Handy Shell Is A 5800 XpressMusic Must-Have

By TheGuru on January 3rd, 2009

Handy Shell Is A 5800 XpressMusic Must-Have

One of the things that bothers me about the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the Active Standby screen. Coming from the Nseries and Eseries families, it’s surprisingly bare. You have 4 application shortcuts, which is less than I’m used to, but I can deal with, since they’re larger and therefore more finger-friendly. There are also a handful of shortcuts hidden in the header area, where the clock and battery indicator is. Unfortunately, everything below these areas is basically empty, and just wasted space. Here’s a shot of the default Active Standby screen:

Default 5800 XpressMusic Active Standby

The Search application (which, for some reason, only searches the internet – it doesn’t search through the whole phone, like on Nseries or Eseries) takes up 3 rows of space, and you can’t even search in it from the homescreen. You must double-click on it, and then wait through the splash screen to get to the search box.

Below that is the calendar, with a 3-entry maximum. This also has a wasted bar of space above it, which is frustrating. Unfortunately, that’s all you get. If you have the music player open, you’ll have an entry for that, but there’s no WLAN wizard (which can be useful, on occasion), and there’s no sign of the Share Online standby bar.

Completely frustrated by this, I decided to give Handy Shell another go. We’ve covered Handy Shell before, and honestly, it’s a great product, but I wasn’t a fan of it on my non-touchscreen S60-powered phones. It just seemed a bit cramped, and didn’t really offer any real benefits over the default S60 Active Standby. Here’s a screenshot of it on the 5800:

Handy Shell on 5800 XpressMusicLike magic, my homescreen is incredibly useful again. I now have 5 application shortcuts, instead of just 4 (and they’re still finger-friendly), and I also have a row of notification icons, allowing me quick access to Bluetooth, my SMS/MMS inbox, my email inbox, and profiles. The 5800 XpressMusic doesn’t have any usable 3rd party email clients (yet), so I’m suffering with the built-in messaging system.

Below that is my upcoming appointments list, though I’ve noticed that it doesn’t show recurring events, nor does it show events in the future – only those taking place today. This is clearly a personal preference, though. Handy Shell also comes with Handy Weather, which provides me with weather information, right there on my homescreen. It’s very nice, and again, finger-friendly.

Below this is where it gets really good – there are THREE buttons across the bottom of the screen – home, applications, and contacts. Home, clearly, takes me back to the homescreen. Applications, unfortunately, doesn’t take me to the default S60 menu, but rather to the built-in applications menu on Handy Shell. However, I can still access a handful of applications through here, and without having to press a hardware button. The right softkey takes me to the dialler, and the left one allows me to customize Handy Shell’s many options.

Looking at the screenshots side-by-side, it’s easy to see which one is more useful. Handy Shell provides more information, and it’s glanceable, which is an important factor for me. The default Active Standby screen simply has too much wasted space, both empty and space used by useless features. If you have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, I would highly recommend you check out Handy Shell. There’s a free 14-day trial, during which the application is fully functional, or you can go ahead and purchase it straight out from the Symbian-Guru Store.

On most phones, Handy Shell is merely another option that I don’t particularly care for. However, on the 5800 XpressMusic, it’s now a necessity. Touch changes things, that’s for sure. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing some thoughts on the Contacts bar that was so highly talked about at the 5800 XpressMusic announcement.

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Comments

  1. Is the shell an autostart application or do i need to turn it on manually after boot up?

    Does it slow down reaction time in the UI?

    Is it seamlessly integrated with other parts of the UI ... i.e. animation, themes, sounds e.t.c?

    How deep does the rabbit hole go?

    Thanks   by bazanime
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by bazanime View Post
    Is the shell an autostart application or do i need to turn it on manually after boot up?

    Does it slow down reaction time in the UI?

    Is it seamlessly integrated with other parts of the UI ... i.e. animation, themes, sounds e.t.c?

    How deep does the rabbit hole go?

    Thanks
    1. Yes, it's autostart.
    2. No, not that I can notice
    3. No, it's merely an Active Standby replacement. It also has replacement options for the 1-touch dialing screen and the applications menu, though you can still use both of those with it installed.

    Seriously, it's got a 14-day trial. On other phones, I was less than impressed, but on the 5800, it just makes sense.   by TheGuru
  3. I downloaded the application but when I goto open the app, it dosent do anything. Its not even given me an error message. it just highlights and...thats it. No response at all.   by Unregistered
  4. Just to add/ expand you get 6 apps on home row in landscape and also you can replace, move or delete the given apps in the application tab. Note for guru, you can add the menu short cut here (this is #1 in your "5 things I hate about the nokia 5800XM"). Note done on 5800XM not my iPhone3G with respect, I didn't think there would be digital bread crumbs. Lol.
    Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/10.0.010; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413   by b0sz
  5. I installed it according to the Readme (installed Handy Weather, configured Handy Weather, installed Handy Shell), and I can't make it start. I click it, I get the red dot showing that it's trying to start, then it just ... doesn't. I'm using the trial of the version for the 5800 on the Epocware website, even though it says it's not compatible. Any ideas?   by liberal_hippie
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by liberal_hippie View Post
    I installed it according to the Readme (installed Handy Weather, configured Handy Weather, installed Handy Shell), and I can't make it start. I click it, I get the red dot showing that it's trying to start, then it just ... doesn't. I'm using the trial of the version for the 5800 on the Epocware website, even though it says it's not compatible. Any ideas?
    Wierd - I actually installed Handy Shell first, configured it, and then went and opened Handy Weather and configured that. Maybe try uninstalling and going that way? Have you rebooted? Did you install to the phone memory or your memory card?   by TheGuru
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by b0sz View Post
    Note done on 5800XM not my iPhone3G with respect, I didn't think there would be digital bread crumbs. Lol.
    Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/10.0.010; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413
    Heh, I was just messin with you earlier - all are welcome.    by TheGuru
  8. Figured out what I did wrong. Make SURE you get the S60V5 version. Symbian-guru's store doesn't have it yet. Use this link: http://nokia-5800-xpress-music-softw...ndy_Shell.html (you can feel free to delete the link once you have it in your store).

