Yes, we know, Windows Phone is dead. The dream of a Windows-powered smartphone is effectively over, leaving many of us to make the difficult decision to jump to either iOS or Android. I'm of the opinion that Android is by far the better option in this case, owing to the customizability of the OS for things like replacing the default smart assistant with Cortana, the default browser with Edge, and so on. But if you yearn for a more "Windows 10-like" experience, there are options out there. You can customize Android with home launchers, allowing you to tailor the functionality of the home screen to your desire. Some of them add special features and other improvements over Android's default home screen, bringing customizable app drawers, widgets, and other functionality. Redmond produces a very robust launcher, dubbed the Microsoft Launcher. However, I'm not a fan. It's just not as sexy as Windows 10 Mobile was. It's all business and no style, which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but I simply wanted something more. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more Say hello to Launcher 10, one of the Android home screen options I've been using regularly. It's the closest thing you can get to a real Windows Phone experience on Android today.

Features with feeling Launcher 10 brings the Windows 10 Mobile home screen experience to Android as faithfully as possible given the restrictions imposed by the OS. Of course, you're not going to get rich picture Live tiles for the vast majority of apps, but Launcher 10's developers cleverly emulated the feel of Windows 10 Mobile where possible.

You can pin apps as tiles on Launcher 10, and with a modest in-app purchase, you can unlock the ability to display notification text and counts directly on the tiles, which very closely mimics the functionality found in many Windows 10 Mobile apps, such as Twitter and Outlook. The home screen works exactly as you'd expect coming in from Windows Phone. Additionally, some of the system apps, like Photos and Contacts, come with custom tile experiences that pull information from those apps to create a more Windows-like experience. The Photos tile, for example, will cycle through recent images, and the Contacts tile shows off that familiar scrolling display picture collage. As for customization, the home screen works exactly as you'd expect coming in from Windows Phone.You can long press to change the position and size of a tile or unpin it completely. Swipe right to access the app list, and then long press to pin apps to the home screen. You can even drag tiles on top of each other to create folders, just like on Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 PCs.

Customization and notifications Just like Windows Phone, Launcher 10 brings many of the tile customization features you might remember, with a few extras. You can customize the number of tile-columns available far beyond what was available on Windows 10 Mobile, although depending on your screen resolution, you might want to stick with the default three columns, or Windows 10 Mobile's "more tiles" four columns.