Home Screen is the most important
aspect of any Smartphone. It is the screen where you have most of the
interaction with your phone. Home screen has many use which starts from
providing a base to launch and comeback from any action or app, it also
provides a place to keep all you important apps and it is your interface which
defines the look and feel of your Smartphone.
Most smart phones hide many untold widgets,
customization and other useful actions with their Home screen. In this tech
series we’ll talk about Home screen launcher of Honor 7 and compare it with the
competition OnePlus 2.
The basic elements covered under home
screen launcher on the basis of which we will evaluate and compare Honor 7 and
Oneplus 2 are:
1.
Lock Screen (option and
transitions and information)
2.
Home Screen
(customization, ease of use, categorization)
3.
Notification Panel &
Task Switcher (design and customization)
4.
Apps & Widgets
5.
Gestures, Accessibility
and Customization
Lock Screen
The lock screen of Honor 7 looks simple
but has lot of useful tricks. The graphics and lock screen transition can be
controlled as it has a dedicated download center with subscriptions and
auto-updates. You can also select the preference to change the graphics on
every wake with Honor 7 and EMUI 3.1, it’s a fresh interface every time.
From the lock screen you can easily
access camera and your notification. It gives you complete authority to choose
the notification you want to see on lock screen. From the bottom of the screen
it also gives a layover (on slide up)
that has shortcut to access different
apps [camera, calculator, voice recorder and torch]
Lock Screen
Oneplus Two, however using the Oxygen
OS layer over Android is very much like Android itself with only few feature
enhancements and customization options. The Oneplus 2 has a very simple Lock
screen with easy access to dialer and camera from lock screen. It does not have
other app access from lock screen. The notification is combined with sound in
the setting menu and allows only limited customization to how and when the
notification is to be displayed. Also there is no dedicated center for theme
and lock screen downloads for OnePlus 2.
Home Screen
Home screen is the most important
aspect of Smartphone UI, It resides all the apps and trigger points. It’s very
important that the home screen of Smartphone should be intuitive and
customizable.
After the Lock screen Honor 7 has a
standard Android screen, with 5 customizable icons that are visible on all Home
Screen. Like customary Chinese android UI EMUI also does not have an app
drawer, it means all the apps will be on the home screen [like iOS]. There is
one benefit of having all the apps on home screen, i.e., you can easily find
them without creating the shortcut. It also means you cannot hide the installer
but you can group them into Folders.
In both Honor 7 and OnePlus 2 long
press on the Home Screen will allow you to customize the homescreen where you
can:
·
Arrange the apps on the
screens, drag and drop, delete shortcut, re-arrange page position and Add
screens to Home. You can add up to maximum 9 screens in Honor 7 however OnePlus
2 has only 3 screens on Home (but it has the App drawer).
·
In Honor 7 you can View
or change lock screen and wallpaper. It also has options like shake to change
wallpaper | randomly change home screen wallpaper. OnePlus 2 only has selection
of wallpaper.
·
Select Transitions for
the home screen movement from a wide range of transition such as: default,
perspective, windmill, etc.
·
Access more setting with
options to enable auto fill after the app is removed, Shake to re-align,
looping Home screen.
·
Enable/Disable badge on
icons with customization to select the apps for which you want the badges to be
shown.
Home Screens
Honor 7 allows wide range of
personalization options for the display such as Color Temperature, Font Size,
Daydream, Wireless Display, Font Type where OnePlus 2 have most but do not have
Font Type and Color Temperature Selection.
Honor 7 has many other usability and
accessibility features. The phone comes with features, such as customizable
navigation bar, simple homescreen, Do not disturb mode, and even one-hand
optimizations for system apps and Keyboard.
Honor 7 allows launching smart search by slide down on anywhere
on the home screen. It helps you to quickly find and launch the app, contacts
or messages you are looking for. It also shows the recently opened apps on the
search screen and allows launching that app from the search screen
itself.
Smart Search and Simple Home Screen
Oneplus 2 on the other hand has a very home screen very similar to android default.
It also has a app drawer and it allows 3 screen on the Home which includes the
new addition screen called Shelf, Shelf allows user to keep frequently used
apps and contacts. User can disable the Shelf and use the free space as the 3rd
screen. OnePlus 2 has navigation buttons on phone body also which includes a
home/finger print scanner. It also has the option to enable on screen
navigation but unlike Honor 7 OnePlus 2 do not have much customization option
for navigation buttons. User can only swap the action of navigation buttons. Many
innovative customization features which allow users to have easy and exciting
interactions on interface such as Select Transition, Shake to Align, Loop Home
Screen, Smart Search, One Hand UI, DND, etc., are not available on OnePlus 2
Notification Panel and Task Switcher
The Honor 7 notification area has two
pages - one that hold all notifications sorted in a timeline, and another for
all of your quick toggles. You can swap around the ones you want visible on the
first three rows. The is one lag in EMUI navigation panel that the shortcut are
only to turn ON and OFF and Unlike stock android on Lollipop which allows you
to access the shortcuts by tap below the icons but in Honor 7, If you want to
change the WIFI network you have to go to settings (which is a bit frustrating
but I am sure they are going to consider this in their UI update).The slider
comes with a modified UI that has a blur effect [like iOS].
Whereas OnePlus 2 uses the notification
panel like the stock android with small modifications.
Notification Panel and Task Switcher
The Huawei Honor 7 features a task
switcher that lets you swipe away unwanted apps, and there's a "Clear
all" button that also informs you how much memory you've freed up. OnePlus
2 also uses a task switcher very similar to Stock Android but it does not show
the memory freed.
Apps & Widgets
Widgets are an integral part of
Smartphone. Many a time usefulness and variety of widgets present in the
Smartphone define its popularity. Both Honor 7 and OnePlus 2 hold a decent
number and variety of widgets.
