I have been a huge fan in the web development industry and my knowledge in coding is close to zero.
My only tools of trade are the various theme builders and I usually build my homemade themes around Genesis Framework. Usually, my only go-to tools will be like this one (as it offers excellent integration with Genesis).
With over 8 years of blogging under my belt, I was tired and a little bored with Genesis Framework. I wanted to move along a new path and many options come into my mind.
For starters, being spoil with over 40 professional themes is seriously bad for psychology and I took up the challenge to build my own theme.
I headed over to Theme Forest and began scouting for a new website build and it only took awhile for me to locate one that is extremely out standing.
X – The Ultimate WordPress Theme Builder
Let’s be completely honest here. When I first saw it, I was really attracted to the ‘X’ word. It reminds me a lot about X-men (huge fan here).
This is a complete review of X Theme and thus, that’s what you are getting here; Both the pros and cons as well.
And I thought the developers are definitely bold enough to name it with a single letter word.
Just like any other human being, my eye was attracted to the price … my eyes literally popped out.
A whopping $60 for Christ’s sake!
Okay, for those who have no idea about the themes at Theme Forest, you can get tons of website theme builders around $40 each.
This doesn’t stop me there but instead, I was curious on what the X theme has to offer. I mean, selling a theme for an extra $20 would either make or break the business … easily.
And to cut the story short, I bought the X theme in the next few minutes.
I toy-ed around with it for a couple of days and I am not sure if the word ‘impressive’ fits the case.
Have a look at my complete review below.
X Theme Review – Is It Worth Your $60?
Okay, so you roughly know what X theme is by now. If you have no idea, here is a list of what X theme offers:
- Complete website builder
- Interactive visual and building features
- Close to WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
- Crazy customization options
And X theme was created based on recommendations by 9 industry experts.
Disclaimer: This is one of the biggest buying factor for me. Having a theme recommended by 9 industry experts? Hell yes!
Installing and basic setting up of the X theme
A walk in the park.
Yes, that’s how easy it is to get the X theme working on your website. All you need are:
Upload to WordPress database > Select the theme > Activate
After activating, it will prompt you that you need to install several other plugins to make the X theme work properly such as:
- Revolution Slider
- WPBakery Visual Composer
- X Shortcodes
Don’t worry, those are required to get the X theme running properly.
After installation, you will see the Customizer option in your WordPress dashboard.
Building WordPress theme with The X
This is where everything become really juicy. You are (not really) required to build everything from scratch and all the options are very straight forward.
The above image is the main ‘control panel’ for your theme. You can literally build everything and anything with these custom options; from typography to button sizes and colours.
When using the X theme, the sky is really the only limit you have.
Before you even start customizing the X theme, you need to decide the basic structure of the X theme; integrity, renew and icon.
Integrity
- Clean and professional outlook
- Best fit for corporate websites and blogs as well
- The real advantage of using Integrity is to highlight Call-To-Action (CTA) options
Renew
- Flat design but with huge 3-D effect (if configured properly)
- Excellent for blogs
- Clear theme with one purpose; outline your contents
Icon
- Modern but minimal designs
- Unique layout which could make your blogs stand out
- Best fit for blogs and extremely interactive (visual) with visitors
Personally, you won’t go wrong with any of the three options but at the moment, I don’t see any option to use all of them at the same time.
Once you have selected the above, the next step would be setting up the different layouts for your website.
This means that you can decide whether to choose:
- Sidebar position
- Navigation position
And if you think that’s all about the X theme, you are absolutely wrong. There is also option to create floating bars and you don’t need a plugin for that!
Now tell me … how cool is that?
Create ‘one-of-the-kind’ homepage with the X Theme
X theme is pretty and it is a great WordPress theme.
Great … but, you can’t seem to be able to recreate the homepage as what you thought and it is challenging.
I been through this myself. For starters, that is insanely tough. You have no idea where to start and totally lost.
You thought the drag and drop feature was as easy as A, B and C but it wasn’t. And you feel like asking for a refund (if possible).
Before you even throw in the towel, allow me tell you that you are missing something out.
The X theme offers unlimited customization features but it has a little learning curve and logic is absolutely needed.
What you can do is head over to their demo page and check out the 30 website designs available. Choose one that fits your requirements and download the demo version.
Upload it to your website (create a new page) and modify from there. The below is an example of my modification page layout.
As you can see above, there are two ways to build a homepage using The X theme. You can either use the visual composer (highly recommended) or the shortcodes if you know what you are doing.
If you want to build a homepage fast using The X theme, use the visual composer as it is much easier. Here are the various options you can choose from when using the visual composer for building a website theme (from scratch).
Additional features of The X theme
The X theme is not only a great WordPress theme builder but as well as an excellent ecommerce theme.
It is fully integrated with the popular WooCommerce platform and you can easily put the visual advantage available to blow your customers away.
While many other themes would just leave you with one layout options, each stack (Integrity, Renew and Icon) will offer an absolutely different layout and theme design for your ecommerce website.
Not only that, there are many smaller features which you could use such as the delay of visual features. This is an absolute replicate to the popular WordPress plugin, Lazy Load.
If you are worried about website loading speed, you are in good hands when you use The X theme.
So, goodbye slow website!
The X theme also comes with over 400 icon fonts. This means that there is no longer the need to hunt for the suitable icons for your website.
Need to find an thumbs up, star or people icons? Don’t worry, X theme has them all!
Last but not least, the support on the forum is great.
On average, I get a reply within 60 minutes of posting a question during working hours and that is insane. The community at there are also very helpful and you are definitely in good hands since most of them are website developers.
Review: Is The X Theme worth it?
While $60 would probably half the crowd away, I would say that it is one hell of a website builder.
With all the juicy features it can offer, I would absolutely be amazed if anyone would actually turn down this offer (unless you are nuts or plain stingy 🙂 ).
Being a WordPress junkie and a homemade website theme developer, I would say this is probably the best $60 I ever spend on a WordPress theme.
Don’t allow my review to mess with your decision but with over 829 sales and 4.5/5 star ratings since the release of it, I bet the data speaks for itself.
I hope you enjoy this X theme review and if you are using the X theme, you are obligated (literally) to tell me what you think using the comment form below. If you have any questions about the X theme, fire your questions and I will try to answer them all.
If you want to see what X theme is all about, you can check it out for free here! The X theme by Theme.co.