BlackBerry's first model the 850, was introduced back in 1999 as a two-way paging device. During 2002, the more well known Smart phone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, Internet faxing, Web browsing and other wireless information services. Making it one of the first fully functional Smart Phones in its day.
BlackBerry first made headway in the marketplace by concentrating on e-mail. RIM currently offers BlackBerry e-mail service to non-BlackBerry devices, such as the Palm Treo, through its BlackBerry Connect software. The first BlackBerry devices had a monochrome displays, current models all have LCD color displays. All the BlackBerry models except for the Storm Series had a built-in QWERTY keyboard, optimized for "thumbing", the use of only the thumbs to type. The Storm 1 and Storm 2 include a Sure-type keypad for typing, and are the two models that are full touch-screen devices with no physical keyboard. Originally, system navigation was achieved with the use of a scroll wheel mounted on the right side of phones prior to the 8700. The original track-wheel was superseded by the versatility of the trackball with the introduction of the Pearl series of devices which allowed for 4 way scrolling. The trackball eventually was replaced by the optical trackpad with the first Curve 8500 series. Models manufactured for use with iDEN networks such as Nextel and Mike) also incorporate the use of the push-to-talk (PTT) system, similar to a two-way walkie talkie radio.
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| Torch 9800 | BlackBerry Style 9670 |
