SPB Mobile Shell 1.5 – the review

In the Palm OS world, so-called replacement “launchers” drop dime a dozen. For PocketPC, user interface replacements are rather rare. SPB’s Mobile Shell is one of them, offering a new launcher, a today plug-in with various features and – last but not least – a new “overview” screen which shows time, appointments, etc. TamsPPC had the opportunity to play with the just-released version 1.5 of the product:

After installing Mobile Shell, the program lets you choose between ‘classic’ and the new ‘professional’ layout:

The first part of the program is a so-called “today popup”. This window can get popped up whenever the PocketPC gets turned on – useful for providing a quick overview of what’s up next:

Mobile Shell also contains a today plugin. This plugin shows a list of the last-run programs; programs that get used often can be “pinned” to the top of the list. It can also show weather information, contacts and the current time in various cities. However, the contacts on my ipaq rx4240 were not accepted:

The today plugin also contains a task manager. This task manager is useful, as it allows you to manage the running programs flexibly. However, once more than 5 programs are open, scrolling gets a bit tedious. SPB should integrate a scrollbar into the list to simplify finding apps…

The third part of Mobile Shell is SPB menu. This is a graphic replacement for the default program launcher, and displays only nine icons at a time:

SPB Menu can be configured to that your favorite applications can be reached with just one tap. However, once more than 9 apps are in a folder, navigating gets tedious due to the lack of a scrollbar:

Last but not least, the program ships with a few pretty cool-looking themes for your PocketPC:

Overall, SPB’s Mobile Shell is a program that has the potential to save loads of time once set up correctly. However, it is not a silver bullet for time saving – and the consistent lack of scroll bars is annoying(for me, although it could be argued as a design choice). The program costs 30$, a free trial is available!

Related posts:

1. Resco Explorer 2005 review – Part 2
2. Resco Contact Manager – the review
3. Resco Contact Manager v2 review, 2/2
4. Resco Contact Manager v2 review, 1/2
5. SPB Pocket Plus – the review