One thing that Windows Mobile and Android have both benefited from is 3rd party user interface overlays to add a more user-friendly experience, as well as other features such as additional homescreens, swipe gestures, and more. While Nokia has done some of this type of thing on the N97 and N97 Mini, clearly there’s nothing wrong with more choices. We’ve looked at some options, such as vHome and Handy Shell before, and typically walked away quite impressed with the Symbian developers out there. Recently, our friends at SPB Software let us know that the latest update to SPB Mobile Shell was going to blow our minds, and sent us a review copy.
I decided to test SPB Mobile Shell on my Nokia N97 to really get a good idea of the potential performance issues, given the N97′s pathetic choice of processor, RAM, and internal storage. I figure, if it runs decently on the N97, it’ll run decently on dang near any Symbian-powered smartphone out there. The installation file is 6.5MB, and when installed, reports taking up just that on my phone. RAM usage seems to be around 10-12MB, which isn’t much more than the regular built-in widgetized homescreen on the Nokia N97. After several days, I was also pleased to report there wasn’t any noticeable battery drain from using SPB Mobile Shell v3.5, either.
So, what’s so great about it? Plenty.
Layout Options
For starters, you can activate either the Lifestyle or Professional layouts, or both. Aside from some graphical elements and defaults, there’s really no difference between the two. With both active, you can simply swipe up or down to switch between the two. In the settings, you can have either 1, 3, or 5 pages for each layout, as well, putting the total potential homescreens at 10, though I personally kept it limited to 3 panels on each level, otherwise I would lose track of which pages contained which shortcuts.
Each of these pages is completely customizable with an array of widgets, icons, and shortcuts. Here is a full list of the widgets available:
- Shortcut
- Photo Contact
- Wireless Switches
- Battery
- Phone profile
- Analog clock
- Digital clock
- Tasks
- Picture frame
- Birthdays
- Bluetooth/WiFi/Flight mode
- Emails/SMS & MMS/Missed call
- Backlight
- Alarms
- Agenda/Calendar
The various customization options are all square, but there’s not a hard-set grid on the panels - you can have things overlapping or placed wherever you wish. While the freedom is nice, given that everything is squares anyways, I would have preferred the guided-grid like what you find on Android’s homescreens to keep things organized.
The top part of your phone’s screen is left untouched, so you’ll still see the system signal and battery indicators, as well as the time and other system indicators (Bluetooth, WiFi, etc). Along the bottom of the screen, you’ll first have a small white bar to indicate which of your panels you’re currently viewing. Below this is the toolbar, which adds even more shortcuts and features to SPB Mobile Shell v3.5.
Toolbar
There are four buttons along the bottom edge of the screen (when in landscape mode, these automatically rotate to the far right side, just like the default Symbian system does). First, the tabs button launches the awesome tabs viewer, which gives you quick access to a variety of easy tabs on your phone. You can view these in the live 3D carousel view, which will really floor you when you see it running on your Nokia N97.
There is also a more restrained tiles view for the tabs, which is much more like the Nokia N900′s multitasking view. I actually found that I preferred the tiles view the more I used SPB Mobile Shell on my N97. While it’s not nearly as visually pleasing as the cool carousel, it’s much more functional since it shows several tabs on the screen at the same time.
As you can see in the video demo at the end of this review, even on the Nokia N97, this 3D carousel view is quite smooth and easy to use. It has kinetic scrolling, so you can flick the tiles and they go wheeling by quite nicely. It can, however, be slightly too sensitive, but that could just be my preferences, as well. There are a number of shortcut tabs here, mixed in with your custom panels from both the Lifestyle and Professional levels.
Phone Features
One of the most basic features of a smartphone is to…well….make calls. Oddly enough, until I started writing this review, I didn’t even notice that there’s no default widget to get to the dialer quickly, so you may want to set that up first. This is easily done through the Add Widget feature, though if you’re going to call one of your contacts, there’s a much easier way to do that.
Of course you can set shortcuts to your favorite contacts on your homescreens, but SPB Mobile Shell v3.5 offers much more than that. From the homescreen view, you can click the Contacts button on the bottom to switchto the Contacts view. From here, you can see your call logs, with thumbnail images and easy-to-read icons showing whether the call was incoming, outgoing, or missed, along with the time and date.
