Just a few years ago, BlackBerry was the coolest smartphone around. Fresh design, quality materials and innovative applications had attracted users all over the world. In 2009, Fortune Magazine named RIM as the fastest growing company on the planet, with a growth of 84 percent in profits over three years, despite the recession. In 2010, BlackBerry was responsible for over a quarter of UK smartphone sales, walking all over the iPhone.

What goes up, must come down 

But this stellar success wasn’t meant to last. In 2011, worldwide service outages had crushed the customer belief in the brand, prompting one in five to consider ditching BlackBerry. Some users tried to take RIM to court, while the shareholders revolted against co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. Balsillie left, replaced by Thorsten Heins, who promised painful restructuring and more focus on the enterprise business.

Even now, RIM continues to lose customers in Europe. The iPhone is beating BlackBerries in the workplace, while Nokia is actively targeting the users at home.

Some said the Canadian company would fall. Others thought it would completely abandon the consumer market. None of these scary things have happened, and although RIM is currently losing a lot of money, it retains a loyal following. There is hope for it in the developing markets, and the upcoming Blackberry 10 OS promises to be and interesting platform for modern devices.

So how much do you know about these distinctive phones?

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And if you like it, consider trying some of the others.