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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.

I am so happy. I have been following this device since it was codenamed the Niagara and now it has officially been announced. I have been a little bummed out because all the rumors led me to believe Verizon would get this device several months before Sprint. Thankfully Sprint surprised me and announced the Tour as well.

If you do not know what the tour is, it is RIM’s latest offering. Has a full HTML browser, 3.2 MP camera, DataViz (for Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and a slew of other features. It is a great looking device and is going to be a CDMA/GSM phone. Crackberry already has a review on the phone. So it was a hard 2 weeks knowing I had an upgrade and not knowing what to do with it. This announcement has helped me out, and I look forward to being the proud owner of a Blackberry Tour soon.

The official pricing should be $299 with $100 mail in rebate. Not too bad for what it is. If you have any questions contact us. You can always @reply 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.

I always was amazed to have internet on my phone. I think it was really cool, but not quite the work of “wizards”. I have come a long way from my older phone. I went after that to a few different phones, a Moto Q, Blackberry 8830, and the new (well not so new) love of my life my Blackberry Curve 8330.

Okay, so I have internet on my phone, so what? Before, my internet connection on my phone was used to only search for movie times and the default news on the home page. As time has gone on, I now use the internet on my phone to receive e-mails, settle late night bets via Google, and even check the status of my friends currently playing XBOX. The point is besides all those TinyTwitter and a billion other things I use the web for on my phone, it is still not where it will be in the future.

Verizon is one of the major carriers that have been testing for LTE and Sprint has being doing the Wimax/Xohm thing for some time. These technologies are going to make us even more connected. They are increasing the speed a whole lot. From what I understand right now you are lucky to peak at 1 Mbps and soon you should be able to multiply that by 15-20.

Think about it, our devices will have to obviously change to take advantage of this. Over the years they have already started getting bigger screens, keyboards, bigger built in memory. I would love to add a movie download to my Netflix Streaming Queue and watch it while I am waiting at the Dr.’s Office. I do not mean watch choppy video, I mean watch an HD stream. Will we all be carrying netbooks that have a built in ability to talk in a few years?

The exciting news is it is not just the biggest boy on the block doing this, Metro PCS apparently has plans to go the way of LTE, and if I had to place a few bucks on it I think Leap Wireless/Cricket may follow suit with the same technology. So I am excited to see this happen, I am excited to see where this might go, and how this will help us connect better as people. If you have any questions contact us, or you can always Tweet @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

So the sad news is I have retired my 8830. It served me well while I had it, and I miss it, but I went ahead and started using the 8330 Curve. The good news is I can take advantage of some of the cool things Sprint offers. I can watch Sprint TV, download music from the Sprint Music Store, and NFL Mobile.

I have not really even began to get into what NFL Mobile has to offer, but now I have a great way to see when my team is playing. I signed up for text messages on team news, score updates, and game times. I do not ever have to miss what my Cowboys are doing.

It has so much stuff, Fantasy Football, Scores, Schedules, News, and Video Clips. So if you have a device that supports it and you like Football, download it. If you have any other questions check out Sprint’s website, or contact us.

Some of our friends at Sales By 5 (Nan, Kya, and Erik) have recently taught me finding what inspires you is the key to success and happiness. Makes a ton of sense, but it feels great to have that inspiration pointed out to you by somebody else. We have an awesome new employee named A’Laura and she reminded me of what our company is all about and what it means to people.

She lives in Seguin, TX (Close to San Antonio) and she purchased her phone from us a little over a year ago. She actually lives on the outskirts of town from what I understand. Either way her dilemma was not knowing what cell phone provider would work at her home. Somebody from the store drove to her house with a T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and Helio phone to test out the signal. In her case Verizon worked the best.

So long story short, we really did what we could to take care of this person. I do not know if any other retailer would go through even half of the trouble. This is what our company is made of, people that are really willing to do what it takes to take care of our customers.That is also why I am proud to be part of this company. The owner of The Phone Store, Charlie Slaughter, has really spilled the belief of taking care of customers into the small and medium business world. We have displayed this with The Smartphone Challenge which is really a one stop shop for their communication needs, e-mail, voice, text, and data. So if you need help visit one of our retail stores or contact us. We really want to teach our customers how to buy wireless. If you have any additional questions you can e-mail me @ alex@thephonestoreinc.com.

