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It’s time yet again to dig into three BlackBerry themes with our bi-weekly Theme Review Wednesdays feature. This week we’re sticking with our mainstays: Hedone Design, Cherri Chiodo, and Gadgetbean. If you are a theme designer or love a theme designer which you haven’t seen featured here, hit me up at jpawlikowski at bbgeeks.com and I’ll take a look. Maybe it will be featured in a future article. For now we’ve got these three, and I have to say that I really enjoy this week’s crop. So, without further ado…

Inside

We haven’t gone over a Hedone Design theme in a few months, so it’s time to dig out one of their themes and see what’s good. This one is called Inside. It’s an animated theme, which is pretty cool as long as it doesn’t slow down the system. I didn’t have any problems on my 8330. The animation is supposed to be symbolic of BlackBerry’s superiority over its competitors. As the author says: “I allways have to explain my friends why my BBs (Bold and Curve) are better than their phones. Well from now on I’m gonna show them that BlackBerry is made like a Swiss watch!” The animation is of clock gears. It’s simple, but it gets the point across. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed watching clock gears.

The Home Screen is pretty basic, featuring icons right in the middle of the screen rather than docked on the bottom. The presence of the animation on the right side of the icon bar means that only three user icons will appear on the Home Screen. Some might consider that a bit limiting, and I wouldn’t blame them. However, they are user-defined, so that’s one mitigating factor. Another is that the Bold version has a TodayPlus preview, so if you set your calendar and messages to the icons you can utilize that function. It also removes the carrier name from the Home Screen, which while not essential is still a welcome edit (also not the first theme to do it).

The theme is available for the 83xx, 88xx,and 81xx series running OS 4.5 or up, plus the Bold running OS 4.6. You can get the Inside animated theme at the BBGeeks Store for $7.

Bubble

We dig back into the Gadgetbean bin for a theme geared a bit more towards the ladies in the audience. Not that guys can’t get this theme…it’s just, you know, guys blue vs. girls pink kinda thing. Anyway, it’s called Bubble, and it does look like the old fruity chewing gum pellets we had as kids. The layout is clean despite the preponderance of pink text and icons. Yes, Gadgetbean was able to make pink on pink work somehow. This is a testament to their ability as designers.

Bubble features one of my favorite aspects in OS 4.6+ themes: TodayPlus preview. For this function it leaves the center of the screen wide open, lining up three icons on each side. When you scroll over Messages or Calendar, those items will display in the pink rectangle between the icons. This layout also allows for nine new messages to be displayed there, which is all sorts of awesome. If you like TodayPlus as much as me you might be as enamored with this theme.

Unfortunately for owners of older models, this one is only available for OS 4.6 and above. It is available for the Storm as well as the Bold, 8900, and Curve 8350i. You can get the Gadgetbean Bubble theme from the BBGeeks Store for $7.

Spring Shadows

April showers bring May flowers…unless you live in New York, where April’s showers haven’t gotten the memo that it’s May. Thankfully, Cherri Chiodo has a theme to brighten up our days. It’s called the Spring Shadows theme, and it’s a pastel-filled bundle of spring joy. Cherri did well on this one, and anyone who enjoys the ambiance of spring will probably love this theme.

The Home Screen features the Messages and Calendar previews, a mainstay of TodayPlus themes. Where it wins out is with the bottom dock. It features seven user-defined icons, so you won’t have to venture into the Applications Menu very often. Not that there’s anything wrong with that menu. It’s clean and crisp, featuing the same beige background as the other screens. Adding to the goodness of this theme is my lack of complaint about the font. Normally when I use a Cherri theme I have to change from the comic font because I dislike it. However, whichever font she chose here fits perfectly with the theme. I wouldn’t change a thing.

You can get the Spring Shadows theme at the BBGeeks Store for $7.99. That’s for OS 4.6+, including the Storm. You can also get it for OS 4.2 and up, including OS 4.5, for $1 cheaper.

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