Like many things in the world of mobiles, qwerty cell phone started with Nokia. The old Finnish company that gained its initially popularity with producing rubber tires and electric switches, went to storm the world of mobile communications when everybody else said: “what a ludicrous idea! Who would ever use a mobile phone”.

The history of qwerty cell phone started in the dark ages of 1996 when Nokia developed its Communicator 9000. From the first glance it looked just like a normal mobile. However, when you opened it, it had a neat qwerty keyboard. It was a very expensive and heavy machine for high-fly businessmen.

The Nokia qwerty phone was driven by an 24 MHz Intel processor, and had a total of 8Mb memory. The first Nokia Communicator smartphones were running on GEOS operational system, which was changed to Symbian OS in the later versions.

One could send and receive faxes, SMS, emails, connect a digital camera, browse the web in text browser mode, use calendar, calculator and write notes. Brilliant. Nokia Communicator was the top of the world.

Then came 2001 and it was Nokia again. This time Nokia 5510 qwerty cell phone really made the history! It was looking really smooth, had 64 Mb memory for storing music files and featured a full qwerty keyboard. Despite of its monochrome screen it was fun and it allowed to type SMS really fast.

The Nokia 6800 had a fold-out keyboard and was marketed as the ultimate messaging device with an in-built email program.

The gadget that really made the history of qwerty cell phones was the BlackBerry. It decided the way this type of smartphone would look – large screen and three rows of keyboard buttons below. The Blackberry 5000 and 6000 series were made available in 2002 and in a short span of time evolved from a monochrome limited functionality gadget to a full-colour qwerty cell phone with just about any feature you can possibly imagine. In fact, a BlackBerry was a communicator with an in-built phone, not the other way round.

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