Honor 7 has few 3D widgets for Clock,
Picture Frame, Weather and Music. These 3D widgets appear in 3D and respond to
touch like a 3D material (nothing special but a nice way to make a fresh look,
if you are bored on 2D panels).
Beside the regular App like Weather,
Calculator, Recorder, Honor 7 comes with few more useful and engaging apps such
as mirror, magnifier and FM radio(not present in OnePlus 2). OnePlus 2 comes
with only stock android apps and misses on providing innovative app and widget.
Phone Manager is a very powerful app present in Honor 7, it provides with many
securities, privacy and optimization features to the user. It is power house of
features with in-built:
·
Phone Accelerator
·
Storage Cleaner
·
Phone Scan and
Optimization
·
Harassment Filter (for
calls and messages to blacklist contacts)
·
Power Saving (monitor and
manage power saving modes, consumption and apps)
·
Data Traffic Manager
·
Notification Center
(manage notification)
·
Permission Manager
(manage and monitor permission rights and apps)
·
Startup Manager (manage
app to run when phone starts)
·
Dropzone Manager (allow
or restrict apps to have pop-ups floating)
·
Virus Scanner
·
DO NOT DISTURB mode
·
App Lock (using
fingerfrint)
·
Ad Finder (to find apps
with ad)
Phone Manager Screens
Smart Controller is another App in Honor 7 that uses its integrated IR capabilities. You
can use this smart-controller as a universal remote controller for various
devices such as TV, STB, AC, DVD Player, Projector, etc. OnePlus one doesn’t
have integrated infrared or Universal Remote features.
Smart Controller
This huge feature list can put ones in
higher price segments also to shame and most Smartphone lack these features and
depend on discrete 3rd party app to partially achieve these features
(including OnePlus 2). This level of control and customization is astounding
feature of Honor 7 and let’s just say other manufacturer has a lot to catch up.
Gesture, Accessibility and Customization
Gesture is a brave new way of
interaction between man and machine. Easy and meaningful and customizable
gesture makes way for wonderful Smartphone experience. Honor 7 uses gesture to
achieve many such advantages.
Motion control
Gestures such as flip gestures, picking up,
tilting and more. All of those are extensively customizable to your liking as
well.
Motion Gestures
Knuckle Gestures introduced with EMUI carries its legacy in Honor 7. It allows user to
take a screenshot with double tap with knuckle from any screen.
Draw Gesture allows users
to draw a letter on app with their fingers to open the corresponding app, e.g.
C for ‘Camera’. The letters with default that can be drawn with default
selected apps are: ‘C’ for Camera, ‘e’ for browser, ‘m’ for music, ‘W’ for
weather. However, it also allows customizing the app you want to be opened on
drawing of these letters.
Motion Control, Draw
Gesture, Smart Screenshot and Navigation Bar Customization
The Fingerprint Sensor in Honor 7 is
commendable as it does not restrict its use only for screen locking but also
integrate an impressive list of other gestures and actions such as: swipe down
to open slider, tap to pick up the call, double tap to return to home and many
more. It can also be used for individual app lock.
Further to increase the Accessibility
of the interface it has Simple Home Screen, Font type, font Size and allows
smaller interface for One Hand UI and Keyboard shifting for different hand
users in one Hand UI.
One Hand UI
Smart Key introduced in Honor 7 is a small button on left hand side which is fairly
accessible and can be customized to perform different actions in one press,
double press and press and hold. E.g. take ultrafast snapshot on one press,
open torch on double press. As pressing hardware key is always faster than
making a gesture or touch interface use can customize their frequent
apps/action on Smart Key Triggers.
Honor 7 provides superior level of
customization for its user basically you are in complete control of your phone.
It allows you to customize virtually everything from themes, lock screen,
navigation bar, Gestures, app permission, notifications, privacy setting and
what not. Honor 7 is loaded with many more innovative feature lists such as
suspend button and voice wake-up to further enhance customization and
accessibility a notch.
Suspend Button and Voice Wake Up
OnePlus 2 supports only 4 gestures i.e.
Double Tap to Wake, O for camera, V for Torch, and for music controls. It also
does not use the finger print sensors for other actions and gesture control. The
security and phone management options of OnePlus 2 have very limited
customization. For accessibility support also it only has font size support
which is very low when compared to large accessibility support options provided
by Honor 7.
Conclusion
|
Home
Screen Launcher
|
Honor
7
|
OnePlus
2
|
|
Lock Screen
|
||
|
Lock screen options
and customization
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Multiple app access
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Home Screen
|
||
|
# of screens
|
9
|
3
|
|
App Drawer
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Widgets
|
Good
|
Good
|
|
Customization options
(screen transition | home screen loop | Badge Icons, etc,)
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Smart Search
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Navigation Panel Bar
Customization
|
Very Good
|
Good
|
|
Navigation Panel and Task Switcher
|
||
|
Notification Panel
|
Two Page (Timeline
based)
|
Stock Android
|
|
Task Switcher
|
Very Good
|
Good
|
|
App and Widgets
|
|
|
|
Google Widgets
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
3D Widgets
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Phone Manager
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Smart Controller
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Gesture, Accessibility & Customization
|
||
|
Motion Control
Gesture
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Knuckle Gesture
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Fingerprint Scanner
Gestures
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Overall Gesture Integration
|
Very High
|
Limited
|
|
Accessibility Support
|
Very High
|
Limited
|
|
Customization Option
|
Very Good
|
Good
|
Considering
overall Home Screens, Apps, Widgets, Gesture, accessibility support and amazing
Customization options it’s easy to say that Honor 7 tops the Smartphone Segment
when Interface is considered.
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