As Keith Lemon’s proving in his Super Mega Personalised Quest Fing, everybody’s different. And with Android, the most customisable mobile operating system around, you can make your phone as personal as you are. While the amount of stuff you can tinker with might make Android seem complicated, customising the different parts is actually pretty simple.
Basic Android customisations
Wallpaper
One of the easiest things to change that’ll give your phone a personal touch is the wallpaper. You can use one of your favourite photos from your phone’s gallery, or download an app like Zedgeto find well-designed wallpapers. Here’s how to set a wallpaper:
- Tap and hold on an empty part of your homescreen
- Tap ‘Wallpapers’
- Choose an image you like (your phone will have come with some wallpaper options preinstalled, or you can choose a photo from your gallery
- Tap ‘Set Wallpaper’
Ringtones
Ever heard a phone ringing and not been sure if it’s yours or not? Ringtones are a really useful thing to customise. But you can do more than just use your favourite song in Android. You can set different ringtones for different contacts so you know who’s calling before you’ve even looked at the screen. Here’s how to set ringtones for your contacts:
- Go to the ‘Contacts’ or ‘People’ app
- Tap the contact you want to set a ringtone for
- Tap the edit icon in the top right of the screen
- Tap the menu icon in the top right of the screen and select ‘Set ringtone’
- Scroll through the ringtones and tap the one you want to use
Contact photos
Another great way to personalise your contacts is with photos. Some of your contacts might have a profile picture from Google+ or Facebook, but you can change those so you have photos that mean a little more to you and your friends. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the ‘Contacts’ or ‘People’ app
- Tap the contact you want to set a photo for
- Tap the edit icon in the top right of the screen
- Tap the little picture icon next to the contact name and choose to either take a photo or find one from your gallery
- Take or select the photo you want
Accessibility options
Smartphones have become an essential part of modern life, but if you’re visually impaired, they’re not the easiest things to use. Android comes with lots of accessibility options that let you customise your phone for your needs, like Text to Speech, large font and colour inversion. Here’s how to find them:
- Go to settings
- Scroll down to ‘Accessibility’ (it’s normally close to the bottom of the list)
- Tap each of the options to turn them off and on to suit your needs
More personal Android customisations
Audio quality
Do you think music on your Android phone sounds a little flat? Some top Android phones have equalisers built into their music players so you can fine tune how everything sounds. If you can’t find an equaliser in your phone’s music player menus, download one like Music Volume EQ from the Play Store.
Once you’ve got your equaliser, you’ll need to spend some time playing with the different settings to find a sound you like.
Lock screen
Your lock screen doesn’t just have to be a security feature on Android. You can download apps that make it a really useful personal portal, showing notifications, reminders and apps that are relevant to you.
Next Lock Screen, for example, works out what apps you’ll want based on where you are and what time it is. AcDisplay, on the other hand, makes checking notifications simple with an elegant design and the ability to detect when you take your phone out of your pocket.
Custom launcher
Bored of your phone’s homescreen? Completely overhaul its look and give it some new features by downloading a new launcher. The launcher is what’s responsible for your homescreen, app grid and launching apps (hence the name), so changing it will give you the biggest customisation for the least effort. That’s because all you need to do is go to the Play Store and search ‘launcher’. Some of our favourites are Nova Launcher, Nokia Z Launcherand Buzz Launcher.
Icon packs
If you’ve installed a custom launcher but want to make it even more personal, you can head back to the Play Store and download a new icon pack. These customise the look off all your app icons so you can get your phone looking exactly how you want it. Some of our personal favourites are VIT, Simply 8-bitand Vintage Icon Pack.
What do you use to customise your Android phone? Let us know in the comments below.