SPB Mobile Shell is a long established alternative UI that has been making Windows Mobile tolerable for some time now. SPB has just released the first Symbian OS version of their Mobile Shell. Find out how it works in our review.
For some people, particularly those coming from rival mobile operating systems, the Symbian user interface can takea bit of getting used to - particularly in its S60 5th Edition incarnation.
SPB Mobile Shell puts a wrapper around the inner workings of your phone, almost completely replacing the original shell. It features multiple 'desktops' notifications, widgets and lashings of customisation for you to tweak 'til your heart's content.
The basic layout is (to put it in S60 terms) three homescreens. These can be switched between by swiping left and right on the screen. If you have ever used an iPhone or iPd touch you will know what I mean.
Unlike the iPhone's app-centric UI and more similar to that found on Android phones, SPB's home screens can contain program launchers, shortcuts to contacts and widgets.
S60 5th Edition users will be used to Nokia's rigidly laid out widgets - equal sized bars that fit in predefined slots on the screen. The SPB widget model is much more free-form and widgets can be different sizes. SPB widgets are also, unfortunately, incompatible with standard S60 ones. This may not be such a problem as there are plenty of SPB widgets to choose from, but any widgets that come with apps you have downloaded (e.g. Gravity's twitter notification widget) won't work if you run SPB.
There are a couple of odd choices and inconsistencies in the SPB interface. You can flick left and right through three home screens (in the trial - the full version has a secondary set of home screens you can swap between. Its a bit confusing) but if you tap the 'grid' button in the lower left you get either a grid view or - by default and much flashier - a 3D carousel that you can rotate with your finger.
What is odd is that this carousel doesn't let you flick between home screen workspaces, it lets you rotate between which ever home screen you had active and loads of other hidden screens with specific functions like Call Logging, Favourite Contacts and Weather. It is really useful and very quick to use when you get the hang of it but - to us, anyway - rather counterintuitive.
The app launcher has some impressive 3D animations as you switch between app categories and the contacts applet zooms up into view in a very pleasing way. All of this is rendered in very speedy OpenGL 3D which doesn't seem to have much impact on phone performance.
If pushed, we probably prefer the multiple home screen model to that of vanilla S60, but teh SPB implementation is a little confused and takes too much of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to packing in features. To be honest, if you told us there was a hidden kitchen sink mode we would not be surprised.
Overall we were impressed by SPB Mobile Shell. Barring a few odd choices the app is well thought out and a lot of effort has been made to make sure it works with your phone in a way that few alt-shells bother to do. The collection of widgets is impressive too, although we did miss a few of our 5th Edition favourite.
If you want a new interface for your phone, and can't wait until the Symbian^3 appears, SPB Mobile Shell is definitely worth a look. Just be prepared to do a lot of configuration before it is 'just right'.
Price: $29.95
Size: 8 MB
Check out our SPB Mobile Shell review photo gallery:
