The History of Blackberry: Six RIMs from Black to Bold

In 10 short years, the Blackberry has evolved from an archaic two-way messaging device to one hell of a sexy mobile communicator.  From the Blackberry 850 to the Blackberry Storm, this productivity-minded brand has won a legion of loyal users across the world.  To celebrate its history, GearCrave looks back through the six RIM phones that caused the Blackberry revolution.

Blackberry 850 – Two Way…If You’re Not Making A Call

The Blackberry story began with the Blackberry 850– which was little more than a two-way pager with a few add-ons.  The 850 could connect to corporate email and the mobile internet (which was rudimentary at best), but also added a built in calendar, paging services and organizer features. It could do all of that with a mere 4MB of on-board memory and 512kb SRAM.  The small screen presented a measley 6-8 lines, but with this feature set that output was plenty. One factor made the 850 a legend in its time– it had a full QWERTY keyboard, a feature that would become central to the Blackberry story.

Blackberry 5810 – The Phone Is Born…Or At Least ReBorn with A Keyboard

The Blackberry 5810 was one of the first evolutionary changes to the Blackberry. The unit not only offered the same abilities of the Blackberry 850, it added a larger screen that more than doubled its display capacity. The 5810 allowed for up to 10 email accounts to sync to the device, which is where the new evolution concluded in terms of memory and syncing. The biggest advantage? Research In Motion announced 1900mhz GSM/GPRS network support, alas the first commercially-available mobile/PDA with full email sync was born.

The Blackberry Goes Mainstream: the Blackberry 7000 Series

It wasn’t until color came to the Blackberry that the Blackberry hit critical mass.  The Blackberry 7000 series, and its 7200 shown above, was a solid device on many levels.  It featured a color display, a rounded-edge, slimming form factor, an improved click wheel and mini-USB connectivity.  The 7200 was a market success, thanks to carrier partnerships and aggressive corporate packages.  For its time, the 7200 was one of the better phone/PDAs on the market– a complete device with a solid OS.

Blackberry 7100T Introduces SureType

While Blackberry had been a leader in the business/PDA phone market, consumer demand was asking for smaller, slimmer, classic keypad phones.  In response, RIM developed the 7100T. This device was the first to feature “SureType” technology, a system which set each key on the device’s keypad with two letters, thus creating a smaller keyboard and a smaller overall device. The 7100T featured Bluetooth and IM capabilities along with Blackberry Internet access and the ability to sync up to 10 corporate email accounts at one time.  The new typing technology of the 7100T was later used in the early Pearl models and other following non-QWERTY Blackberry phones.

Blackberry Curve Series Arrives

By early 2007, Blackberry had one of the largest user bases in North America.  However, the Blackberry still lacked a camera option, largely due to intellectual property concerns by corporate users of Blackberry technology.  Beyond this, WiFi was excluded from Blackberrys as well.  The first BlackBerry Curve broke the mold, including a digital camera and later, WiFi connectivity.  Throw in GPS abilities, more robust messaging and email offerings and its easy to see why Blackberry sales continued their upward curve when the, uh, Curve arrived in town.

2008…A Storm Brews

The Blackberry Storm was quite an advancement for RIM: it’s the first Blackberry to feature a touch screen, plus a built in accelerometer.  But what sets the Storm apart from others is the screen’s Haptic Feedback– which makes the screen feel like a real keyboard when pressed. The result is a full-size touch-screen keyboard that feels as real as the classic Blackberry models.  The Storm also provides calling features for GSM and CDMA networks, high speed data access including WiFi, a GPS receiver and otherwise.  The OS remains true to users familiar with Blackberry, even with the lack of a wheel or pointer ball.

From a two-way pager to a fully-functional mobile office, Blackberry devices have increased their capacities, their abilities and their style at pace with the cutting edge.  In an increasingly competitive environment of iPhones, HTCs and otherwise, RIM will need to continue innovate to keep their phones in the palms of the business world.

Thanks for reading, GearCravers, Diggers, Stumblers and otherwise.  What is your favorite Blackberry?  Do you prefer another device?  Do you feel another Blackberry should have been included?  Let us know what you think in the comments.  And if you enjoyed the article, be sure to share it with your friends and vote it up on your favorite social site!