FreshPhoneNews.com

Good news for all BlackBerry Users, that awesome new BlackBerry Messenger Client is now available for ALL BlackBerry devices that have OS 5.0 running. Yay! The guys at BGR got their hands on a version of the client on the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and spilled the beans. The BlackBerry Messenger Client is packed with powerful features (also fun features) like  avatar support, GPS integration (including proximity sensing), the ability to set and group conversations by subject and a way to create a homescreen icon for messenger contracts, and now it seems like RIM upped its game with some more goodness. Just take a look at these images, they speak for themselves. As for specific functional improvements, here’s what you’ve got;

1. 1. SMS support: Say hello to threaded SMS.
2. 2. PIN barcode scanning: this is for all you folks too lazy busy to add your friend to Messenger by entering in their PIN. Just have your friends click the Barcode option on their devices and a barcode will show up letting the other party scan it with their BlackBerry camera and immediately add that contact to your list. Simple right?
3. 3. Backup/Restore Messenger list to microSD card: speaks for itself.

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Now you all must be wondering what the BlackBerry OS 5.0 feels like on the Bold. Rightly so, ad here’s an honest take on it. For starters, there’s no earth shattering development, if that’s what you were hoping to find. But on a positive note, the OS is an impressive build speed-wise. OS 5.0 feels like the Storm OS was added to the Bold OS and things went along well from there. There’s still the original Bold Precision Zen theme, but you’ll recognize a lot of Storm in it, such as when sifting through drop down menus.

OS 5.0 has a modified way of how profiles are set, changed and created. If you’ve set your Dial From Home Screen to “NO”, the profile menu won’t pop up by pressing the “F” button. You’ll be getting friendly with the trackball and scrolling up to get to the profile icon. Needless to say this does have a slowing effect. On a happier note there are now three new options in the pop-up profile menu itself, which allows one to either set ringtones/alerts, set contact alerts or edit profiles. As to editing the profiles themselves, you will now be introduced to the Storm’s collapsible drop down menus. When editing ringtones, forget about mute, low and medium options, you now have a volume scale that ranges from silent to 10. Coming to vibration alerts; you can customize each of them to 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 alerts as well as define vibration length.

BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry’s savior in other words, has not had an additions or subtractions either. It’s just been polished a bit.

Of course the one thing that is literally killing RIM is the lame browser it has going for its BlackBerrys. The only ‘improvements’ (using the term loosely here) in the browser have been a better appearance and the ability to move around within a page while it’s loading, without freezing your ‘Berry. There is support for Google Gear now, but you can’t really do much with it unless the browser is overhauled. The Media app has also been given a makeover, but no significant changes as to functionality.

In fact, the only new app is the Files app. This new app will give file sharing options to BES users, so now you have something to look forward to. OS 5.0 goes official next month at WES, till then hope and pray RIM makes needed improvements in the browser area, or you’ll be turning to Skyfire.

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