I recently bought a new phone, the Samsung Galaxy 5 (i5500) with Android 2.1 on it and I must say I love this operating system, it is amazing! I wish I had the money for something better like the HTC Desire or Samsung Galaxy S.. maybe some day.

Anyway, if you are like me and don’t have the money to buy an expensive HTC (I know there are cheap ones, don’t bug me) but still like their user interface, here is something you can do.

1. Download Fancy Widget. It adds the nice clock + weather widget (present in the Sense UI) to your home screen. It is actually a widget that was available in the Android Market but had to be removed because HTC didn’t like the design which was basically the same as their own interface. The main difference between the two is that this widget is not animated. Notice that the link I gave you is from 4shared. The file works, I installed it. You download it, copy it to your sd card, use the My Files app (or whatever app you use for directory browsing), click on the file and install it. More mirrors (I think this is the latest update available).

If you would like to have this widget on your computer you can download HTCHome, which is a “widget that shows nice animated clock with weather like on HTC phones. It’s written in C# + WPF in Visual Studio 2010.”

2. Install LauncherPro from the Market. It changes the home screen and adds this:

to your phone. You will be able to see up to 7 desktops on a single screen, much like on the Sense UI (the pinch obviously won’t work, you will have to press a key of your choice). It also changes the 3 dock icons, giving you the possibility to add shortcuts to 15 applications of your choice. And with LauncherPro Plus (which costs $2,99) you can add some pretty usefull widgets, like a big calendar, a friend feed, messages and so on. Check the official site for detailed information.