Using stock theme improved my 9650!

**Chrisy** · 04-18-2012, 10:41 PM

I'm craving a 9930. My used 9650 is great: stable, good battery. However, it's been getting a little laggy. Since I want a 9930 I decided to delete my 9650 free theme and use the stock to get used to panals.

Wow! My BlackBerry is super responsive now! Faster, no spinning clock.

I haven't used a stock theme ever. I mean, I did for a sort time on all new devices before themes were available. I would put a theme on as soon as I could. Never really noticed it slowed the phone down.

But using the stock theme on my 9650 has improved my device tremendously.

Think I'll stick to stock from now on.

**Grim Bear** · 04-19-2012, 08:55 AM

I believe it! I've never even put a theme on my 9650. I'll change wallpaper when things look a bit too boring, but I've found that keeping the stock theme prevents lag. This could be why I've been able to stick with my trusty 9650 so long....perhaps I can wait for BB10!

**pcgizmo** · 04-19-2012, 10:37 AM

I tried a few themes when I had my 9650 and always found myself going back to the BB6 default theme. Lag and spinning clocks just weren't worth it. Thankfully I didn't have to pay for the themes I tried.

**Sky.Jack21** · 04-19-2012, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by chrisy520

I'm craving a 9930. My used 9650 is great: stable, good battery. However, it's been getting a little laggy. Since I want a 9930 I decided to delete my 9650 free theme and use the stock to get used to panals.

Wow! My BlackBerry is super responsive now! Faster, no spinning clock.

I haven't used a stock theme ever. I mean, I did for a sort time on all new devices before themes were available. I would put a theme on as soon as I could. Never really noticed it slowed the phone down.

But using the stock theme on my 9650 has improved my device tremendously.

Think I'll stick to stock from now on.

I think all of the blackberry I've used always showing that problem. On my 9650, Verizon wallpaper is cool and I never change the wallpaper since I buy it. BlackBerry 6 for Verizon Rocks!

**kbz1960** · 04-19-2012, 07:13 PM

I always thought themes slowed my tour down so I quit using them.

**spencerdl** · 04-19-2012, 09:00 PM

Yes, I realized "custom" themes not only slow down your phone, some of them drain battery faster as well. I still use some of the less "flamboyant" ones, but always return to the default (stock) theme especially when I'm out and about for an entire day away from electricity

**spencerdl** · 04-19-2012, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by Sky.Jack21

I think all of the blackberry I've used always showing that problem. On my 9650, Verizon wallpaper is cool and I never change the wallpaper since I buy it. BlackBerry 6 for Verizon Rocks!

Wallpapers don't slow down the phone. May I suggest visiting Crackberry Wallpaper section, they have some Good ones as well as the wallpaper thread

**Sky.Jack21** · 04-19-2012, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by spencerdl

Wallpapers don't slow down the phone. May I suggest visiting Crackberry Wallpaper section, they have some Good ones as well as the wallpaper thread

It is true the wallpaper won't slow down the phone, but some themes provide animated wallpapers and cannot be changed. That kind of theme surely slow down and drain more battery of your phone

**spencerdl** · 04-19-2012, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by Sky.Jack21

It is true the wallpaper won't slow down the phone, but some themes provide animated wallpapers and cannot be changed. That kind of theme surely slow down and drain more battery of your phone

Yea, your right, and I definitely stay away from those types of themes

**Mystic205** · 04-20-2012, 09:31 AM

i tried a couple of themes way back on the 9330 and saw the slowdown.. and never left stock again, either on the 9650 or the 9930.. I dont even use a wallpaper from the sd card!..lol

**BitPusher2600** · 04-20-2012, 02:33 PM

I actually use a solid black background. I have it in my head that each pixel not being lit up is just one more particle of battery life not being used. I'm a fan of the "a penny saved is a penny earned" cliche though

Sent from BitPusher's BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk

**Chrisy** · 04-20-2012, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by BitPusher2600

I actually use a solid black background. I have it in my head that each pixel not being lit up is just one more particle of battery life not being used. I'm a fan of the "a penny saved is a penny earned" cliche though

Sent from BitPusher's BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk

I'm going to give this one a try! I never noticed a slowdown or battery change using themes becuase I never DIDN'T use them. lol

**mikeplus1** · 04-21-2012, 09:51 AM

I have mostly used just the stock themes on my BBs, seemed many if not most (except for a couple of real minimalist themes I tried) slowed down, drained my battery and/or leaked memory on my 9630 and my 9650. Always ended up completely deleting them after a short period of testing. I have also mostly used a solid black background wallpaper on them as well and now on my 9930 too.

**Jared DiPane** · 04-21-2012, 12:54 PM

I always use the stock theme, to me it is a great look and provides best performance.

As mentioned above I like it with a plain black wallpaper as well, and the battery does get a bit of help from it

**Napster16** · 06-07-2012, 10:48 AM

What would be good is if the custome theme developers try to give you an idea of how much of your processor the theme would utilize in different circumstances (they must have had a BETA phase of theme development of course!) My 2 cents....

**Pete6** · 06-07-2012, 10:56 AM

The stock theme is usually coded directly in Java and not built by a Theme Studio. It also contains the libraries needed by other themes. Whilst we may not LIKE stock themes, they do have the above advantages.

btw Crissy, I readthis today BB OS slowing down over time It refers to the old trick of typing <Alt>lglg and accessing the system logs and deleting them once in a while. You may remember that we used to do this way back when to improve performance. Well it would seem that the old tricks are still somewhat valid today.

So, along with the stock theme...

**wu-wei** · 06-07-2012, 12:08 PM

As a theme developer, I can appreciate the impression that using custom themes has an effect on battery life. I personally have a minimalist style in all things, so my themes have a minimalist look and my theme coding is, I think, very efficient.

I have seen plenty of custom themes that tend to add a lot and throw in lots of animation and other eye-candy.

If a theme is poorly coded (i.e., uses straight SVG code provided by RIM's very own software - Theme Studio), then chances are good the device is going to have extra overhead just to display the theme. Plenty of unnecessary animations and scaling operations are created in Theme Studio.

For me, I have focused on keeping it light. Most of my themes are very small in terms of file size. If I recall, my themes based on BlackBerry6 (with panels) are less than 300 kb and my custom6 themes (no panels) are less than 600 kb.

That being said, the private theme I am running right now is an exception: it is 1.1 MB. But I know precisely why it is that size and, even still, it has had no noticeable effect on my battery life.

As for not using wallpapers from the SD card, when you select an image from the card and choose "Set as wallpaper," the device basically grabs a screenshot of the current screen and saves it to device memory anyway. That's how we're able to zoom and pan across images and set those as wallpapers. If the device was pulling the image from the card there would be all kinds of problems.