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Beautiful Widgets - The Beautiful is as Useful as the Useful
Tested version: 3.4
Latest version: 5.2.1
Requires Android: from 2.2
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Summary
“Life is beautiful”, “The Beauty and the Beast”, “Isn’t the world a beautiful place?”
As you can see, people across borders and centuries have always appreciated beauty. We’re not just practical beings; we also have an inherent soft spot for the esthetic. Android may be super functional, but is it always pleasing to the eye?
In the eyes of some users the beauty of HTC Sense trumps considerations about effectiveness and usability. For those of you looking for a UI à la HTC Sense without having to root your device, Beautiful Widgets is a great solution for pimping up your phone’s screen.
Beautiful Widgets brings you a great deal of cool-looking widgets to your phone.
Find out why Beautiful Widgets is more than just about good looks in today’s test report.
Test video
Features & Use
Section rating:
Beautiful Widgets includes widgets for:
- Time
- Weather
- Home screen
What’s a widget in the first place?
For all Android newbies that haven't come in contact with widgets on their computers here's a short explanation of the term.
A widget is not an active program, but a small graphic window that can receive (and sometimes transmit) information. These pieces of data can be exchanged over an API. To put it simply: widgets are programs that can be installed. In the case of Beautiful Widgets, the widget simply accesses the Android weather app or the Android clock to get its information.
All available widgets can be accessed by long-pressing the screen and selecting Widgets. There you can select a widget from the scroll-down list and place them on your home screen.
Beautiful Widgets includes Widgets and Skins
Widgets
The widgets included are available in different sizes and designs. Generally speaking, there are three aforementioned types of widgets. Each widgets can be customized to your liking:
- Super Clock Widget: This widget can display the time in 12 or 24 hour format. The date format can also be adjusted. You can also choose which apps to open when you press on the a) clock, b) date or c) weather icon. The font and color can also be adjusted.
- Weather Widget: Here you can adjust which weather app to be used in conjunction with the widget: either Accuweather or Google. Additionally, you can have your location specified or have the phone automatically know your location. The temperature can be displayed in Celsius and Fahrenheit. All in all: a whole treasure full of options!
- Home Widget: The home widget is a mix from the two widgets above with similar preferences and options.
Differently sized widgets can be placed on the home screen. Depending on the amount of space on your screen, you can choose between 2x1, 4x1, 4x2 and 1x1 (not always available) widgets.
Skins
The skins are the real attraction of Beautiful Widgets. With their help, you can change look and feel of your widgets. In the app you can assign certain skins to specific widgets. There’s a small library where you can browse through different designs. Once you’ve found the perfect skin, you can download the skin for free and save it to your SD card.
Toggles – Key Functions At Your Fingertips
Toggles are one of the app’s other important components. They are small on/off switches that allow you to control key Android functions directly from your home screen without having to open your settings. With Beautiful Widgets you can add Toggles for the following:
- Brightness
- Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth
- GPS
- Silent
- Vibrate
- 4G
- Auto-Rotation
- Unlock Pattern
- Silent Timer: Pretty useful. One click on this toggle lets you define a timeframe where your phone should be silent (e.g. you’re at the movies or a dinner with your girlfriend/boyfriend).
Bottom Line:
“The beautiful is as useful as the useful” is a famous quote from Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Misérables. Beautiful Widgets combines both of these things to make your Android phone as customized and personal as possible. The number of available skins is impressive and the list keeps on expanding. This leaves you the possibility to change and redesign your home screen as much as you please.
It’s a shame that the widgets don’t display any animation, but have to be activated with a click. It would also be a good idea to add a wallpaper library to the app. That way you can have the perfect widget wallpaper combo! Beautiful Widgets would get 5 stars if it has those extra features.
Screen & Controls
Section rating:
The weather animation for Beautiful Widgets has a lot in common with HTC. I would be doing this app a dishonor by simply comparing it to HTC Sense. In actuality, Beautiful Widgets has a lot more to offer. There’s a huge library of different skins from numerous designers that can be downloaded for free. And the designs are COMPLETELY different from each other so there isn’t any repetition.
Simply perfect!
Speed & Stability
Section rating:
The widgets on the home screen didn’t have any effect on my phone’s performance. No crashes experienced. Beautiful Widgets saves skins to your SD card saving you precious storage space.
