[qpop]

Hello all!

Had a BB Curve 8320 for a week now on Orange UK,

I work in an Orange retail store and so have had a chance to play with a lot of phones, and honestly the user experience on the Curve (and Pearl for that matter) is right up there. Smartphone capability without WM or Symbian software! Who would have thought?!

Anyway, I am happy with it, there are just a few things I wonder if people could clear up...

1)Battery life:
I'm finding myself charging every two days, which is ok but not ideal. Backlight is set to minimum, I'm a fairly heavy user for calls etc. maybe 20 mins of wifi each night, a bit of WAP. To combat this i have so far:
set backlight off to 10 seconds and brightness to 10% (which is a bit overkill I think)
I have also made sure I'm CLOSING all applications, not switching (first day google maps was open in background constantly)
Anything else I can do? What is the status of extended batteries etc?

2)Connectivity:
I am yet to get Bluetooth to work; I've tried with old w300i and they just won't pair/send/receive, which is frustrating as there are some pictures on there that I want.
Also, I got some free AD2P speakers with it as a bonus pack, and am yet to get them to pair with it at all. Am I missing something here to do with bluetooth profiles or something?


3) EDGE:
This is an odd one, but my BB is almost always picking up GPRS, very occasionally jumping on the EDGE network, I've had it next to an ancient SE w300i thats picking up edge at 4 bars, to find Curve picking up GPRS at 3?
Is there anything I can do to bolster the signal? Obviously, EDGE would be preferable, speed wise. Possibly an OS upgrade would fix this? (see next section)

4) Blackberry OS version:
4.2.21 I think is whats running (afaik the latest non beta version), if I was to upgrade to 4.5 beta, would I see any improvements, in EDGE etc. I've read up on it and I'm not on TMO obviously and don't use UMA, though I want the wifi browsing capabilities to work! Would I find any other problems / benefits with the new OS version? Would it void my warranty?

5) Third party applications:
This is linked with section 4, will the ones I've somehow managed to make work continue to work if I upgrade? Am I missing something making some work?

So far: Opera Mini works + connects fine, MONILINK works but won't connect for whatever reason, Jivetalk works but I'd prefer a FREE alternative (I couldnt find a download for eMSN thingy, and IMhere didnt work for me at all)
So any ideas there?

Software I couldnt get to run:
BBWeather 0.74 crashed my device every time I ran it
MONILINK as mentioned above

Is there other free software that I would benefit from? That is actually compatible with my OS/carrier/model?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

[Foxglove]

Hi & welcome to BBF

1) I charge my Blackberry every day so I am not the one to give your advice on battery life

2) Have a look at this link for bluetoothing files which may help Transfer files / media via Bluetooth - BlackBerryFAQ

3) I do not think there is anything you can do to boost the EDGE signal, my phone contstantly alternates between EDGE and GPRS.

4) I do not think upgrading to OS 4.5 will improve your EDGE reception. Yes, it will void your warranty but only if they know you have another carriers 4.5 OS installed.

5) Is Monilink compatible with Blackberry? I have just googled it and it does not have my bank listed but it looks like a cool application. Are byou trying to run it via BIS? you may need to run it through Orangeworld.
BB weather does not work for me either I use a wap site, The weather channel.co.uk, they have a shortcut icon for the desktop too

There are many free applications, I like Viigo, an rss news reader, there is a BB forums version of it too. What kind of applications would you like to have?

MSN messenger currently works best with Jivetalk but with the 4.5 OS and BIS 2.5 it will work as a stand alone application and will be free. This may be dependant on your carrier, Orange, allowing it.

I hope this answers some of your questions Ask more if you need to.

[TroyDBrown]

Wirelessly posted (8120 4.5.037)

Two things. Your battery life is good! 2 days is not bad at all.

If you feel comfortable installing 4.5 and playing around try it, it will not void your warranty because you can always install the shipping official version on it.

Hope that helps a little.