A short history of the BlackBerry smartphone

Although the market is now awash with smartphones that combine advanced computing facilities with telephone functionality, the unit that really kicked off the craze was developed in the early 2000s by a Canadian firm called Research In Motion and called the BlackBerry.

Although the BlackBerry brand is now very heavily associated with the smartphone, the first BlackBerry, introduced way back in 1999, was a PDA with a two way paging function.

The first BlackBerry smartphone was released in 2002, and became an instant success, propelling RIM from being a small company on the fringes of the PDA market to being market leaders almost overnight.

With a BlackBerry smartphone, you could send and receive phone calls, text messages, faxes, and emails, and browse the internet wherever you were.

When RIM brought out their first smartphone in 2002, there were already several such devices on the market, including the market leading Nokia 9000, which was essentially a mobile phone with a QWERTY keyboard, organiser software, and a larger than usual screen. However the BlackBerry managed to steal a march on these rival products by including a number of unique new features.

The most exciting feature of the BlackBerry was its ability to send and receive emails on the move, using a technique known as push emailing. In a nutshell, push emailing allows you to use your works email account anywhere in the world, with automatic updating and downloading of new messages and contacts between the main server and the BlackBerry.

Another signature feature of the Blackberry was the control surface, which incorporated a small QWERTY keyboard optimised for use with the thumbs alone, and a fascia-mounted tracker ball for navigation, which replaced the side mounted track wheel found on earlier devices.

Some models also include a Push-to-Talk feature, which is similar in operation to a two-way radio, and is useful for carrying on intermittent conversations of the type that often occur within offices over longer distances.

Blackberries are very popular with businesses who have a lot of roaming employees, as it offers office-style integration on the move.

The BlackBerry email system enables messages to be written and replied to in circumstances where reception is poor or intermittent, as all the information is stored inside the unit, meaning that packets of data could be sent and received as and when reception was available, with little or no adverse affect on productivity.

A handy feature of the BlackBerry is its trilateration function, which works a little like a GPS device, but without the need for connection to a satellite. It is particularly handy for bosses who need to know the whereabouts of their employees, or for finding people in busy thoroughfares that you have never met face to face before.

About the Author:
Vodafone offer a huge range of phones and price plans. If you like smart phones, you will love the Samsung Jet with its fast internet for express browsing and downloads.