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Review: Real iBerry Blocks Custom L Theme

January 17th, 2008 by Ronen Halevy

Iberryblocks[19]Review: Real iBerry Blocks Custom L Theme
Rating: ★★★★★★★★½☆ 8.5/10
Website: gadgetbean.com
Cost: $6
Compatibility: 8300 & 8800 devices with OS 4.2.2

Finally a taste of Plasmic Theme Builder 4.3. I just got a chance to try out Real iBerry Blocks Custom L theme I told you about before. The theme is really slick but now I understand what people were saying about Plazmic 4.3 being buggy. The theme looks slick but does not have the customization options I was hoping for.

As the first theme of its type Real iBerry Blocks Custom L really impressed me but I could tell that it is a work in progress. The developer, John, really seems to know what he is doing but the theme system really needs some work.

This will be a very visual review since it is very difficult to explain otherwise .

The major problem I had with iBerry Blocks Custom L was the fact that it does not respect the global font setting on your BlackBerry. That means if you change the default font it does not change on the email message list and other applications such as the settings. You will see this in some of the screenshots below.

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You can see a sample email over there. As you can see there are the 6 icons on the bottom and the three today screen items. That is why it is called an “L” theme.

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When you scroll up to the top icon on the today screen you the application icon glides in from the left which is really slick! I tried catching it on a video but it did not work so you will just have to trust me .

The buttons on the bottom in order are the calendar, tasks, contacts, browser, BlackBerry messenger, and the lock button. The problem is that you cannot change any of these items. I was really hoping that 4.3 would finally allow you to change what icons are there.

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As you can see above and below when you scroll over the bottom Zen menu each button bounces up and down when you scroll on it kind of like on a Mac. Pretty cool stuff but once again hard to capture in a screenshot.

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The problem with the today screen as you can see above is that for some reason there are two unread counts. I am not sure what each one is for but when you have more than one unread email it gets blocked as you can see below.

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Below you can see what the application screen looks like. The developer was smart to use the 6 icon per line option instead of the 5 icon per line since it gives more room on the screen. The problem I found is that the theme icons were not that easy to guess and I had to think about them. Maybe its because I have never used an iPhone?

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Its also nice to see that both the regular messages icon and the separate BIS email icons both show you that you have a new message with a red asterisks.

Below is the messages screen. Notice in the top left corner is the email address of the message box.

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The profiles menu…

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The calendar items for some reason turned green. Not sure why.

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Settings. As you can see the font did not change even though I changed it in the Screen/Keyboard settings.

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A sample popup from a reminder. Looks pretty slick.

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Pros:

  • Cool new interface
  • Nice animations
  • Fits the iBerry name
  • Still fast even with the animations

Cons:

  • No customization options
  • Cannot modify font

Conclusion:

From what I am hearing from Gadgetbean this theme may not be around much longer. If you want to be the envy of your BlackBerry toting friends then get a copy. Otherwise hold in there for a few months (hopefully weeks) until the public version of Plasmic Theme Builder 4.3 is released. Then we will be seeing many more themes like this.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 and is filed under 8300 Curve, 8800/8830, Reviews, Themes.

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