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It’s time once again for our bi-weekly feature, Theme Review Wednesdays. Why Wednesdays? I have no idea. Theme Review Thursdays would have been more alliterative, I suppose. Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of the week, and everything seems so mundane. So what better way to break the cycle than to change up your BlackBerry theme? Yeah, that’s the ticket. This week we take a look at three themes that offer a bit of a different look. The one by Hedone Design is especially worth a look — as is all their stuff.

Sunflowers

As we’ve come to expect from her, Cherri Chiodo has brought another unique theme to the table with Sunflowers. It’s a Storm theme that really takes advantage of the touch interface. It’s bright and vibrant — a perfect alternative to a basic, bland BlackBerry theme. Even though there are some elements I don’t enjoy, well, I still like this one.

The Home Screen features six icons, all set on — guess what — sunflowers. The icons, as is Cherri’s signature, are all custom, but as always they are easy to understand. The Applications Menu is laid out in basic rows and columns, though the sunflowers are not visible in that menu. One complaint I frequently have about Cherri’s themes, the font, simply is not applicable here. It just fits the theme so well that it’s difficult to imagine it with a normal, professional font. Using the sun as a signal measure is also a little clever addition.

You can get the Sunflowers theme for $7.99. That’s the Storm version. There are also variations available for other models.

BeBerry

This theme has shot up our best sellers list over the past few weeks, making it a choice rip for TRW. It might look like a basic theme, with five icons stretching across the Home Screen. It also has a dedicated spot for a weather icon, a Today Plus preview area, and a unique icon set. But that’s not the most interesting thing about it. From the description:

The innovative BeBerry Theme Plugin, launched via the About button, gives details of your Blackberry Smartphone including Battery level and free memory available. We plan to ehance the plugin with new features and functionality including, where possible, those requested by BeBerry customers via the Feedback menu on the About screen. Join others now in helping to shape your theme’s plugin features.

That seems like a feature worth checking out. You can get the BeBerry theme for $5.99. It’s available for OSs 4.6 and 4.7.

TPXpert

And finally, the latest from Hedone design. In our last edition we reviewed FutureX, a theme which had a 15 in 3 scheme. That is, there are three buttons on the home screen which open up to reveal five different applications. This one is 9 in 3, in that each of the three groups has only three applications. There is, however, another feature which makes me perfectly fine with the reduced number.

TPXpert features a Today Plus preview. This isn’t integrated into the 9 in 3 groupings, but rather on the right-hand side of the screen. There are four icons under this section, and when you scroll over them you get the Today preview. It’s actually pretty amazing. This makes for a total of 13 icons on the home screen, four of which expand even more information. Plus, there’s a dedicated Manage Connections link above the preview section, bringing the total to 14. I absolutely love this about TPXpert and FutureX: keeping everything in one place, the Home Screen.

You can get the TPXpert theme for $6.99. It’s available for all platforms 4.5 and up, but the 9 in 3 function is only available on 4.6 and higher.

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