When other phones failed, BlackBerry didn't. It was one of the few networks that continued to function in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. That won the phone a generation of loyalists.

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See here for more detail on how BlackBerry created lifetime loyalists after 9/11.

Good ol' Blackberry has also always been regarded as the most secure phone (could be why Obama didn't want to make the switch).

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The exclusiveness of BBM made the messaging feature even more attractive than AIM.

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BlackBerry phones were sized perfectly for one-handed use.

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Fingers of all shapes and sizes could handle those big, beautiful keyboards more easily— and with fewer typos — than touch-screen options.

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Productivity and email communication were always BlackBerry's forte. It was first with push email notifications on the homescreen.

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Who needs Siri? Or Instagram? Blackberry has been keeping it simple since Day One.

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Plus, since business culture was so ingrained in BlackBerry, owning one was an automatic status boost.

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And that battery lasted a looooong time.

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With the little red light that blinked whenever a message arrived, we could stop checking our phones constantly.

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Well, maybe not. We called them CrackBerries for a reason...

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For a different smartphone struggle:

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Check out why Android is still better than iOS