Best basic launcher for an Android phone?

StevieP · 17 Mar 2020 at 17:47

I am looking at the possibility of giving my wife's mother a smartphone for the impending period of isolation but she's well into her 70's and really struggles with technology.

What I'm after is the best "seniors" launcher that will essentially restrict what she can access while making it easy to call, text and video call (predominantly Google Duo I'd imagine) - it will be installed on an LG G7 as it's the phone I've got spare at the moment!

Has anyone got any suggestions as to what might fit my needs?

Dazstoke · 17 Mar 2020 at 18:39

Nova is the most customisable but I don't know if it's capable of doing what you want

UnworthyBean · 17 Mar 2020 at 18:51

If you're willing to pay then get Nova launcher. Then you can just hide all the unneeded apps from the drawer and put commonly used apps on the home screen.

There is a free version which you could use but you can't hide any apps from the drawer nor is there any control over the icon size although I'm not sure how important that is

Scottland · 17 Mar 2020 at 19:35

Lawnchair will let you effectively turn off the app drawer and just put the apps she needs on the desktop. Then lock the desktop ap it's harder to move things about. It's free so easy to give a go

StevieP · 17 Mar 2020 at 20:22

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I think I bought Nova some years ago so will try that and Lawnchair.

My only reservation about Nova is I ideally wanted something where I could make the icons and text etc huge and easy to read too - will have a poke around and see what they are capable of!

Thanks again...

Scottland · 17 Mar 2020 at 20:29

3x3 grid and 200% icon size should be enough in either Nova or Lawnchair. Samsung has an 'Easy Mode' baked in, I assume LG doesn't have the same?

StevieP · 24 Mar 2020 at 20:12

Thanks again for all the suggestions - in the end I've settled on the simple UI within the LG G7 itself!