BlackBerry™ OS 5.0 My Honest Feedback

**emkwan** · 03-04-2010, 10:48 AM

Guys its been over 10 days since i installed os 5.0 on my bold 9000.

I'v had some mix feelings about this. Wanted to share with the community. I also prepared a video to show you some of the cosmetic changes in OS 5.0 and how they have changed. You can then make your mind up as to if it's worth updating to os 5.0.

What do you guys think about OS 5.0 on your bold's?

OS 5.0 BlackBerry Walkthrough

**juliankueh** · 03-04-2010, 04:22 PM

Well, I've tried every OS and hybrid for the bold. Firstly, which OS 5.0 did you install?

Up till .464 the leaked and official OS 5's we're just ok. They all had issues like massive memory leaks where I was rebooting every couple of days. Then there were ones which absolutely caned the battery everytime I rebooted, I mean chewing up 20 to 30% after reboots. Then there were the random reboots which were super annoying. Some hybrids solved various issues, some didn't.

.464 and .509 have been the most stable so far. .509 could very easily be an official release because it is that good. Fast browser, stable memory (haven't rebooted for over a week), excellent battery management, smooth and fast OS, excellent call quality. This one is definitely a keeper.

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**andyahs** · 03-04-2010, 05:48 PM

I'm running .509 now but felt .411 was better for me but I believe because I have a Vodofone and the release was put out by Vodofone had something to do with it.

**bushako** · 03-04-2010, 06:04 PM

I think OS 5.0 is a welcomed improvement over OS 4.0 interms of the UI. I find the sliding feature for viewing pictures and the slight changes in the overall UI appealing. However, in terms of battery life and memory gain i dont find it overwhelming. Its like a placebo effect IMO. At the end of the day i still end up pulling out the battery.

**jack57** · 03-04-2010, 06:40 PM

I have .509 installed, I like it better than .464 ,seems faster, no problems.

**reko** · 03-04-2010, 07:01 PM

I run Bell's .464 and I can tell you that I have lots of system hang...

**flight_internet** · 03-04-2010, 07:30 PM

Are you guys not bothered by the tiny SMS composition window? A message shorter than 160 still requires scrolling, right?

**katiepea** · 03-04-2010, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by flight_internet

Are you guys not bothered by the tiny SMS composition window? A message shorter than 160 still requires scrolling, right?

no the text field input box stretches as you type.

**digitalb0y** · 03-05-2010, 04:26 AM

Originally Posted by katiepea

no the text field input box stretches as you type.

This is true, plus I much prefer to see the conversation so far rather than a bunch of blank space I haven't typed in yet.

**burzlurker** · 03-05-2010, 11:37 AM

Im using build .509 and its the first os 5 i installed on my bold. I personally like it a lot better than 4.6. It seems to give me improved battery life over 4.6 and my memory leak isn't as bad as it was in 4.6. after 2 or 3 days i had leaked 10 megs of app memory, where as in 4.6 i would usually have to battery pull every day. I like how they cleaned up/spiced up a little of the UI here and there and im really keen on the faster browser. I also am a fan of being able to set custom ring tones for SMS messages. I also like the conversation style SMS messages now. For things like twitter where i usually get 25 texts a day, its all in one text message now instead of having to dig through a ton of different text to see if my girlfriend or co workers sent a text. Now if facebook would just send SMS from one number.....

the only problem i am still having with it is the contact sync option in the BIS email set up. I am waiting to see if the BIS upgrade at the end of the month fixes that.

I'm with every one saying that this could be an official release. I will be interested to see if ATT rolls it out as one. Its much better than some of the 4.6 builds they considered good enough to be official.

**NoahFecks** · 03-05-2010, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by Burzlurker

I'm with every one saying that this could be an official release. I will be interested to see if ATT rolls it out as one. Its much better than some of the 4.6 builds they considered good enough to be official.

.509 is no way ready to be official any more than .464 was, at least not for AT&T. Poor battery life, memory leaks and battery-killing reboots still plague these latest builds, it would be foolish for them to release something that just isn't ready yet.

**burzlurker** · 03-05-2010, 02:23 PM

The only problem you mention there that I'm having is the memory leak, and in 509 its no where near as bad for me as there current official 4.6. And I'm wondering, these issues you bring up, is that att's issue to deal with or RIM's? I would think rim.

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**flight_internet** · 03-05-2010, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by katiepea

no the text field input box stretches as you type.

Does that test field scroll or stretch? I have tried an early OS5.x and the edit field went into scrolling, and so I could not even see what I have typed at the beginning without using the track ball to scroll up, even though I was under the one message 160 or 140 character limit.

**katiepea** · 03-05-2010, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by flight_internet

Does that test field scroll or stretch? I have tried an early OS5.x and the edit field went into scrolling, and so I could not even see what I have typed at the beginning without using the track ball to scroll up, even though I was under the one message 160 or 140 character limit.

