Like scores of other people this week I jumped on the leaked beta of OS 4.5 for my BlackBerry 8830 and installed it as fast as humanly possible. There have been many leaks of both GSM devices and OSes, but this is the first time that I've ever seen a CDMA leak.

There are some pretty noticeable bugs:

• You can't use shift to select text or multiple emails. This really, really sucks.
• In the Browser you can only use one form item before the rest stop working. That means if you type in one text box, you can't type in any others OR click the submit button. This also really, really sucks. I've downloaded Opera Mini because I want to keep OS 4.5, but I also want a Browser.
  UPDATE: Unchecking "Enable cursor in column view" under Browser Options > General Properties will 'fix' this.
• If you push the wheel to activate the display it will also perform a click action. That is if you're on the home screen when the display turns off and you press the wheel it'll open the selected application, or dismiss the calendar alert, open the selected email, etc.
• The trackball doesn't click, even if the sound is turned on.
• Images don't automatically download in HTML email, even if the option is turned on.
• All existing SMS messages are flagged as urgent (!).
• The media player doesn't scroll in 5 second increments anymore.
• Voice Notes are shown in the Media Player, but there's no option to record them.

I can overlook most of those except for the shift+select and broken Browser. I'm running OS 4.5.0.33 build 48 and there are already newer (unleaked) builds that allegedly fix both of these issues. If you happen to be one of the fortunate few that has access to pre-release builds for the 8130 or 8330 (arriving tomorrow!) and would like to share them with me, drop me a line. Total anonymity guaranteed, and I won't write about them if you'd rather I didn't.

New Features

Some screenshots of the new features. Not all of these are new with OS 4.5, you may have seen them on OS 4.3 on the 8130 or 8330. There will be no OS 4.3 for the 8xxx devices (other than the 8130, 8330 and 8830) the next release will be OS 4.5.

The browser OS 4.5 and OS 4.3 on my 8130 also feature acceleration when scrolling.  Spin the trackball faster, scroll faster.  Sounds simple, but it's something that was sorely lacking in earlier releases.

Another great new feature is the addition of a search box right on the main browser screen. 90% of the time I'm opening the browser and going to Google, so this will save me a step.

Browser Search

The start page can be changed by going to Browser Options > General Properties and changing the Start Page option.  By default my Internet Browser was using the Bookmarks Page while the BlackBerry (BES) Browser was using the Start Page.

Browser Start Page

OS 4.5 will also include a limited version of Documents to Go that allows you to open and view Word and PowerPoint documents. There's enhanced Excel attachment support, although I'm not sure if this is part of Documents to Go or OS 4.5.

Excel Viewer

HTML email is wonderful. Having real hyperlinks is such a pleasant experience, and while I don't care for the images, it's nice to have the choice be mine to make.

HTML Email

I forget if the spell checker is new with OS 4.5 or later versions of 4.2, but it's always handy to have.

Spell Checker

Have you ever received a slew of messages on your BlackBerry, none of which you want or need? One of my BIS accounts receives a moderate amount of spam, all of which is flagged by SpamAssassin with [SPAM] in the subject line. I've tried setting filters at BIS, but they never seem to work. Fortunately there's an easy way to quickly delete all of the offending messages at once.

Step 1 - Searching

From the Mail window open the menu and choose Search. Enter parameters that will find all of the messages you want to delete, and only the messages you want to delete. In my case it's anything with [SPAM] in the subject.

Step 2 - Search Results

Review the search results and make sure they don't contain any messages you do not want to delete. If the results do contain messages you don't want to delete you will need to refine the search parameters to exclude them.

Step 3 - Delete Prior

This is where the magic happens. Select a date heading, open the menu and choose Delete Prior. If a message is highlighted and not a date heading you will not have a Delete Prior option.

In the context of search results, Delete Prior will only delete messages that were found by the search, not everything prior to the date of the first result.

Wait, what about BES users?

No guts, no glory. Go ahead and try it.

If you're more timid, Delete Prior only removes messages from the handheld, not the desktop. I've never tested this with any of the bi-directional sync BIS email options like GMail or Yahoo, so if you're using one of those services you should test first.

Confirm that you want to delete the messages and after a moment you'll see that all of the messages have been deleted and you're free of spam, printer notices or emails from Wiskus. Let's see your iPhone do this!