A couple of other things I noticed with this BB that may help others.
First I did not have the correct data plan on my account. Although I was using wifi when I submitted this it MAY have disabled a feature or two on the phone.
That said, after I turned the plan on, I noticed that I had the option to change to INTERNET BROWSER instead of HOT SPOT BROWSER or ROGERS MALL. When I selected IB mode, I was able to get online with the built in browser. Which means I can now drop Opera.