February 15, 2011
By Editor

They say a change is as good as a holiday. So then a new theme must be as good as a new phone? Well not quite, but it does go some way to freshening up the face of your trusted little companion.

It’s black, it’s back; you guessed it, black themes

Black never really went anywhere. It’s always been a perennial favourite for fashionistas, due to its simplicity and broad appeal. We’re fans of simple things here at Ringaz. Simple and clean, means less clutter and icons jump off the screen, almost shouting out ‘choose me, choose me’. For as far as I can think back, one of the first things I do when setting up my phone, is to search the phone for a default black theme or simply head over to the Ovi store to browse through the latest themes.

By far my favourite black theme, is the free ‘The Black’ theme from MMMOOO. Here’s the link to the Ovi Store, where you can download the free ‘The Black’ theme. It really makes your phone look slick and stylish and all your icons on the home screen stand out on the black background. Navigating a phone with a black theme is a real treat.

Black is really all about green

Surprisingly, all this talk about black, is really about being green, saving energy and being environmentally friendly. All the talk around energy efficiency reminded me of Blackle.com, who reskinned Google’s homepage, in an effort to save energy. Simple stuff really, a black screen uses less energy than a white background. By encouraging people to set Blackle.com as their home page on their web browser, Blackle list that they have saved 2,307,367.423 watt hours. Black is really all about green then.

Energy efficiency tips

Useful tip: if you’re looking to get more battery hours, simply do an online search for your model number and the term ‘battery efficiency tips’ (example ‘N8 battery efficiency tips’) and all the top ranking articles should give you a few options which you can use to tweak your phone. For Nokia N8 users, we found a great post from Nitish Kumar, where he lists 10 simple battery life tweaks that will ensure you get the most out of your battery. For those who prefer the low admin route, simply activate the N8’s power saving mode, by clicking on the batter status icon on the top right of the screen.

For more themes than you know what to do with, head on over to the Nokia Ovi store and search for a theme by name, or browse through the ‘personalization’ tab for both free and paid for themes.

Download the free ‘The Black’ theme from the Ovi Store here.