Most phones look great straight out of the box, but you may want to put your own spin on a phone that thousands of other people own as well. If you want to customize your smartphone to your tastes and needs, here are a few easy hacks:

Developer Mode

Enabling the USB debugging mode is one of the first things you should do when setting up your Android phone. This lets you transfer files from your phone to your computer without any additional software. It also opens your phone up to the possibility of rooting if you choose to do so in the future.

Locate Your Phone

Android Device Manager is a way to keep track of your phone as well as lock it or wipe all data off of it. You simply need to turn on your location access so you can locate your phone through your Chrome browser on your desktop. This option is different from Apple’s “Find my iPhone” service because that requires you to download a separate app rather than using the phone’s native capabilities.

Customization

Most Android phones allow rooting, which means you have administrative access to your phone. Rooting allows you to run apps that require access to your system settings and flash custom ROMs, and these give you a lot of extra features. However, rooting does come with some risks. If your phone breaks during flashing, your phone can become a brick, which means it can turn on but it doesn’t boot up properly. This means you need to know what you’re doing if you don’t want to break your phone.

If you’re not willing to take the risk of rooting your phone, many Android devices come with other customizable features. Consider the following options for the following two phones:

Customize the HTC One M9 with these features:

• Dot View Case: This case protects your phone while allowing you to see important information, such as the time, temperature and message notifications without having to actually go into your phone.
• Motion Launch Gestures: With this tool, you can set certain gestures on your phone that range from unlocking the phone to launching the camera at the touch of a button.
• Custom Themes: With these you can change the entire on-screen appearance of your phone with customized colors, icons and fonts.

Personalize the LG G4 with these themes:

• Custom Messaging Themes: If you’re sick of seeing a plain background behind your text messages, you can select a custom background and text bubble that better suits your personality.
• Custom Lock Screen: Within Android, you can set a few different ways to unlock your phone. You can set up passwords or codes, or you can opt to just swipe to unlock your phone. However, you can make this more fun with the G4 by setting custom lock graphics and animations.

Custom Keyboard Theme: Similar to the custom messaging themes, you can set up custom keyboard themes. Depending on what messaging theme you have and what your phone background is, this can help cohesively tie them all together.