They combine a hand-held programmable computer with a cell phone and an optional GPS or camera. Some models speak both WiFi and cellular (CDMA or GSM) protocols.

Some BlackBerry PDAs/cell-phones, such as the 8700 (312 Mhz Intel PXA901 Hermon processor, 16 MB SDRAM, 64 MB flash memory) support J2ME, CLDC 1.1, MIDP 2.0. On 2008-01-09, I determined it was last revised 2004-08-09. Although Blackberry devices run applications that use only the standard MIDP APIs (commonly referred to as Midlets), developers can also use Blackberry’s proprietary JDE Java Development Environment API. You need JDK 1.5+ to run the JDE simulator.

The main reason for the success of the BlackBerry is the way RIM has offered tools for corporations to create custom applications. Further, the UIs are well polished. Cell-phones in general are notorious for impossible-to-use command structures.