lastNick the last major one is Android 8, the rest are just security updates (but that's uncommon and doesn't happen even once every 6 months)

@Mayhem93 That’s great. Let’s talk again in 3 years from now.

@lastNick I'll be having another phone by then

@Mayhem93 I understand ! I think I did the same back then. In case you want something else, with "message" from Google you have a web interface. Pushbullet can also let you send SMS from any computer.

@MrEliptik what I got doesn't use any web interface, just goes through win 10. And I still use web interface for android messages, but I don't receive notifications if I'm not on the page :/

@Mayhem93 Ok i get it. If you activated notification and let Chrome running in the background it works no ? With pushbullet it works for sure !

@MrEliptik ofc it does, it's just that it's baked in. I never used pushbullet, and I don't think I need it. I want a more streamlined experience. Without having to install extra stuff (yes, I still have to pair my android with win 10)

I'm still using a Motorola Moto G from 2013 (paid 220 $ back then). I flashed the latest LineageOS (bases on Android 7) that receives updates once a week, and I use Nova launcher prime with notification count and full Google integration. I have to deal with some lag once in a while since it has just 1 GB of RAM and apps are getting bigger and heavier (with no apparent reason), but otherwise it's so good that I'm not willing to change it even if I could, battery still lasts a full day and I can find battery and display replacement parts for less than 20 $ if i need (replaced the display twice already and it was pretty easy to do too).

What I want to say is that you don't actually need a new phone. You just need to buy one good phone and you have to know how to use and maintain it. Flagship devices can last 4+ years if used properly

@michezio it's not that, it's the fact that I get bored and I like to buy new stuff from time to time. I still got my HTC one m8 from 4 years ago and still works fine (it's stock)

Actually I have that launcher and am quite impressed by it. And not a M$ fanboy.