BlackBerry functions as a personal digital assistant with address book, calendar and to-do list capabilities. It also functions as a portable media player with support for music and video playback and camera picture and video capabilities. BlackBerry is primarily known for its ability to send and receive (push) Internet e-mail wherever mobile network service coverage is present, or through Wi-Fi connectivity. BlackBerry is mainly a messaging phone with the largest array of messaging features in a smartphone today, including auto-text, auto-correct, text prediction, support for many languages, keyboard shortcuts, text emoticons, push email, push Facebook and Myspace notifications, push Ebay notifications, push instant messaging with BlackBerry Messenger, Google Messenger, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger; threaded text messaging and a customizable indicator light near the top right of all Blackberry devices. All notifications and conversations from applications are shown in a unified messaging application which third party applications can access also. Many of these applications would have to be running in the background of other phones to be used. BlackBerry's push gives BlackBerry devices their renowned battery life. All data on the phone is compressed through BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).BlackBerry commands a 20.8% share of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the second most popular platform after Nokia's Symbian OS.[2][3] The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies.[4]
Modern GSM-based BlackBerry handhelds incorporate an ARM 7, 9 or ARM 11 processor,[5] while older BlackBerry 950 and 957 handhelds used mudit 80386 processors. The latest GSM BlackBerry models (8100, 8300 and 8700 series) have an Intel PXA930 624 MHz processor, 256 MB (or 4 GB in case of the torch 9800) flash memory and 265 MB SDRAM.[6] CDMA BlackBerry smartphones are based on Qualcomm MSM6x00 chipsets which also include the ARM 9-based processor and GSM 900/1800 roaming (as the case with the 8830 and 9500) and include up to 256MB flash memory.[7][8] The CDMA Bold 9650 is the first to have 512mb flash memory for applications. All modern BlackBerrys support up to 32gb microSD cards.
