Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf

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If you’re anything like me, you appreciate the aesthetic of Google’s Pixel phones. There’s something special about that clean, flat design language: the way the widgets pull color cues from your wallpaper, the subtle transparency effects, and the overall simplicity of Google’s apps. It creates a cohesive vibe that feels both modern and understated. I wanted to endeavor to make my old Samsung Galaxy S22+ feel like a Pixel. The S22+ has aged, but still has beautiful hardware with a big, high-res and high-refresh screen, great cameras, and it even dons the latest Android 16 even though the device came out in 2022. In fact, going forward, as phones offer only incremental upgrades year after year, it’s incumbent on us as consumers to try to make our tech last a bit longer. The main advantage of Android is that it’s extensible, so that you can refresh the experience with minimal trouble.

Surprisingly, the process wasn’t complicated—and the results genuinely refreshed my phone and made it feel like a new Pixel. In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly what I did, the apps I used, and the tweaks that make the biggest difference. Whether you’re trying to stretch the life of an old device like I was, or you simply prefer Pixel-style minimalism, you can pull off the same makeover in just a few minutes.

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Start with the launcher

Lawnchair gives that Pixel vibe

Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf

I started with the launcher (which is often the best starting point to reform the experience of any Android). Lawnchair launcher is most likely the default Pixel launcher because it gives you the At a Glance widget (which I disabled in favor of the official Google Glance widget that comes with the Google app), it gives you the bottom search pill, plus Lawnchair has full Material You theming. Even the app drawer feels more Pixel since it scrolls vertically. Finally, because Lawnchair is based on the AOSP launcher, you get smooth animations everywhere and great performance. Within Settings, Lawnchair lets you set icon packs, change the homescreen grid, tweak the dock, and adjust the look of the app drawer to your liking.

Google App all the things

Phone, messages, and more

Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf

Since the early days of Android, you’ve been able to change most of the default apps, which is ideal if you’re using a Samsung phone that has many duplicates. You can download (and set to default) most apps: phone, browser, messaging, photos. To change the default apps, once you install the new ones, head to settings, and just search for "Default apps". Below are direct links to a handful of default Google apps, such as Phone, Messages, Gemini, Calendar and Gboard. These Google Apps were an easy swap for the same pre-loaded Samsung apps which are just not as good.

Other tweaks to make

Customize color palettes and get Pixel-like wallpaper

Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf

If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy device, you can color-match the entire UI to a color palette that is similar to your wallpaper. You can do this by going to Wallpaper and Style under Settings.

For Pixel-like wallpapers for free, I recommend you download NothingbutWallpapers. It contains dozens of simple, colorful wallpapers that complement the Material You aesthetic you’ve achieved with the above tweaks.

You don’t need a Pixel to have the Pixel experience

With a few key apps and tweaks, you can get the Material You Expressive look

While the latest versions of Android are based on the Material You Expressive design language, most OEMs have gone in different directions. Samsung’s One UI, while a huge improvement over the past, still breaks from the Material Design aesthetic across the operating system, necessitating some pretty heavy lifting if you want to make a Samsung feel like a Pixel, but it certainly is possible. Something that I didn’t cover in this article that takes this a step further, but often requires more work, is replacing the system camera app with GCam, which is a port of the Pixel camera experience that brings Google’s simplified UI to any Android phone, and most importantly, offers the amazing post-processing "look" that only Pixels have. To get GCam, you’ll want to refer to this thread at XDA.