It’s time again for your bi-weekly helping of premium BlackBerry themes. This week we’ve got new designs from two of our favorite theme developers, Hedone Design and Elecite. They both brought the goods, releasing two excellent, standout themes. I go through a lot of these in order to write this feature, and it seems that while there are a lot of developers that do go out of their ways to create something new and fresh, these two accomplish it regularly. And now I’ll stop gushing and get to the themes.
Explicit
What’s this? A theme that doesn’t have a hidden Today preview? What is TRW coming to? Normally I go out of my way to find themes with hidden Today sections — it’s one of my favorite developments for 4.6 and higher themes. This one, though, stood out despite — and perhaps because of — the lack of a preview. Functionally, Hedone’s Explicit theme is pretty basic. But it does add a twist with the design. As you can see, the centers on a circle. In the center lies the clock. THe rung outside that is the battery meter, and the ring outside that measures the signal. The out ring is divided into 10 sections, in which you can place 10 of your most used application icons. So, when you think about it, Explicit acts like a normal Zen theme, except instead of having the icons in the bottom dock it has them in a wheel at the screen’s center. If you’re charging your device, a little B tab pops up, and if you have the alarm tab an A does. This, in my opinion, is much better than the tiny alarm that appears in most themes. Sometimes I can’t even see it. You can get the Explicit theme for the normal Hedone price of $6.99. It runs on all BlackBerry models OS 4.5 and above. Though, if you do run it on an OS 4.5 device, the clock and meters will sit on top of the screen, rather than within the circle.
Clarion
One aspect of Elecite themes I’ve enjoyed over the past few months is that they stick major icons right on the home screen so you don’t have to waste your customizable ones on them. They always have your messages and calendar front and center, usually with a Today preview as well. This theme, Clarion, does invlude those features. Like the Hedone theme, it adds a design twist. As with most Elecite themes, this one is sharp, using a purple and blue scheme as the default. The default? Yes, if you’re a Storm user you can customize the theme with your preference of colors. It means you can’t change the wallpaper, but as Elecite says, you won’t want to. Otherwise, the theme features customizable icons — 10 for non-touch devices and 12 for touch — a short preview, and a generally pretty design. If you’re running OS 5.0 or above, you can get the Clarion theme for free. Yeah, we usually do premium themes in this space, but this is premium quality (and honestly, I didn’t even notice it was free until I finished writing this).
Dippin Dots
Right off the bat, I knew this theme was not up my alley. But this feature isn’t about me. It’s about you, the BlackBerry theme enthusiast. And who’s to say you won’t like a theme that has a crazy, sometimes difficult to read font, a bare-bones home screen, and tough to read captions on the applications menu? In fact, this theme is so far away from my liking that I’m sure plenty of you will eat it up. Dippin Dots, to my study, does not much resemble the bead-like frozen treats you can buy at mall kiosks. Instead, it’s a bubble-gummy theme, featuring vibrant, colorful icons. The home screen holds just five icons, though they are customizable — and they bounce when you scroll over them. The applications menu reveals even more icons, most of which are unique to the theme. It wouldn’t be a BBGeeks theme review if I didn’t repeat my dislike of the font — I’m more of a straight forward font guy, but that doesn’t mean you are. If the visual element of a theme is more important to you than the function, you can get the Dippin Dots theme for $5.99. It works on BlackBerry models running OS 4.2 and above.
2 comments… read them below or add one
Lets be honest. Elecite makes unusable themes (navigation/slow interface) and both of them make the themes cost to much. Must be a lot of people out there with money to burn seeing as they all buy these $7 themes. BTW: I know the elecite one is free this time around.
I clicked on the link to get the Clarion theme. It took me to the Elecite site and I got an error that says “Product does not exist”