Although the BlackBerry devices made by Research in Motion have long been held one of the best email and messaging devices with some of the best keyboards in the industry, it had limitations. Research in Motion is upgrading the consumer BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) to 2.5, and along with the ROM upgrade to 4.5 in September, consumers should be able to start enjoying features long held by Windows Mobile users.

According to The Boy Genius Report, those features include:



-You can save attachments including audio and video formats.

-Full list of supported downloadable attachments are: .doc, .ppt., .xls, .wpd, .txt, .html, .pdf, .zip, and the aforementioned audio / video formats.

-File size of attachments is limited to 3MB.

-The 4.5 OS will be “available for all BlackBerry’s in September.” This includes the 8100, 8800, 8820, 8300, 8310, 8120, and the 8110. No 8320 love?

-“If a BlackBerry launches before September, it will have 4.5 software.”

-Addition of push AOL email and Hotmail/MSN accounts.



It’s amazing that a push email device didn’t support the native downloading of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files until this recent upgrade. The new service will roll out on June 29th, but OS compatibility is required, and that may not be until September.

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