These are my impressions of 4.3 beta in the 10 hours or so i have been using it.
Innovations: Rebooting is faster ( about 20 seconds for me).
Home screen
-the time is now bigger font, displayed top left corner.
-the L zen theme is easy to use i love it
general GUI is alot easier to use and more practical. everybox that has text and info in the OS, is nice and bordered
-Voice note recorder is very good. you can pause recording and and continue and save in 1 file.
-Typing
Like with other motorola phones, for example, there is word prediction enabled, suggesting words to type. the suggested words are now top to bottom, not left to right, there is also spellcheck.
-when looking through your address book, you can use an "activity log" which will find all activity between you and said contact, including SMS, email, and phone calls. it will categorize it by date.
-MEDIA, the real innovation is with the media, with which, from my opinion, is a huge step forward for the blackberry. notice the nice UI with you press "media"
-Videos. it lists all your videos.
the media player looks alot better too. there is now previous and next track buttons. this is the video player playing "3:10 to Yuma"
full screen video is now enabled as well
When you play a video, it will brighten the screen and turn off the keypad backlight, and switch to fullscreen automatically.
Music- the music is where there is amazing innovations.
First off, with 4.3 beta, the sound quality is greatly improved. the sound is much louder and fuller and clearer when coming from the speakers, then with 4.2.
They have redone the the layout of the music. It is now arranged like an Ipod. Arists, Albums, etc
yes, there is a shuffle feature which works amazingly well.
when going through "all songs" you can start typing the name of the song and it will filter in real time
You can also create your own playlists on the fly.
-Pictures
the pictures system is redone as well. it splits the screen in two, horizontally. on top, showing folder directories, on bottom showing images in folders as small thumbs.
CONS: the only problem i ran into was that i cant save pictures when i take them with the camera. Also, as i do not have a data plan at the moment, i was unable to test certain things such as Email and Web apps.
All in all, this OS is an amazing innovation for RIM, cant wait to see the final product. I hope this thread was coherent lol. please do not reproduce this review without my permission.