The ‘Quark’ has arrived, and for the professionals of the City, life will never be the same. Released in 2003, the BlackBerry 6210 is a pivotal moment in telecommunications history; it is the first BlackBerry that actually functions as a phone without requiring you to plug in a clunky external headset. Before this, a BlackBerry was a pager on steroids; now, it is a legitimate ‘all-in-one’ device that is currently being strapped to the belts of every high-flying executive from Canary Wharf to Edinburgh. For the corporate world, this isn’t a gadget; it’s an electronic leash, and the addiction—now officially known as ‘CrackBerry’—is starting to take hold.nnTechnically, the 6210 is a masterpiece of focus. It doesn’t have a camera, it doesn’t have a colour screen, and it doesn’t play MP3s. It has a high-contrast, monochrome reflective LCD (160 x 100 pixels) with a lovely blue backlight that is perfectly readable under the harsh fluorescent lights of a London office or the dim cabin of a red-eye flight. The real genius, however, is the keyboard. The 33-key QWERTY layout is the gold standard for thumb-typing. The keys have a tactile ‘click’ that allows for incredible speed, making it possible to fire off a 200-word email while walking to the Tube without a single typo. It’s a technical achievement in ergonomics that makes the T9 predictive text of a Nokia feel like a stone-age tool.nnUnder the hood, the 6210 features 8MB of flash memory and 2MB of RAM, which sounds minuscule but is perfectly optimised for text-based data. The ‘Push Email’ technology is the magic ingredient; using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), emails are pushed to your device in real-time. You don’t ‘check’ your email; the email finds you. It supports tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz), making it a true global roamer for the international business traveller. It also features a side-mounted trackwheel for navigation, which is an incredibly intuitive way to scroll through long message threads. nnBattery life is where the 6210 truly shines as a business tool. Because it lacks a power-hungry colour screen or multimedia features, the 1100 mAh battery can last for days, even with the GPRS radio constantly pinging the towers for new mail. You can easily get through a three-day business trip to Frankfurt without ever unpacking your charger. The call quality is surprisingly good, and the integrated speakerphone is loud enough for a small meeting room. It’s not a ‘fun’ phone—the only game is a basic version of *BrickBreaker*—but as a tool for productivity, the 6210 is unmatched. It has fundamentally changed the pace of business in the UK, ensuring that ‘out of the office’ no longer means ‘out of reach.’ It is the definitive corporate handset of the era, a sober, reliable, and utterly addictive window into the 24/7 work culture of the future.