    This app is fabulous! I found a cool trick -- you can read SMS right from the front screen! Just click the envelope and it will show it in a "bubble".   by liberal_hippie
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by liberal_hippie View Post
    Figured out what I did wrong. Make SURE you get the S60V5 version. Symbian-guru's store doesn't have it yet. Use this link: http://nokia-5800-xpress-music-softw...ndy_Shell.html (you can feel free to delete the link once you have it in your store).

    This app is fabulous! I found a cool trick -- you can read SMS right from the front screen! Just click the envelope and it will show it in a "bubble".
    Ah, thanks, I've shot off an email to both Epocware and MobiHand to get that fixed up.    by TheGuru
  10. thanks Liberal hippie. I did get the touch version. this thing is really nice. I have one question though. In the default Nokia menu, there is the "application" menu inside which you can have all your apps that you have downloaded. but in the handy shell menu that icon is missing, so i picked the "landmark" icon and tried replacing it with the "application" but there is no option for that. I can replace it with a individual apps but not the entire "application" folder. I hope I dint confuse anybody. Any solutions?   by Unregistered
  11. thanks Liberal hippie. I did get the touch version. this thing is really nice. I have one question though. In the default Nokia menu, there is the "application" menu inside which you can have all your apps that you have downloaded. but in the handy shell menu that icon is missing, so i picked the "landmark" icon and tried replacing it with the "application" but there is no option for that. I can replace it with a individual apps but not the entire "application" folder.
    Also, can we replace any shortcuts on the handy shels active desktop or thats just not possible.
    I hope I dint confuse anybody. Any solutions?   by ap9580
  12. Hey, this is almost a replica of what I wrote on a forum some days earlier. Handy Shell is almost useless with a normal s60 phone, esp with something like T9 Nav. But on 5800 it is the ONLY shell you want to have.

    And hey, for the 'Applications' shortcut - I dont think you can create a shortcut to applications folder anywhere on a nokia phone. Correct me if I am wrong.

    Same goes for 'inbox'. Handy Shell accomplishes this - providing a one-touch access to messaging inbox. Hats off. And shame on S60 for not addressing the sheer uselessness of their default 'active' screen.   by Tim
  13. Do the mailbox shortcuts work with Nokia Email? The most recent S60 V3 version didn't, which made it worthless for me. I still use Messenger for text and backup, but I need my pushmail on the status screen.   by Unregistered
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    Do the mailbox shortcuts work with Nokia Email? The most recent S60 V3 version didn't, which made it worthless for me. I still use Messenger for text and backup, but I need my pushmail on the status screen.
    I don't imagine they do, but then again, Nokia Email isn't out for the 5800 XpressMusic right now, so the only 2 email options we have is the default email client and Mail4Exchange. Profimail will install, but has issues with usability, and cannot bring up the onscreen keyboard.   by TheGuru
  15. The question is how much RAM does Handy-Shell consume? I mean, what if you also run some more of their products altogether like Handy-Calendar, Handy-Taskman, Handy-Keylock, Handy-Alarm, Handy-Blacklist, Handy-Profile, Handy-Weather & etc...?? They are all important too!   by BoyBawang
  16. My only niggle with Handy Shell now (besides it being weird on standard S60v3 phones):

    Go to the main menu, press exit, you'll be thrown at the regular standby. If they could somehow capture that keypress, you'd never have to see the standard standby again, and so it would be a complete replacement.

    Oh, and it's ugly, but eh, what isn't ugly this days (???)   by Unregistered
  17. @ last unregistered- I had the same complaint myself, though now I actually use that to my advantage, I've set my standby screen to Contacts, which is nearly useless in itself, but the combination of the two is actually decent.

    Thanks to the Guru for that tip.    by PseudoFinn
  18. BEWARE! Before you shell out (haha) for this app, make sure you understand that it sucks battery life like CRAZY. I don't know why it does it, I am not technical enough to understand it. But after having HS installed for about a week, I noticed that my battery was dying by 8pm at night, whereas before HS, I had never actually drained my battery (I charge every night). This was with playing probably 6 hours of music and podcasts, and maybe watching one 45-minute video, maybe using the camera 2-3 times in a day.

    I got curious and had my husband run the Energy Profiler (I don't really understand it yet). He said that with HS running, the Energy Profiler told me I would have had 42 hours of battery life at "idle." Without HS running (had to uninstall it, since it is auto-start), it said I would have something like 96 hours at idle. I don't know if it is because HS seems to hold some apps open (Messaging, Call Log, Connections, and some others I can't remember) or some other reason. But it's not worth all the battery drain to me. Before you spend the $45 for it, make sure it is worth it.   by liberal_hippie
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