This story was originally published and last update …
I personally love Samsung One UI, but not everyone wants their Samsung smartphone to be that way. Samsung. Fortunately, making your phone feel a little bigger than Google and a little smaller than a Galaxy is pretty easy, both thanks to Android itself and some of the built-in customization features present in the One UI. In this guide, we’ll show you how to make your Galaxy phone look more pixelated. I’ll be using my S21 Ultra for this demo, but these steps can be used on any Samsung device with One UI 3.0.
Hex Installer
Left: Main menu Hex, Center / Right: The theme has been applied.
Hex Installer is one of the best One UI customization tools. It allows you to create a custom theme with custom accent colors and make UI elements less rounded according to a series of notes. Themes you create are recognized by the built-in themes application, so applying them does not require any changes on your phone. The app uses plugins, modules that can be downloaded through the Play Store, to apply certain styles to your theme. In this example, we will use the AOSP R Day / Night plugin to achieve a standard look and feel.
Once both applications are installed, go to Hex and click “Edit”. From there, go into the plugins menu and select AOSP R, then browse through the various menus and tweak things to your liking. Much can be changed, and today we do not have time to understand everything. If you want a basic AOSP look, just leave it as it is after choosing a plugin, hit the install button and follow the instructions provided by the app. Hex will set you back $ 2, which is more than reasonable for such a powerful application.
Home screen
Left: More widget settings, Correctly: Merciless Grenade Launcher
If you want a real Pixel for your home screen, then Ruthless Launcher should be your first port of call. Based on the Pixel Launcher, it offers a Pixel feel with many additional features. It’s not as flexible as something like the Lawnchair, but it is significantly more stable and I prefer it.
For your icons, you need to go to launcher settings and resize the responsive icon to round. You can leave things there if you like, but I also love using the Pixel style icon pack. My favorite is Pixel Icons, which is updated regularly and boasts over 3000 icons.
Finally, you will need the “At a Glance” widget to complete your desktop. Ruthless has its own built-in feature, but it insists on displaying notification content and cannot be configured. Turning it off is easy, and Google has kindly made the official widget available through the Google app. If you want to customize something, I recommend downloading another widget. It faithfully reproduces the Quicksight experience by adding many options such as weather icon packs and custom fonts.
To complete your home screen, you will need a beautiful wallpaper to complete your work. STOKiE is one of my favorite apps with thousands of wallpapers from hundreds of devices including Pixel. Open the app, select Google from the list of manufacturers and select Pixel. All wallpapers from your chosen Pixel generation will be available to choose from.
Follow these steps and your Samsung phone will look more like a Pixel if you like it. While I usually prefer it to be the way Samsung intended, the good thing about Android is that you don’t have to agree with me. A few taps are enough to change the experience to your liking.
