Update your BlackBerry device software
by Volker Weber
Go into Option/About on your BlackBerry. If it does not say v.4.5.xxx, you may be running outdated device software. Point Internet Explorer to www.blackberry.com/upgrade and let RIM check your device. 4.5 or later is so much better than 4.1 or 4.2 that you won't regret investing a bit of time. After the upgrade you will finally have a browser that can display web pages. :-)
Comments
Doesn't work if you're on a BES. You have to find the device software downloads @ blackberry.com which relate to your network provider (Vodafone UK in my case) and download from there. Then you use the BB desktop software to install.
Downloading version 4.5.0.81 for my 8310 now.
Like anyone on a BES would dare not to ask their sysadmin. Oh, that would be you. :-)
Hmm… “Page not found”. Will try on a more reliable network later!
Wow, no comment about
"Important Note: This page requires Windows® Internet Explorer® v5.5 or later, running on Windows®. If you want to update your BlackBerry Device Software, you will need to revisit this page using Windows Internet Explorer."
;-)
No comment ’cause everyone knows that BlackBerry is a Windoze thing. If you have a Mac or linux, forget it.
At first I assumed the page used ActiveX. But seeing the target URL it can’t open (at least for me), looks like they have an MS installer under the covers:
http://bfs.websl.blackberry.com/bfs/bfs/apploader/ApploaderWebSL-Upgrade.msi
Downloading version 4.5.0.81 for my 8310 now...
A little later on and I'm not loving it yet.
Blew away my BB desktop, reset my theme, changed font to some huge thing where words longer than about 8 characters wrap. Browser is not a huge improvement IMHO - OK it is a little better.
Best thing so far?
I have a video camera and a voice memo recorder which weren't there before.
Have upgraded my 8700 and I'm not loving it yet either. A lot of unnecessary eye candy: contacts displayed on two lines (no option found to disable that). E-mail composing/viewing is full of it too. Browser seems a bit better (goes via a RIM squid cache now -- hadn't noticed that previously).
One of the things you may like is the ability to show your inbox with two lines per message. Much easier to read the subject then.
Blast, no firmware available yet for us down here in the antipodes :(
Colin, you take any firmware for your device. They are all the same. Your carrier is slower than the others to test.
Just remove vendor.xml from your Windows machine and it will install. If you edit blackberry.alx you can make it install other carrier themes as well. Vodafone has a good one.
Spent a few minutes with the new firmware on the train this morning:
The two lines per message in the inbox are nice. Multiple calendars available (each with own colour). The BES and BIS accounts each have a calendar, but only the BES account supports wireless reconciliation.
Contacts allow photo (haven't tested yet if the photos are synced back to Notes). Also found the voice recorder Chris mentioned: recorded clips can be sent as .amr -- useless.
"any firmware" is not technically true for all users. Those on a CDMA based network (mostly here in North America) will not work with GPRS versions of the OS and vise versa.
Other things in 4.5:
HTML email
Docs To Go
Remote email search
Free/Busy time lookup
More here...
would be great to have this for Mac.
thank you.