Price/Performance Ratio
Section rating:
Beautiful Widgets can be purchased for about $3.31 from the Android Market or AndroidPIT App Center. The price is appropriate for the huge amount of variety and selection.
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Developer
Top App:
Beautiful Widgets Pro
Beautiful Widgets Beautiful set of Widgets containing clock widget, clock and weather (...)
Beautiful Widgets Beautiful set of Widgets containing clock widget, clock and weather (...)
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May 19, 2011 3:35:41 AM
I just upgraded my tmobile vibrant 2.1 to 2.2 froyo from Samsung thru tmobile and it took me 2 days to get it. Now I am learning as I go dealing with apps and updates probably because I didn't repartition on Odin.I keep having to update apps to run on 2.2 froyo is there anything to speed up the process I herve only had for a month. I had a blackberry before.I am not used to a android.I don't know whether to keep going or update or what. I can't even remember my login for pit.so I have to create a new one
Mar 11, 2011 12:13:24 PM
I purchased it from here and running well on my motorola defy.I only set one small weather which is only showing current weather and i noticed my phones battery drain upto 50%. If you go to battery use and which app use ur battery most.When i use this widget in battery use android system consume my battery and when i removed widget there is no android system in batry use. so it consume more batter even wid single widget so think if you set live wallpaper also what happen.
Market Comments
A Google User, May 6, 2013
Stopped working I use to live this app but it new the last update everything stopped working for me. Please fix this
A Google User, May 6, 2013
Used to love Before the most recent updates, the weather on the widget would match what was in the app I selected to open when tapping. Now it is way off - I have the exact same widget set up on both phone and tablet, yet they show totally different forecasts. Through some fiddling I find out that the widget is using the BW weather app - which relies on AccuWeather - which is never right for my location. I'm now looking for an alternative!
A Google User, May 6, 2013
Battery not working Beautiful battery isn't working with sorcery 5.2, Verizon nexus. Shows 92% but it's 13%. Also the weather widget isn't updating at the 15 min interval I have set. I'm not using a task killer
A Google User, May 6, 2013
Clock widget doesn't update properly Please rectify this. The clock widget doesn't update. Gets stuck on some time and refuses to update properly. I dont use any Task killer. I have entered my problem at your support site and it seems others have started getting this problem too....
A Google User, May 6, 2013
I keep hoping This is getting better it still could use some work especially in the wall paper. Needs to better communicate with the weather service wallpaper is my favorite part of the app so I am really hoping there will be an improvement the Sun and the moon animation on the live wallpaper almost looks the same please give us something that actually looks like the Sun LG escape
A Google User, May 6, 2013
One of the best out there Had it on every single rom that I installed on my phone . Don't see any feature that's lacking from other competitor apps.
A Google User, May 6, 2013
Used to be great... I bought this app awhile ago, and it was pure awesome. Recently, I found that it was draining my battery more quickly, and making my overall droid experience a lot more sluggish. I had to uninstall. I really hope that the app gets fixed.
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Great Stable now after a bunch of quick bug fixes. Could you guys add a way to sort our downloaded themes? I hate having them in random order
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Love it... But.. Please return the shortcut fields back to how they were. Now to access the calendar app you have to click right on the date and it opens the weather more often then the calendar.
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Samsung E4GT Weather widget geolocation is messed up. Says I'm in a city that's 20+ miles away
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Bug in weather Sometimes shows wrong degrees till refreshed. Said 6 degree while it was 28 hot here
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Fixed app killing battery After the last few updates the widgets have started to drain my battery extremely fast. I think I may have found the problem. I removed the app and reinstalled it and new widgets became available and it don't seem to be draining the battery as much. You might want to add the need to uninstall previous versions of the app before updating.
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Package file invalid The most recent update (5.0) does not install for me, an error message pops up "package file invalid"
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Great but could use work Weather animations need to look better. I have a full hd screen and they look terrible. Also fullscreen animations need to be added
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Not great I don't get why this widget is so popular. It's mediocre in terms of graphics, design and stability (bugs galore) I'd stick with the widgets built in to my sense.
A Google User, May 5, 2013
Favorite weather widget There's lots of themes to choose from for customizing the weather widget which I really like
how personalization screen shots download to my android version