That's what i'm starting to think, I ran a 5.0.238 shrunk-os with the same apps on a 8330 for several weeks until last week when I replaced it with a Tour and upgraded this to 4.7.1.61
I have to say the 5.x beta hybrid on the 8330 ran faster / smoother than the production OS on this Tour which has considerably better hardware... I think people are going to really be surprised how much of an impact 5.0 makes specifically for this phone.
I figure we're probably pretty close to 5.0 official so i'm not going to load a beta for the time being, but every day I miss the responsiveness of my 5.0 beta 8330, so here's hoping it's real close!
5.0 is really nice, however, it isnt night and day with 4.7 I had the Bold 9700 for an hour and i didnt find that much of a difference with my Tour running 4.7 still. Yes it is better but since i know what 5.0 is now AND my Tour is running quite smoothly ..... I can wait for the official. Put it this way, i would rather have trackpad and 4.7 than 5.0 and trackball. I will be excited when RIM comes out with a completely new OS , not an improved 4.7. Maybe im alone thinking this.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
I will say that it has been night/day difference for me since loading the 5.0.0.230 with 7.8hybrid. I have only been using this for 4 days now but already I have gotten so used to it that I am dreading getting my replacement Tour today due to a trackball issue,that took me over 4 months to develop so I am not complaining about the phone at all. I had almost flawless service, was tired of the extremely long reboot times, etc, so I figured I would go beta .230 which has issues then read about 7.8hybrid and downloaded it which has made my phone exactly what I think it should be; quick and reliable with atleast a 20% improvement in battery life along with more stable signal strength. I look forward to a real upgrade, maybe vzw is just waiting to get through the new upgrade in OS on older phones before getting railed with phone calls about the new 5.0 OS upgrade once official.
5.0 is great except this NON official release REALLY has terrible signal quality on VZW....the bars go in and out and I have had more voicemails with no ring then ever before. Im sure its because there is no service books for it, but I cant go back to non threaded sms.....and the crap performance and boot up times of 4.7....
