Comments on: Review: Spb Mobile Shell 3

By: Christopher Gavula

Christopher Gavula — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:25:39 +0000

I downloaded the trial of this application and while I was impressed with the amount of effort that clearly has gone into this application, I was not nearly as enamored with it as you guys seem to be.

First – you really need a newer, faster device to run it. It ran poorly for me on a 64MB device, even one with a 624MHz processor. I would only recommend it on faster machines with at least 128MB RAM.

Secondly, and more importantly, I still feel like this is putting seat covers over your ratty car seats. They look pretty from a distance, but as you get close, you can still tell it’s a cover – not the original seats. I didn’t care for some of the places that the OS popped through. It still feels uneven and incomplete in parts.

Lastly – $29.95 is too much to pay for this type of application, especially if you have to add an additional $19.95 for SPB Weather. It is simply not reasonable for what it is. At minimum, there should also be an upgrade/crossgrade for users of SPB Pocket Plus.

By: paschott

paschott — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:47:26 +0000

Agreed on pretty much all fronts – it’s cool. I was extremely impressed right after I started the beta as well and haven’t missed Touch Flo 3D too much. There’s a neat registry hack you can do to increase the number of screens in the Lifestyle view. Can find here: http://www.fuzemobility.com/add-more-lifestyle-to-your-spb-ms30/ or change the “PageCount” setting found here:

hklm/software/spb software house 2/spb mobile shell/widgets/homescreen

Authors indicate that they’ve had 10 pages working so far without any major issues, but indicate that you’ll want to test it out to see what works for you.

I still have to figure out all of the ins and outs of this program, though. I appreciate your review because it showed me some areas I was missing just because I hadn’t tinkered enough.

Thanks for the great review. I like the 3 perspectives in one review for something like this.

By: breley

breley — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:14:03 +0000

Some excellent points here. I too have moved away from TF3D to MS 3.x. Mobile Shell 3.x simply feels faster and more intuitive to me and is in many way easier for me to jump quickly around to get to pertinent information. the two-tap to get to the Today Screen is very nicely done IMHO, whereas in TF3D I had to use a 3rd party app to easily access it. I do wish there were Flexmail integration capability, but the Pocket Outlook is sufficient for me at present.

By: Mark Licari

Mark Licari — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:10:10 +0000

Fantastic review, guys. I have been using Mobile Shell for quite awhile and really feel 3.0 is a home run. I think you really captured the key points a user would relate to. My favorite feature is being able to switch between the Professional View and Lifestyle View. It is like punching out from work, once I switch the view I know I am done working for the day.