There is also a more in-depth Favorite Contacts view available here with 14 slots for your buddies. If you click on one, you’re taken to the contact card view, which gives easy buttons to SMS, MMS, Email, or phone your friend, with a preference set to their mobile number.
Last, there is a Contacts list option which shows them by name and number, with an easy way to search through by typing out part of the name or phone number. As you can see below, pressing the ’6′ brings up any phone number that starts with ’6′, as well as names with ‘M’ in them. This is definitely handy if you have a large phonebook.
Extras
SPB Weather is basically baked right into Mobile Shell v3.5, with automatic location based on your GPS and a number of handy widgets for showing the weather right there on your homescreen. You can also click to open the widget and get full current details and upcoming forecast, too. As expected, there are a number of settings available to control which city the weather shows, as well as how often it gets updated. I’m really glad to see weather integrated so tightly - it’s one of the most important things a smartphone can tell you, though I did find myself wishing for more of the advanced features that SPB Weather is known for, such as the radar maps.
It’s really impressive how deep the integration goes, as well. With SPB Mobile Shell installed, it completely becomes the default homescreen on your device. When you power your phone on, it launches straight to SPB Mobile Shell, and when you unlock the screen using the N97′s slide-lock, it’s there, as well. You can press the menu key to get to your default Symbian menu, but pressing it again (or pressing the ‘Exit’ key) takes you right back into SPB Mobile Shell. The only way to get to your default Symbian homescreen, actually, is through a special link in SPB Mobile Shell. This makes for a complete transition, and really gives a great user experience.
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Issues
There are a few issues that are present in this release of SPB Mobile Shell v3.5. For starters, the email and messaging alerts feature only works with the default messaging client - if you use 3rd party apps such as Free-iSMS or Nokia Messaging, you’re going to have to switch back to the built-in systems or find another way to work around this limitation. Quite honestly, this might be a dealbreaker for me, as I really despise the built-in email client on my N97, and have gotten spoiled by the awesomeness that is Free-iSMS.
Coming from the Nokia N97, there’s also a lack of 3rd party widgets in SPB Mobile Shell. This is somewhat expected, since this is a 3rd party user interface, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating. There are no widgets for my favorite applications, like the Symbian-Guru Ovi App, Gravity, or others, and I don’t really see many developers updating their apps for this. SPB is going to have to work with them if they want that sort of functionality to come in, and I sincerely hope they do.
Also, I didn’t see a way to backup my settings. This isn’t a crucial option, but would be extremely handy, as we Symbian users are adept at hard resetting our device to get a fresh start. With as many options as SPB Mobile Shell has, being able to get everything setup properly and then create a backup file would be an extremely welcome feature.
Conclusion
When I first installed it, I found SPB Mobile Shell v3.5 to be a complete waste, with far too many options to be useful, and I got really frustrated trying to get it setup how I would want it. However, after I spent a few minutes getting things setup properly, it’s really an awesome improvement to the homescreen on any of the currently-available Symbian-powered touchscreen smartphones. Even with both Lifestyle and Professional layouts active and 3 pages on each, I’ve not noticed any significant lag on my N97, and I’m able to get around much easier, with better access to more of my phone’s features. It kinda makes you wonder if the N97′s lag isn’t partially due to its resource-hungry homescreen.
I have also noticed that others are much more impressed with my phone than they previously were - especially when I launch the carousel and give it a spin. SPB Mobile Shell gives S60 5th Edition phones the eye candy they should have had from the start, and it does so without slowing the phone down significantly, which is quite an accomplishment. It should be noted that the default N97 homescreen is still active underneath, so I would likely be able to free up even more RAM if I disabled as much as possible there before starting up SPB Mobile Shell.
There is a free fully-functional 15-day trial of SPB Mobile Shell v3.5 available from the Symbian-Guru App Store, after which the program costs $30. It’s not cheap, but considering all you get, it’s quite a bargain, in my opinion. SPB Mobile Shell has brought a whole new level of functionality and attractiveness to my Nokia N97, and I would imagine that any other touchscreen Symbian phone would also have the same benefits, if not more.
Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments. What features would you like to see in future versions of SPB Mobile Shell?
