Customise your Android user interface with a new skin or launcher

If you’ve got an Android phone then chances are you might have heard about Android skins before. Sadly, it’s not a TV show in which insecure cliquey robots take drugs and hump each other.

Android skins, as the name suggests, are visual skins that you can install on your Android phone replacing the standard menu layout of your phone. This goes way beyond simply making a fancy background; Android skins alter the appearance of app icons, widgets and the general layout of the phone.

Some makers of Android phones, most notably HTC, install their own custom Android skins/user interfaces. Compare the look of last year’s HTC Desire (which has the HTC Sense skin installed) to the Nexus One, also made by HTC (with virtually the same specs as the Desire) but runs on the default Android UI.

Phones from the Nexus range - the Nexus One and the Nexus S - come with unvarnished vanilla Android, as do the majority of ZTE’s Android phones, when they’re not sold under a network name like the ZTE Blade aka Orange San Francisco.

This then, is a brief guide to the best ways to customise your Android phone with a new skin. We’ll be updating this article with information on new skins, launchers and ways to get themes on your Android phone as and when we hear about them.

Lead image credit: Flickr user oFace Killah

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