I loved my Nokia Lumia 520. It’s one of the best phones I’ve owned, and while I’ve been on Android for the past decade, the Windows Phone Metro UI still has a special place in my heart. Microsoft had some really clever ideas back then, with Metro still having the edge over the latest iteration of Android when it comes to home screen design and the ability to have all your important apps and widgets easily accessible on a single, scrolling screen.

A lot of other people share that sentiment, which is why we’ve got multiple Windows Phone-style launchers on Android. I’ve been using one of them, the METROV launcher, on my Pixel 10 Pro for about a week now, and all I can say is that I can see daily driving it, even though it still has some issues that need fixing.

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Looking to upgrade to a Pixel but not sure if you need all the bells and whistles of the more expensive models? You won’t be disappointed with the standard Pixel 10 model. Coming in striking colors, Gemini features, and seven years of updates, you can’t go wrong with this purchase.

The METROV launcher nails the Windows Phone 8.1 look

As well as Windows Phone 7

What I like most about the METROV launcher is its focus on the Windows Phone 8.1 UI. While similar launchers, such as Square Home and Launcher 10, try to emulate Windows 10 Mobile, METROV sticks to the most popular Windows Phone flavor, which makes it stand out from the pack, and it does it with aplomb.

As someone who never used Windows 10 for phones (I saw the writing on the wall back in 2016 and jumped ship back to Android), I don’t find Windows 10 Mobile-style launchers particularly interesting. But METROV is a whole other story. Its rendition of Windows Phone 8.1 is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, and the added features only make it better.

For instance, the launcher supports adding Android widgets, which can work with Metro UI’s minimalist philosophy with a few adjustments (you can change the color of built-in widgets in Android settings to match the launcher’s accent color, for example).

Similarly, you can speed up animations, or even sync them with Android’s system animation speed, which helps the launcher feel more fluid. Thanks to these welcome additions, the METROV launcher has transformed my Pixel into an impressively faithful replica of a Nokia Lumia Phone, only better.

Live tiles are here as well, along with that nice-looking horizontal parallax wallpaper animation. You can make every app icon background transparent, match everything to the accent color, or use each app’s native background color for some variety, which is something I wish Windows Phone had offered back in the day.

You can also pick between four, six, or eight home grid columns, depending on your preference, as well as adjust app padding and grid spacing. I picked the four-column layout because it looks best to me; increasing it makes app icons and widgets look too tiny for my taste. Changing the wallpaper style to Fullscreen gives you a Windows 10-like Start screen, if you prefer that look. Even though I don’t, it’s nice to have the option because I’ll likely want to switch things up a bit sooner or later.

The launcher also offers a Metro UI-style app list, along with support for changing the placement of the App Search and Options buttons. You can choose between light and dark modes, use either a transparent tile style or a full-screen background, and much more. The level of customization is praiseworthy, and I like how the developer didn’t just blindly stick to the Metro UI design philosophy, but added plenty of options that let me tweak various UI elements to my liking—something you couldn’t do on the original Windows Phone 8.1 OS.

Credit: Goran Damjanovic / How-To Geek

For all of you whose nostalgia riffs on Windows Phone 7, the developer also added a Windows Phone 7-style home screen option that includes that thick right-side bezel and the circular app drawer icon placed at the top of the home screen instead of at the bottom. While I’m not a fan, I can’t deny it looks very similar to the original.

After daily-driving the launcher for all this time, I’ve got to say that it’s the best-looking Windows Phone launcher for Android out there, at least if you prefer the Windows Phone 8.1 look over Windows 10 Mobile. It doesn’t just try to emulate Metro UI, it builds upon and improves it, resulting in a launcher I can actually use on a daily basis.

METROV makes the notification shade (mostly) unneeded

Action Center baby!

Another positive here is that you can access the Action Center by swiping right, which mostly removes the need to use the default Android notification shade. While you can access Android settings right from the Action Center and choose between a few toggles, I’d like to see more quick toggles (for instance, you can’t toggle mobile data), as well as the option to add a second row of quick toggles (at the moment, you can only add up to five toggles in total).

Despite its limitations, I love the Action Center because it makes the Android notification shade mostly unnecessary. Sure, I still have to access it to toggle Comfort View and Night Light, for instance, but I can check notifications, toggle some settings, and control music playback right inside the Action Center.

While it’s ready for prime time, it still has a few kinks that need ironing out

And a number of features are behind a paywall.

METROV is stable enough to be used as a daily driver, but it still has its share of issues. For instance, certain Live Tiles occasionally don’t update until you manually refresh them. Scrolling through the home screen (Start menu) can be a bit jittery, especially when you do it slowly.

The launcher sometimes bugs out and shows a black screen when you exit an app, but quickly resetting it solves the issue, which you can do from the options menu. Some app icons, as well as photo previews, are low-res, which looks jarring when you resize app tiles to anything other than 1×1. You also can’t scroll widgets that support the feature (like the Google Keep widget) the way you can on the built-in launcher.

Many Android widgets don’t scale well when you increase the number of columns from the default four, and I’m also getting duplicate email notifications for some reason.

Another thing that can dissuade some people from trying METROV is that many features are locked behind a paywall. Action Center, Dynamic Tiles, changing default icons, and some other features aren’t available in the free version.

That said, you get a free three-day trial to test the premium version of the launcher, which is long enough to decide whether you want to shell out cash for the full version. You can also opt for a monthly subscription, which doesn’t make much sense aside from letting you test METROV for a full month before pulling the trigger.

You aren’t limited to METROV if you want to turn your Android into a Windows Phone

As I said at the beginning, METROV isn’t the only Windows Phone-like launcher on Android. Other notable options are Square Home and Launcher 10, both of which are solid in their own way.

For me, however, METROV is the best of the bunch because it focuses on Windows Phone 8.1, my favorite Windows Phone version, because it does much more than simply emulate Metro UI, and because it’s more than usable despite its shortcomings while in some ways looking even better than the real thing.