Their goal was to bring in the next generation user interface for  Windows Mobile PocketPC devices. SpbSoftwareHouse, one of the top companies in delivering PocketPC softwares has released an upgrade(version 2.0) to their best selling application Mobile Shell. Read more to see if they've achieved their goal. 

What does it have?
The application gives a new screen that replaces your standard Today screen and this screen has a plesant look with all the vital information that you need. It has two layouts one with a big Analog clock , presence of new text messages, emails or missed calls, battery percentage, sigal strength and weather status. The lower end of the Now screen has buttons to navigate to other pages of Mobile Shell. Since the screen appears every time you turn your device on from stand-by mode, it has ofcourse got all the vital information for your first glance. 

    
             Now Screen Classic                                Professional Layout

If you consider your calendar and appointments are more important, you can ofcourse switch this Now screen to use a Professional layout where the big analog clock gets replaced by a digital clock and the rest of the space is filled with a small monthly calendar and your upcoming appointments.

It doesn't stop there
Mobile Shell does not just give a new screen that might probably replace your Today screen. It has got something to replace your PocketPC' program menu too. SPB Menu is another page of art that helps you launch any application in your Program list, organized in a nice fashion. The buttons are not just with good graphics, they are also huge enough for you to operate with fingers. And the transition to every page is really made amazing. They have various transition effects and you can ofcourse choose your desired one from the SPB Mobile Shell settings.

Favourite Callers make another page
Either the entire application seems to have taken a bit of inspiration from HTC TouchFlo, the Contacts page is ofcourse from HTC Home Today plug-in. Anyway, it doesn’t matter where it came from, all that is to be cared is SPB Mobile shell has a page that is entirely dedicated to adding favorite callers with their pictures in thumbnail size.

Quick Launch more quicker!
Ok, we learnt that SPB Mobile Shell gives three new pages with cool looks. Another cool feature is that, any of the page or panel can be brought up with simple taskbar/start menubar gesture
From any application on the device, you can quickly activate one of three panels using a gesture from the taskbar. All you need to do is drag your finger/stylus from the left half of the taskbar and the special panel with small pictures of three pages is displayed.

Also, if you want to activate the panel very quickly, you can just swipe your finger from the taskbar down. The panel that will be activated depends on the point the gesture was finished (left part of the screen: Now Screen, center: Spb Menu, right part of the screen: Spb Contacts).

Performance and Memory
Their previous version ofcourse had a major draw-back of consuming lot of system memory and resources making your PocketPC a bit slower but this version, apart from adding more functionalities, in-turn uses much lesser memory and resources than previous versions. SPB has learnt some smart RAM management techniques probably.

Pricing and availability
Currently retailed at $29.95 USD might sound expensive but if you already have purchased their older version, there’s a 50% discount for you. Purchase!

Verdict
Though the application brings in a very good user interface with fancy stuffs, considering the price and the target of PocketPC users mostly as a professional/businessman, you may not need this. But if you’re moving to PocketPC from long days of Nokia or other phones, sure you will love SPB Mobile Shell on your PocketPC.

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