Ewan's Corner

I own a BlackBerry Curve 8310 – one of the nicest phones I have ever used for an extended period, and the best by far when it comes to corporate email / calendar sync.

In the BlackBerry world, your service provider (MTN South Africa in my case) approves the version of OS and default application software available for your phone model – MTN currently only approve package version 4.5.0.52 (Applications: 4.5.0.37, Software Platform: 2.7.0.55) which was released around June 2008 and is quite buggy.

My phone was stable as long as I didn’t install any 3rd party apps (BerryBuzz which is highly recommended, GMail, Google Maps, Garmap for Mobile which is great and *free* for MTN users – go MTN, UberTwitter, Opera Mini…) but as soon as I did, it became horribly unstable – locking up at least once every 2 days and requiring a battery pull. Having to restart / reboot the phone is a real pain since the phone can take over 5 minutes to boot up / get back to a usable state.

Having an otherwise great phone with an unlimited data plan meant I *really* wanted to be able to install 3rd party apps. A little searching found that other network operators (O2 UK in this case) have approved a much more recent OS / apps version (for my 8310 at least) : package version: 4.5.0.174 (Applications: 4.5.0.124, Software Platform: 2.7.0.92).

Working around MTN’s silly restriction and updating my phone turned out to be easy – these steps are for my reference, and worked for me, but use them at your own risk. This procedure isn’t officially supported by BlackBerry or MTN, caveat emptor. I found the initial guide at blackberryrocks.com, an invaluable resource for all BB owners – and added a few steps and warnings of my own:

1. Download and install BlackBerry Desktop Manager if you don’t already have it (I recommend version 5 or later, especially for Windows 7)
2. Save a complete backup of your phone and data using Desktop Manager
3. Remove any media cards from your phone – failure to do so could mean the upgrade hanging (getting a solid red LED on “connecting to device firmware”).
4. Download the installable version of the OS/applications update.
   Warning: Make sure you download the correct update *for your phone model*, e.g. don’t download an update for the 8350 if you have an 8310. In my case, I downloaded filename “8310M_PBr4.5.0_rel174_PL2.7.0.92_A4.5.0.124_O2_UK.exe” (89.92MB) from the BlackBerry O2 download page.
5. Warning: If you sync with your office via BES, then you need to do the upgrade while connected to the BES via desktop manager – i.e. at work. If you don’t, auto-activation after the upgrade will likely not work, and your phone won’t sync until you manually activate it
6. Run / install the downloaded update
7. If you are installing an update from a different service provider (MTN vs O2 in my case), you need to delete “vendor.xml” in Program Files –> Common Files –> Research in Motion –> AppLoader
8. Run “Loader.exe” in the same AppLoader folder
9. Follow the prompts, set things as you choose, and I recommend allowing the Loader app to do its own backup before the upgrade.

Just be aware this is not a quick process… the upgrade and subsequent re-activation took several hours for me.
Worked for me. I now have a rock-solid crackberry.