Ease of use
Is the learning curve akin to scaling Mount Doom?
The fact that Midnight Commander and Ranger are terminal applications will write them off for a lot of people. This is a shame, because it’s pretty intuitive to navigate around Midnight Commander and help is always on hand via the F1 key. Ranger is perhaps a harder sell, though if you already know Vim then you’ll be fine and if not, just press ? to access man pages, key bindings or commands. You can input Vimlike commands in Ranger, but it comes configured with Midnight Commander-style shortcuts.
Dolphin is the easiest for beginners to get to grips with. It has an Undo function (as does 4Pane), and because it follows KDE’S theme, the toolbar icons are easy to understand, and it’s simple to set up bookmarks to commonly accessed folders or network shares. It can preview files if you set the icons large enough, and has a section for recently accessed files.
Krusader supports tabs, but they feel slightly clumsy with the two-pane layout. If you’re familiar with Midnight Commander’s use of the function keys then good news, these work in Krusader. And if you’re not, then they are helpfully displayed along the bottom. The layout might feel a little claustrophobic on a small screen, since each panel has four or five columns by default. 4Pane evoked memories of Windows 3.1’s File Manager, which will give some people a nostalgic feeling of home. But it’s deceptively powerful. Despite having four panes, the layout doesn’t feel cramped as long as you have enough screen estate, that is.