12 Top Android Widgets to make the best of your phone
Your android smartphone’s or tablet’s home screen doesn’t have to be plain and boring. At least not when there are so many android widgets that can not only improve the look on your screen but also help you make the best use out of your android device. By adding some of the best widgets on your android phone or tablet, you can instantly access information and easily perform certain actions directly from the home screen. Here is our list of best android widgets that will help you make the most use out of your phone, chosen on the merits of looks and usefulness:
1. HD Widgets [$1.99]
Described by the android community as ‘amazingly awesome and beautiful’ and by Computerworld as ‘elegant and eye-catching’, this is a classic widget app for android devices. HD Widgets are some of the most configurable info widgets in the Google Play Store. They come in different sizes, and can even fill up the size of a seven inch tablet pretty easily. Within the different sizes you get different set configurations, and you will be able to change parts of the widget, colors and styles.
2. Evernote Widget [Free]
Ranked among the top 10 must have apps by New York Times, Evernote is an easy to use free app. Also one of most downloaded widget apps on Android, Evernote helps you remember anything across all of the devices you own. This widget for android will help you stay organized, save your ideas and more importantly improve your productivity. If you are looking for a widget that will make it amazingly easy for you to take notes, capture photos, record voice reminders, create to do lists, and make everything (notes) completely searchable from wherever you are, Evernote it is. Very conveniently, Evernote is available on any computer, phone or tablet PC.
3. Extended Controls [$0.99]
This great app offers one the finest collections of all android widgets. Extended controls enable you to easily adjust various controls and settings. The widget app has a friendly user interface, an easy configuration manager and a phenomenal battery saver functionality. Here are some of the features that you enjoy when using this widget app:
- Lots of different icons
- Ability to edit existing widgets
- Widgets transparency
- Customizable labels and colors
- Clock widget
- System info widget that displays details about the RAM, CUP, network, external memory, etc
- Notification widget
- Different widgets sizes
- On/off dividers
- Direct home shortcuts
Get the extended controls widgets app on your android smartphone and easily control most settings and other widgets on your phone.
4. IMDB Movies & TV for Android Widget [Free]
Android-toting movie aficionados can stay up to date on all the latest occurrences and events in Hollywood and at any local box office via this IMBD app and widget. This widget for android app features a rotating selection of news and reviews about movies, and shows images and text related to all the popular films. With just a single click, you can access all the details and application features on any of your favorite new movies, including popular trailers and local theater show times.
5. Android Pro Widgets [Free]
With a set of powerful and extremely useful home screen, Android Pro Widgets is something you might want to have on your smartphone, phablet or tablet PC. Designed to work optimally in most android devices, this widget app features useful widgets for agenda and calendar, bookmarks, people, contacts, messaging, twitter, Facebook and Google Reader.
With the android pro widget, you get the Quick Events and Say What tools. Quick events allows you to make quick calendar insertions with native language processing and speech recognition abilities, while on the other hand Say What is a little 4×1 widget that will easily allow you to update your Facebook and twitter accounts from the home screen.
6. Beautiful Widgets [Free and Paid $1.99]
Beautiful Widgets is the perfect android widget application for enhancing the look on your device. This widgets application features tons of themes that are aimed to make your android device look awesome. As the name implies, this widget will help you make your device unique, expressive and more so personal.
Beautiful Widgets was the first paid app on the Google play store to hit the 1 million downloads mark, and it has been increasingly popular among android users for the last 3 years running. The other widgets that this android widgets app comes with will easily and conveniently display the weather, clock, battery and toggle themes on your device.
Beautiful Widgets will not work on the SD card, so you should make sure that you have enough space on your device to install it.
7. Battery HD [Free and Paid $2.56]
You do not want to run out of battery on your android device just when you are about to receive an important call. The Battery HD android widgets app is a cool battery monitor for the android smartphone or tablet PC. This is a simple, beautiful and easily calibrated widget app that enables you to know how many hours you have left for:
- Video watching
- Time to use the LED flashlight
- GPS navigation
- Video recoding
- Video chatting
- Photos capturing
- Standby
- Internet browsing
- Talking on the phone
- Play 2D or 3D games
- Reading books
This widgets app allows you to closely monitor your device battery.
8. Days Left Widget [Free and Paid 0.99]
Did you ever forget an important date or miss an important event just because you were too busy? Do you need to count down the days until your next big soccer game? Do you need a widget that will remind you anytime your girlfriend’s or mom’s birthday is close? Days Left Widget is a suitable widgets app that will just help you remember all important events and occasions. You may want to try this little widget app on your home screen and set up a daily countdown to the new years eve, birthday, Christmas or any totally random day – just because you love daily countdowns. You can also customize this widget to suit your favorite colors and overlays.
9. DIGI Clock Widget [Free and Paid $1.29]
An excellent android widget application, DIGI Clock Widget is a classic collection of five highly customizable digital time and date widgets. The different size widgets are optimal for different sizes of android devices, from the smallest smartphone display to the large tablet-size display. This widget makes possible a lot of customization. You will be able to:
- Select widget click actions
- Select preferred colors for time and date separately
- Put outlines and local preferences
- Put a widget background with color and opacity selection
This useful wizard will make it fun for you to check the time and date. However, like other widgets, do not install this widget app on your SD card as it will not work.
10. Fancy Widgets [Free and Paid $2.59]
Personalize and enhance the appearance of your android gadget with highly customizable clock widgets, home widgets, forecast widgets, weather widgets and scores of other customization options. This fancy widget makes available several features:
- Configurable refresh interval
- Additional information
- Customizable widget tap actions
- Moon phase calendar
- Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature support
- Geo-location for weather or city search by name/zip code
- Choice of Google or AccuWeather for weather forecast
- Current weather condition and ¾-day weather forecast
The full version of this app offers more exclusive features such as multiple location support for the clock and weather, additional weather providers, current temperature notification, easy backup/restore of your widget settings and fancy weather animations.
11. Multicon Widget [Free]
Now that you have installed so many android widgets on your home screen, it is time to save some space. The Multicon is a free android widget that allows you to easily save space on your home screen by cleaning up applications that you don’t use or adding the ones that you need.
With this useful widgets app for android, you can add shortcuts, applications and special functions.
12. Slider Widget – Volumes [Free]
This is another useful android widgets app that will give you control over screen brightness and the sound volume directly from your home screen. With this widget, you can easily take care of these using the widget’s slider or your hardware buttons.
Conclusion
While a good number of these apps come for free, some of the more advanced features will come for a price. And while the android platform is known for its abundance of free apps and other goodies, you may sometimes want to invest a few dollars in a widgets app that will change a whole lot of things in the way you make use of your android gadget. According to our reviews, these are some of the outstanding android widgets apps. Still, opinions may vary. If you have any other widgets app that you have used and feel they are excellent, feel free to contribute to our list via a comment below.