Even if you are not interested in electronics, you must have heard the name "Blackberry". This is one of the first manufacturers of smartphones, which gained popularity long before the first iPhones and Galaxy appeared. And despite the fierce competition in the market, he still has his fans.
Brand Details
"Blackberry" is a blackberry translated from English. What kind of “berry” is this in the electronics market?
Many compare the success of Blackberry with the popularity of yet another appetizing brand - Apple. The devices of both manufacturers at one time blew up the market and found an army of loyal fans who refuse to buy anything else.
The history of the famous Canadian company begins in 1984. Then she was called Research In Motion and changed it to the famous name of her offspring BlackBerry in 2013.
The unusual name of the device is explained by the similarity of the small buttons on the keyboard with the berries of a blackberry.
The first Blackberry was the most common pager. In 2002, a model appeared with the ability to make calls, but it was mandatory to use a headset, because this phone did not have a microphone and speakers. Also a key change was the ability to work with email.
Since 2003, the company begins to produce models with a color display, a browser and the ability to work with programs of the Microsoft Office suite. For a long time, the manufacturer focused on gadgets for businessmen and only in 2006 joined the race for customers who use the phone for personal purposes and for entertainment.
Key model features
Blackberry is a hybrid of a personal digital assistant and a powerful portable media player. Unlike most other smartphones, the models of this manufacturer do not use someone else’s, designed for other devices, but their own operating system.
The main reason why many people use Blackberry is the ability to stay in touch almost anywhere and through various means of communication. The device can be used directly as a phone, or to access e-mail, or for instant messaging using its own free BBM service.
Blackberry is also one of the first smartphones that gave users the opportunity to use the mobile Internet and do it with convenience and ease. It won the hearts of many buyers and brought glory to the manufacturer.
A distinctive feature of the phones is the presence of a physical QWERTY keyboard. Complete with a large screen, it provides comfortable use of the phone for any purpose.
Blackberry offers a large number of other features that make it very useful. There are maps and GPS navigation that guarantee that you will not get lost. Of course, there is a camera and a multimedia player, and other attributes necessary for a modern smartphone.
Issue price and localization
To withstand fierce competition with other electronics giants in the market, new modern Blackberry models are constantly appearing. The price of the device can be quite modest or quite impressive - from about 9 thousand rubles for the 9220 Curve White phone to 90 thousand for the powerful P'9981 Porsche Design with a stainless steel case and genuine leather elements. Phones of the brand can be both concisely simple and showing the status of the owner. Therefore, it can be argued that from a teenager to a businessman, everyone will find a suitable Blackberry.
Russia is a large market, therefore, for the convenience of domestic users, it is possible to apply Russian characters to the telephone keypad using laser engraving. Of course, the automatic transliteration function has recently become available, but it will be suitable only for those who already know the location of the letters.
Popular models
We will begin acquaintance with them with BlackBerry Classic. Against the background of fragile modern smartphones, the gadget gives the impression of hardness and reliability, which is facilitated by the stainless steel side frame . What does this Blackberry phone look like? The photo below shows it from all sides.
According to the name of the smartphone, it follows the best traditions of the brand. Namely, it boasts a comfortable and fairly large four-row keyboard. The buttons are separated from each other and when pressed produce a clear sound, so you can print even blindly and comfortably. However, this leads to the main drawback of the model - a small screen with a diagonal of 3.5 inches.
For this Blackberry phone, the price ranges from 25 to 26 thousand rubles, depending on the color (white is more expensive than its classic black counterpart).
The model also boasts a powerful processor and application support for Android. Camera - 8 megapixels, front - 2.
The Passport smartphone is also one of the latest and very popular Blackberry creations. We begin the review by explaining the interesting name of the gadget - in shape and size it exactly matches the passport of a US citizen.
This model has an unusual shape, which made it possible to fit a full-fledged keyboard (this time it is located on three rather than four lines) and a large screen with a diagonal of 4.5 inches. But a device of this size and shape is not always convenient to hold with one hand even to a man. This is perhaps the largest Blackberry phone. The photo below shows how he lies in his hand.
But still, the screen is the pride of the model. It is bright, with excellent color rendering. The text is clear, so reading books on it is a pleasure.
It should be noted and a powerful quad-core processor with a frequency of 2.2 GHz and RAM in 3 GB. Definitely - this phone is designed for productive work and embodies the professional and business philosophy of the brand.
This "Blackberry" price is almost 10 thousand higher than that of the Classic series smartphones. It starts from 33 thousand rubles for a black model and reaches 39 thousand for a phone in red. Well, the white case will cost 35 thousand rubles.
Customer opinion
Thousands of users around the world are happy to use their Blackberry (telephone). Reviews of brand fans are mostly positive. Most often, the main advantage is the physical keyboard, which is no longer often seen on a smartphone. Individualists are also flattered that they have a rather rare phone. Also among the advantages are good batteries and a long battery life, a good sound, an intuitive operating system that rarely hangs, and convenient work with gestures. The main drawback is the work with applications. This is a significant minus of its operating system. Users who switched from other smartphones to Blackberry do not find their favorite applications, there is no support for Google Play, and Android applications do not always work correctly.
The opinion of experts
Even the most avid fans of the brand cannot fail to notice that their favorite has a hard time. Apple, Samsung, LG, and other new smartphone makers have dealt a massive blow to Blackberry's popularity. Well-known authors and editors of magazines and websites about electronics, as well as business experts often say that the company’s time is counted. Already now its turnovers mostly depend on repeated sales to fans of the brand, while new buyers prefer other manufacturers.
Of course, with so many existing Blackberry owners, it will not disappear in one day. But if you are just planning to join this brand, you should weigh the pros and cons.
Company future
But not everyone is so pessimistic. Even the US president uses Blackberry, not iPhone, because he is not allowed by the security service. After all, the "blackberry" has a very powerful system of protection against hacking.
Therefore, companies predict the future as a manufacturer of expensive smartphones for politicians and businessmen, for whom the preservation of
confidential information is important
.Other types of electronics
In addition to the main focus - smartphones, in the brand’s product line you will also find the Blackberry tablet. The first models came out almost simultaneously with the iPad 2 and for some time were very popular.
They are called the BlackBerry PlayBook and boast a bright and clear seven-inch screen, loud speakers and a powerful dual-core processor. However, the interface, the appearance of the tablet, as well as the weak battery, which takes quite a while to charge, are criticized by many users. A small number of applications from the manufacturer are inconvenient. Therefore, at the moment, PlayBook tablets are not popular.