BlackBerry OS upgrade notes: 4.2 to 4.5.0.81

A few random observations, in no particular order:

• The whole process takes about 50 minutes;
• Device boots about 15 minutes after restart, don't panic;
• Browser is different, trackball now controls the pointer instead of hopping between links;
  
• Font size preference is gone;
• Folder layout I've spent significant time fiddling with is gone;
• Device still loses the wallpaper when used as USB Mass Storage;
• Nice white background formerly present during the call is now replaced with the ugly *default* theme wallpaper (not even the one I selected for the home screen);
  
• All the useless applications that I've tried to delete or hide are back with vengeance, some of them you can't delete;
• GMail 2.0.5 takes quite a while to start for the first time;
• GMail preferences are gone;
• All above makes me think that all application preferences are gone;
• Interestingly enough, advanced ring preferences are still intact;
  
• Yahoo Messenger now supports user icons, finally supports UTF-8, and now it is able to automatically reconnect you on device reboots (which happens much more often than you think/see);
• I don't remember seeing "Wireless Upgrade" option before;
• I don't remember seeing "Scan for Available Wi-Fi Networks" before;
• First impression is that the device has become significantly more sluggish than it was.
  

That's all in a nutshell.

Old software version had an annoying problem - Bluetooth headset by itself worked just fine, but when the device was switching to UMA, voice quality was dropping so bad, the other party usually asked me to get off the headset. It is too early to tell if that's going to be the case here - stay tuned.

Update: Yep, it's definitely sluggish now.