BlackBerry Messenger 5 Has Been Officially Released

by Robb Dunewood on October 8, 2009 · 16 comments

BlackBerry Messenger 5

BlackBerry Messenger 5 is now officially available from Research in Motion.  You can pick it up over on BlackBerry App World, or, download it OTA by visiting http://blackberry.com/messenger from your device.

BlackBerry Messenger 5 features include:

  • Personalize BlackBerry Messenger with a display picture
  • Add friends by scanning barcodes or sharing PINs
  • Share pictures, videos, voice notes and more with multiple contacts at once
  • Create groups of friends, family or colleagues and instantly share calendars, lists, conversations and updates
  • See what your friends are listening to by viewing their song titles
  • Organize conversation lists by date
  • Send and receive text messages
  • Back up and restore your contact list

If you have a BlackBerry running OS 4.5 or higher, BlackBerry Messenger 5 is definitely worth picking up.  I fully expect it to jump to the number one spot on App World’s most downloaded apps within a few days at most.

{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }

1 GrantL October 8, 2009 at 10:25 am

Is anyone else wondering what happened to the Location Based Services features that were in the beta? I was really looking forward to those and I’m shocked to see they are completely gone and no one has mentioned it yet. What’s up RIM?

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2 Pritpal October 8, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Is there no keyboard shortcut for the new messenger? used to be N for the old one

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3 scott October 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm

is there no way to download the installer from a pc or something so that you can transfer it to a phone that doesn’t have an internet package? does this new bbm work on the pearl phones as well?
thanks,

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4 Osita O. Nwankwo October 9, 2009 at 3:21 pm

is there no way to download the installer to a pc and transfer to a moble phone that doesn’t have an internet package? does the new bbm work on the pearl phones as well?
thanks,

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5 Eric October 9, 2009 at 6:31 pm

If you have a Pearl that has os v4.5 or higher then it should work.

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6 scott October 9, 2009 at 6:37 pm

thanks Eric, now do you happen to know if there some way or some place to download the installer or jad file from a PC to then copy over to the pearl and install that way or install to the pearl thru desktop manager?
thanks,

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7 Jmo October 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm

Yep I too was wondering about the location proximity option that was in the beta version.

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8 mike jones October 10, 2009 at 10:35 pm

Scott – if you don’t have a data package, why do you want/need BBM v5? Messages sent over BBM are through data. If you don’t have a data plan, you can’t mwssage in BBM.

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9 scott October 11, 2009 at 11:19 am

Mike Jones, in Canada Data and internet are seperated as two unique things…we have data, so emails, BBM all that is possible no problem, just no browsing the ‘net…here ‘Net doesn’t = Data…they are different…and, it sux!!!….

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10 Bryan October 12, 2009 at 3:03 am

Anyone having trouble sending and receiving photos and files with the new bbm? They send and receive fine but I can never download the received files nor can my receipients?

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11 veronika November 11, 2009 at 3:04 pm

I have the same problem. Very frustrating. After I accept the transfer, the transfer never starts. It just sits there in a Received – 0.00 KB state. I am using storm2.

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12 Jeff November 12, 2009 at 12:57 pm

Same here! And everyone I know is complaining about it! What happened to the older and better version???? The new version is crap! Can’t even download any pictures at all. I have to sent thru email now.

like what you said, it just stays at 0.00kb…

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13 Steve Jenkins October 19, 2009 at 5:05 am

I managed to download a few pics sent by friends at first (yesterday when I upgraded) but now it refuses to download at all..annoying!

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14 Aaron October 19, 2009 at 8:29 am

How about the picture size. I used to send and receive pics back and forth and they were only 10KB each (I always keep the highest quality for the camera) I guess it automatically shrunk the pics to make them faster to send.

Now, all the pics are at full size. I do not like this feature. Is there a way to have it automatically shrink it again?

If not, I am deleting it and keeing 4.5 version

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15 Jo_c November 4, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Okay so i was able to get a blackberry without having the internet on it. I dont care for the internet on my blackberry 8520. But what i would like to know if its still possible for me to use blackberry messenger even if i dont have it?like would i be charged because i dont have the internet?if someone could answer this it would be most helpful.

Ps. i will not be heartbroken if i cant use bbm please and thanks

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16 mike jones November 4, 2009 at 9:49 pm

Jo – my understanding is bbm uses data and not texts. I can’t text n my BB but I can use bbm, so this seems correct. Whether or not you can use bbm and pay per kilobit of data, I’m not sure.

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