WHAT IS A BLACKBERRY?

The BlackBerry is a smart phone. While many handsets these days claim to be just that, a large proportion of them don't live up to the title. The BlackBerry, thankfully, does.

Combining the features of a mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) - the best of both worlds - the BlackBerry is miniature computer-like in behaviour, serving up as it does email, calendaring and other useful applications on demand.

The majority of BlackBerry handsets also have complete alphanumeric keyboards, whereas many PDAs and rival devices do not. Parent company Research in Motion has also served up touch screen devices for those who prefer life without QWERTY.

Every function of the BlackBerry - such as surfing the web, updating Facebook, sending a Twitter post or sending and ! receiving email - relies on, and works best with, an active data | connection. The explosion in email use among business and consumer users can, in part, be credited to - or blamed on -the BlackBerry and its creator.

 The BlackBerry evolved from a humble pager and was originally a business tool to help white-collar staff stay in touch with the office and keep on top of information such as share prices, sales, orders and personnel matters.

Early models pioneered the use of mobile carriers for sending and receiving data long before the first BlackBerry included telephone capabilities. That is how important data is to these devices and to the people who use them.

Today surfing the INTERNET is a key function of all BlackBerry handsets, alongside text messaging and telephony.

But still at the center of the BlackBerry is email and the innovative way the BlackBerry service gets messages to and from the handset.

Rather than the device periodically connecting to your server to see if you have mail, the server to which your BlackBerry device is paired will push new email to your handset when it arrives - saving battery power and minimising data use.

1 The email service works in two parts: HI Via the BlackBerry device.

 2 Email push, managed in one of two ways:

* The Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), which works directly with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes mail servers.

* The BlackBerry Internet Server (BIS), which is operated by service providers, such as mobile-phone networks, to provide the push-email service to consumers with P0P3 and IMAP mailboxes hosted by their home ISP or free providers, such as Microsoft and Google.

Whether you are a consumer or a business user, the BlackBerry experience is the same and key settings can be stored centrally, making it very easy for devices to be updated and reconfigured should they ever have to be replaced.

More recently, the BlackBerry has evolved into a very competent media player, capable of playing the most common download able video file formats, including DivX, as well as MP 3 and Windows Media Audio files. And it's likely the BlackBerry won't stop there as Research in Motion is continually innovating to see what users may require in the next generation of devices. So watch this space.






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