Sprint has been testing a product called Airave for quite some time. To simplify it, you basically plug the Airave device into a router and it will give you unlimited minutes while you are in the reach of the unit. So for those people that are worried about using their minutes at home this is a great device. Some of us do not have the luxury of waiting until 7 p.m. (Which is still the best in the industry) to make calls.

Just plug the Airave into your router and add $15 a month for unlimited calls for one line or $25 for a family plan. I think this is a perfect product for so many people that have Sprint. Not only does it provide you with unlimited minutes, but it also gives you better reception in your home. The awesome thing is it gives 5,000 square feet of coverage, which should cover most large homes. And with the support of three simultaneous users you should not have too many problems.

So think about it. I think it will really help many people out and we believe in giving our customers the best. I think it is a good product and it makes sense for so many. If you are a heavy user, or if you are trying to save money by cutting your home phone line, DO THIS. As always, if you have any questions let us know!

I have been reading some rumors around the web regarding Sprint and SK Telecom. Now some time back I heard some rumors about SK Telecom trying to buy Sprint, but the latest rumors shows they may take on more of a partnership role. I know with large companies mergers are a little scary sometimes, but I think this would be really beneficial for Sprint customers.

SK Telecom is the largest mobile provider in South Korea. They have some super awesome technology that we do not have here in the states. I have read they have very fast data speeds in South Korea with some of their towers supporting 14.4 Mbps data speeds. If this does not sound great to you, keep in mind Sprint and Verizon are peaking at about 2 Mbps. Sprint and Verizon have a great and reliable data network, but when you multiple that by 7 you start getting into higher speeds than some cable modems.

Keep an eye out for this one. SK Telecom is know for their cool phones and some pretty awesome partnerships with Samsung. This could be a nice breath of fresh air for Sprint, and even help bring some really unique foreign technology to the U.S.

I grew up in El Paso, so naturally many of my friends and acquaintances live there. Well like many other people have done, I finally left the nest. I was so concerned to not lose my phone numbers I gave my wife the task of writing down all the numbers I had in my phone and her phone onto one big list. There has to be an easier way right? The good news is there is.

Depending on what phone and carrier you have you have a few options. Some of you that read this know I have a Blackberry with Exchange provided by Rackspace. Even though all my contacts stay in my Outlook, I like to back my data up using Desktop Mananger. This will keep all my contacts, games, ringers, and so on in a safe place. I also have Sprint which offers a wireless contact backup. When you enter a new contact into your phone it will synchronize with an online account you could retrieve later if needed. Verizon offers a version of it called Backup Assistant. ATT also offers their own flavor of the product.

So, I think doing this saves a lot of headaches and a lot of time. Not only that, but you have the peace of mind knowing your numbers will be there when you need them. It does not matter if you are a CEO of a huge business or my grandma this are useful services. So check it out and as always if you have any questions let us know.

Easy question, easy answer; you should use the carrier that is best for you. Now for some people that do not live in big cities like New York and Houston, your choice may have to be based on your coverage area. You could find coverage maps for Sprint, T-Mobile, ATT, Helio, and Verizon on their websites. We want you to sign up with a carrier that provides you with the great coverage you deserve.

Now for those of us that have more than one choice it starts coming down to pricing and features that work for us. When you look at the hour evening calling starts Sprint has the best option at 7:oo P.M. with most plans and gives an option to start at 6:oo P.M. If you are looking to use a lot of data either with your phone or an aircard Sprint and Verizon are my recommendations. They have a fast and reliable broadband network. ATT/Cingular is a good choice for some customers that go to rural areas often due to their wide roaming agreement they have with smaller GSM carriers. I think T-Mobile has the best pricing. Now Helio is a really cool carrier with great applications for MySpace and Youtube built into their phones. They have really awesome phones for the younger market.

So features and pricing is one facet to look at, another is what phones does the carrier have that would be good for you? We have business customers that need their Blackberry, and we have our average customers that just need a phone to make and receive calls. Whether you prefer a touchscreen or a full QWERTY keyboard most carriers can suit your needs. As always before any purchases there are a few things to consider. I personally read a few websites when reviewing phones; they are Gizmodo, Phonescoop, and Engadget Mobile.  When we set customers up we want them to be happy, we want to know your needs and give you the carrier that matches them the closest. So let us know what you are looking for and we will take care of you. Happy shopping!