dgets are the easiest way to customize your Android device add extra functionality to an otherwise static grid of icons. But why would you want to simply see graphics depicting this extra info when you could read it?

Er, yeah, that’s assuming you’re a word-nerd like myself, or a designer who prefers text to icons. Either way, there are several cool text-based widgets out there that will display everything from the time to your phone’s battery level using words – only words. Here are 7 text-only (or text-mostly) widgets to check out.

Minimalistic Text

ice: Free

Don’t let its name fool you: Minimalistic Text’s customization options are anything but minimal. This is a great widget to download if you’re looking for a pack – Minimalistic Text comes with four widget layouts (clock, time date, battery level, weather in Fahrenheit or Celsius). You can also choose the widget’s orientation (horizontal or vertical), which can make for a unique home screen layout.

Clockr

ice: Free

Clockr is my favorite text-based clock widget because it looks simple elegant right off the bat. You can customize Clockr’s font style, clock style (e.g. choose to display 2:04 as twoOHfour or twoZEROfour), toggle the transparent background on off. For more functionality, such as a text date option, you can purchase Clockr Evolution for $1.53.

Text Clock dget

ice: Free

Text Clock dget is an ultra-simple text-based clock widget that displays the time in a slightly different format than Clockr. Instead of writing out numbers, Text Clock dget displays the time “like we say it.” In other words, 2:04 is displayed as “four past two” rather than “twoOHfour.” kewise, 9:30 is displayed as “half past nine,” 11:45 p.m. is displayed as “quarter to midnight.” Text Clock dget has fewer customization options, but you can choose to show the date (not text), battery level (not text), change the widget’s font color.

Text Battery dget

ice: Free

Style-wise, Text Battery dget looks like Clockr, but it displays your phone’s battery level instead of the time. The free version limits customization, though you can change the widget’s language (it supports 12 different languages, including panese lish). For $1.42 you can grab the o version, which lets you tweak text style, color, size.

BattStatt o

ice: Free

BattStatt o is a free open source text-based battery level widget. Unlike Text Battery dget, BattStatt o is very customizable (yes, it used to be the non-free o version of BattStatt Free): You can change text style, color, size, capitalization, bold, etc, set the widget tap action to show your battery info or your battery usage screen. BattStatt o comes in three sizes 8 languages.

AmazingText Free

ice: Free

At first glance, AmazingText Free looks like a pretty useless widget – like Text dget, AmazingText Free is a simple widget that places a static text string on your home screen. However, unlike Text dget, AmazingText Free lets you select a custom tap action for each created widget. In other words, you can launch an app or a shortcut from your widget, which means AmazingText Free is one of the easiest ways to create text app icons.

Simple Text – Icon Creator

ice: Free

It’s not exactly a widget, but Simple Text – Icon Creator is an application that lets you create cool text-based icons to replace your stock icons. There are a few ways to change icons – you can use a custom launcher, or you can use an icon changer such as Icon Changer. Simple Text – Icon Creator is a text icon creator that lets you choose font, text size, x y coordinates, background, orientation, add gradients shadows. You can create icons from scratch, or you can use one of the app’s templates. Simple Text – Icon Creator does have a widget feature, which lets you add single 1×1 widgets (basically, icons) to your home screen choose a custom tap action.