Most have e-mail capability and a personal organizer. A miniature QWERTY keyboard can be added. Also, some have touchscreens and built-in cameras. Other potential add-ons are contact management software; navigation hardware and software; PDF reading capability; software for music, browsing photos, and viewing video clips; internet browsers; or secure access to company mail.

IBM developed the first smartphone in 1992 and called it Simon. It was shown as a concept at a computer industry trade show in Las Vegas that year. BellSouth sold it to the public in 1993. In addition to standard cell-phone features, it had a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send-and-receive fax, and games. A touchscreen was used on this innovative new phone for selecting phone numbers. Faxes and memos could be created with a stylus using a "predictive" keyboard. Today it would be considered a low end smartphone.

Nokia got into the smartphone revolution in 1996. Theirs was a palmtop computer and was based on a PDA model by Hewlett Packard and Nokia’s best selling phone. The Nokia 9210 had the first color screen and was the first true smartphone with an open operating system. The 9500 Communicator was Nokia’s first cameraphone and first WiFi phone. The latest E90 Communicator has GPS. All of these new Nokias are very expensive.

Research in Motion (RIM) began marketing the first BlackBerry in 2001. It was the first smartphone optimized for wireless e mail use. It has been very popular.

The first wildly popular smartphones in the United States were the Treo marketed by Handsprings in 2002, which eventually was bought out by Palm. Microsoft also announced its Windows CE Pocket PC OS that simular year as Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002.

Nokia’s N Series of 3G smartphones were marketed in 2005 not as mobile phones but as multimedia computers.