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A few days ago Blackberry Messenger 5.0 leaked. It is available through download and install via desktop manager. Thanks to @0mie BBM 5.0 is available for download on most Blackberries as an Over the Air (OTA) install straight from the Blackberry Browser. Make sure you read carefully and you backup all of your information (especially your Blackberry Messenger Contacts) before you start this process.

I was so excited for the news, I installed immediately on my phone (Sprint 8330/Curve) and it worked like a champ. I installed on my wife’s phone (Verizon 9530/Storm) and  it worked like a champ. Once I did this I told everybody I knew that had a Blackberry to install the new BBM 5.0 and gave them a link to @0mie’s site. Of course one of my BB peeps @daytripper67 and a co-worker, Jeannette, lost all of their contacts on their BBM and lost BBM all together. I know this was hard for you ladies and I apologize it happened. Now for my initial thoughts on BBM 5.0

My first thoughts on the BBM were “very cool”/ It looked a lot better right from the start. Things seemed larger and fairly easier to scroll through. I remembered reading you could customize your avatar and I immediately did that. The cool thing is it lets crop the pic and as of now if you set an avatar your other BBM contacts will see it. If you want to add me my pin is 31A65D47 and my shirt says “I’m a Little Beach”.

You now have a tab that comes up for recent updates. Anybody that has updated their status, or their saying, or picture will all be listed here. I really like that you can pretty easily set group chats and you can also set a subject to the chat. You can still send a picture, voicenote, and file as before. You know can also send your location to a contact and you can even set up a proximity sensor. I leave mine off because the element of surprise is important to me.

I think contacts are easier to add now. I can add by e-mail, PIN, or can scan a QR Code. I love the QR Code and it is quite easy to do the first time you do it. You just have to choose “Scan invitation barcode from another Blackberry”, it will trigger your camera, and the rest is history. You now have the ability to back up and restore contacts on your memory card or device memory.You can now Broadcast a Message to all or a select group of your contacts, which I love because sometimes I feel I copy and paste the same message to several contacts.

Overall I love the new BBM 5.0. It was a little wonky the first day or two, but that is because I think it was on different servers. My BBM 5.0 experience has been very pleasant since yesterday. Two things I recommend doing before making the BBM 5.0 dive; back up your whole device, and make sure you have the newest OS on your phone. I think this may have had something to do with the contacts being deleted on the other phones. As always if you have any questions contact us, e-mail alex@thephonestoreinc.com directly, or you can message @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

Okay, it has been announced for a few months. I am eligible for an upgrade (with Sprint) and my inner Crackberry addict is really struggling against my inner “I want every new tech toy that comes out”. I feel committed to Blackberry. I started with the 8830 and now I have the 8330. I have not had it nearly as long as some other addicts, but I do love it just as much.

That “it” I am referring to is the Palm Pre. The coolest phone Sprint has hyped up in a long while. There has not been a really cool consumer type phone that has looked like it was going to live up to the hype since the Fusic. I know it was a few years ago, but it was pretty cool. So the Palm Pre is a touchscreen, slideout QWERTY, angel of a phone.

The Boy Genius has recently put his little paws on the phone and says it is a pretty solid choice. He did not write too much, but says the touchscreen is good. The only gripe he had was with the top row of keys on the QWERTY. I am a BB fan, a Windows 6.5 fan, the new WebOS fan, and an Android fan, It is hard to like all of these things, but relying heavily on e-mail keeps me glued to my BB. So a coin flip may determine whether I get the Pre or not. The other determining factor may be an announcement of another cool device (Blackberry Tour/Niagara) in the coming months. If you have any questions contact us or you can @message me on Twitter (@gizmoalex) or (@phonestore).

I love my Blackberry and there are not a lot of moments it is out of my hand. So I think sometimes, what can I put on my Blackberry to make it more productive?

One of my favorite apps is Viigo, as I have said before. It makes me more productive because it brings my favorite news to me. It is delivered in a nice clean little package. Now Viigo has movie times, sports scores, and podcasts (coming soon).

I have Sprint, and another super handy thing my Blackberry allows me to do is use my Phone as Modem. There are times when your internet connection may crash, and Blackberry to the RESCUE…… I just fire up my Sprint Smartview connection manager software, plug in my Blackberry, and start surfing the web again. This has literally saved me on numerous occasions when the old internet goes down. It lets me continue to help my customers (at work).

The last thing I really like and recommend everybody does on any phone they have with a memory card is put some portable applications on it. I love the website PortableApps.com. I use Firefox portable which lets me keep my bookmarks with me at all times, and it also lets me keep all my Firefox extensions which really lets me take my browser with me. I also highly recommend CC Cleaner portable, VLC Media Player, and ClamWin AntiVirus.

These few tips and tricks will hopefully help you love your Blackberry a little more than you already do. Hey who knows, maybe your Blackberry can come to somebodie’s rescue. If you have any questions direct message me on Twitter @gizmoalex or contact us.

Hi guys, long time no see I hope you enjoyed the vacation because you will be getting a lot more of me. I wanted to touch on an issue we have been having. SMS messages have been delayed and at times they do not go through at all with Boost Mobile.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because the product and pricing is so great, the good people over at Boost have had a hard time keeping up with the demand. It is bad because some messages may not be going through in a timely manner. Boost Mobile is aware of the issue and they are working on resolving it as soon as possible.

They have given a window of May 7th. So for those of you who have Boost hang tight, help is on the way. Also, Boost’s really awesome QWERTY Phone is coming very soon. If you have any questions you can direct message @gizmoalex on Twitter or you can contact us.

We usually post some industry news or new applications (mostly for Blackberry). Today I want our post to be another way to find help for your phone, instead of searching “The Googles” for forums. There is a huge community of people that belong to Twitter. The great thing is some of these people are tech oriented, and many of them seem to be very nice.

Now on Twitter it seems like there are some people out there to solely promote their business. There are also great people like @johnmccrea from Plaxo that reach out to their customer base and address questions or issues they have regarding their product.

One fairly common link is many people that are on Twitter usually Tweet from their phones, and many are tech oriented. Just the other day, I found a cool case for my wife’s Blackberry Storm just by asking, “Does anybody know any good cases for the Storm?” This simple question gave me many opinions. The same rule applies. There are people out there asking, which phone should I get, or how do I (fill in the phone question here). Sure enough, the Twitter community usually comes to the rescue and responds.

For my phone, the Curve, I use an application called Twitterberry to update. You can download at http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry. There are other options as well for Blackberry. Gizmodo has provided a great battlemodo of Twitter apps for the iphone here. So if you have any questions you can contact us, or send me a message @gizmoalex, and I will respond as soon as I can.