It stretches to 3 lines, after that it scrolls, which is relatively close to the limit, but yeah, you can expand/type 3 lines of text, after that it starts scrolling for you, and the character count is there as well

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**katiepea** · 03-05-2010, 03:02 PM

On a side note, I don't think this will be official for at&t and it's a shame to cause I don't think I've seen a build 4.6 OR 5.0 with such levels of positive feedback from at&t users, if I was on at&t I'd just install this and quit ever worrying about an official, it may never come

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**kinghen** · 03-05-2010, 03:49 PM

I also loaded .509 it loaded faster than .464 and seems to be running ok so far. I have noticed that the browser is faster at loading not sure about the memory leak yet.

**owlyn** · 03-06-2010, 06:49 AM

EmKwan,

Thanks for the excellent video review. My BB is supplied by my employer, so while the new UI features are nice, there is nothing compelling enough to make me want to upgrade and then possibly encounter support issues down the road. My prior BB was a Curve 8310, on which I ran OS 5, and the interesting thing is that OS 4.6 on the Bold is equivalent in features to OS 5 on the Curve, so I don't feel as if I am missing anything.

An improved browser is much more important to mme than the new UI. Some other improvements I would like to see are the ability to pick up a movie where you left off, and the ability to use tone controls (bass, treble, etc.) across all media applications. For example, I use the new Sirius app (excellent, BTW), but I have no tone control. Also, the tone controls need to be easily available directly off the menu key (or a hot key of some kind) for apps where they can be accessed. RIM takes a sort of "set it and forget it" approach.

**Matt J** · 03-06-2010, 07:16 AM

I tried .411 and .464, then downgraded back to my latest official on Rogers: 4.6.0.303. I installed both after a clean wipe. I found battery life on both builds to be worse than 4.6.0.303 and both leaked memory. I found that GPS was slow to lock on .464 and inaccurate. Also, on both builds, I found my Documents to Go icons were generic blue boxes. They still functioned fine, but it drove me crazy.

I haven't tried .509, but I think that I will wait for Rogers to release an official build. Every time I try an upgrade it costs me a whole afternoon or evening.... My trusty 4.6.0.303 doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it works.

I like 5.0, hand downs, it looks great.... but I don't think it's ready for prime time on the 9000.

**cptx** · 03-06-2010, 07:59 AM

Have had this since leak came out and find it to be a solid build. By far the best so far in 5.0.. As many have said this is a keeper

**Jonneh** · 03-06-2010, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by bushako

I think OS 5.0 is a welcomed improvement over OS 4.0 interms of the UI. I find the sliding feature for viewing pictures and the slight changes in the overall UI appealing. However, in terms of battery life and memory gain i dont find it overwhelming. Its like a placebo effect IMO. At the end of the day i still end up pulling out the battery.

I agree with this person. That is all.

**JerseyDriver** · 03-06-2010, 09:56 PM

Originally Posted by katiepea

On a side note, I don't think this will be official for at&t and it's a shame to cause I don't think I've seen a build 4.6 OR 5.0 with such levels of positive feedback from at&t users, if I was on at&t I'd just install this and quit ever worrying about an official, it may never come

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I'm with Katie, At&t made me wait this long, so I put this on because who knows when they'll get one out. Having great success with this build, working great, but only after a complete wipe. Coming from 4.6.0.297, so that may be an issue more than if you're already on a 5.0. But this one has only dropped about 10M in the last 24 hrs, after running a bunch of apps all day, phone is clear now and no issues with anything I can find.

**hunginator** · 03-07-2010, 10:20 PM

I would use OS5 if only the "k" button could lock the phone like it used to. Now you have to hold "a" and it will put it into standby mode.

This is bad for me because my mute/standby button is sort of broken and it's a pita to unlock it.

**Thomas-Hawk** · 03-07-2010, 10:54 PM

I've used builds .464 and .509, and for me the Bluetooth issues I'm having with my car stereo would prevent me from agreeing that these are "release ready". Using a Bluetooth enabled Sony car stereo that uses the AVRCP protocol, which allows for pausing, stopping and starting playback, and these builds have been very buggy. For example, if listening to music with the Media player, and I want to skip to the next song, the next song will not playback without me pausing it then, pressing play again. OS 4.6.x did not have this issue.

But, there are a lot of other benefits to 5.0, so I'm running it and just dealing with the Bluetooth issue. I'm hoping they get the problem resolved in future builds.

Anyone else seeing these Bluetooth issues?

T. Hawk

**rht_rv** · 03-09-2010, 08:35 AM

OS 5 is way better IMO.I think the main difference is the built-in browser, I dont know about you, but there is a noticeable difference in the browser speed. I still use BOLT more often, but if I dont want to see the full web page, the built-in browser is very capable of doing the job.