New picture surfaces of next-gen BlackBerry smartphone, looks a little fami

[(Spork)]

he news coming out of Research In Motion just keeps on flowing. We're just over a week into the reign of new CEO Thorsten Heins, and the latest is this new image of the BlackBerry London secured by our cousins over at

Crackberry. For those that aren't familiar with the going's on over in the BlackBerry camp, BB10 is the next generation QNX based OS that is supposed to herald a whole new era for the platform. The BlackBerry London is thought to be the first BB10 smartphone.

In his first interview with Crackberry, Heins brought a lot of insight with him. He also, you may recall, gave them his thoughts on Android hardware and how it "all looks the same." Forgive us for saying this, but the London kind of looks a bit a lot like an Android smartphone. Droid X, anyone? It'll probably run Android applications as well, via the Runtime for Android Applications feature found in the forthcoming Playbook OS 2.0.

The first leaked images of the London were vastly different to this. With its angled corners, and the kind of brushed metal finish found on the ultra-expensive Porsche Design P'9981, that sure did look different. Different to anything RIM had ever put out, and definitely different to anything in the Android war chest.

Crackberry Kevin thinks the London looks like a trimmed down version of a Blackberry Playbook. As a Playbook owner, I definitely see a resemblance. It's a little disappointing though if this is what the finished hardware will look like. Android does have an awful lot of black slabs, just as BlackBerry have an awful lot of QWERTY devices

http://crackberry.com/exclusive-first-image-blackberry-10-superphone

[Argi]

The people that I know who have Blackberries would hate that. One guy has one for the physical keyboard in particular (he changed from an iPhone 4).

[Ridlas]

Well that looks hideous. Who saw that one coming.

[Tech Star]

Well that looks hideous. Who saw that one coming.

Compared to the &&&& they have right now? I don't think so.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I am not sure about this thing.

People, including myself, like and buy RIM products, 99% of the time because of the keyboards. Yes, the services are there and important, but whats more important is that keyboard.

Now, they can go with touchscreens all they want, but please, they shouldn't kill those phones. They just need to update the software, a little, which in my opinion is fine by all means, but lets say, update the software, keep those phones coming and release one or two like these ^^ once a year

[Amarok]

Well that looks hideous. Who saw that one coming.

It looks like every other smartphone out there.

[qdave]

I guess BB's future is without keyboards. Time to let that dinosaur go.

[Tech Star]

I am not sure about this thing.

People, including myself, like and buy RIM products, 99% of the time because of the keyboards. Yes, the services are there and important, but whats more important is that keyboard.

Now, they can go with touchscreens all they want, but please, they shouldn't kill those phones. They just need to update the software, a little, which in my opinion is fine by all means, but lets say, update the software, keep those phones coming and release one or two like these ^^ once a year

They won't. They will have different lines of phones for different purposes. They are not going to kill off their main income (businesses) that require keyboards just because most consumers want a touchscreen.

[techbeck]

People, including myself, like and buy RIM products, 99% of the time because of the keyboards. Yes, the services are there and important, but whats more important is that keyboard.

I think the KBs are pretty much going to go away in the next couple years.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I think the KBs are pretty much going to go away in the next couple years.

NOOOOOO

:cry:

[techbeck]

NOOOOOO

:cry:

Just a guess. Everyone I know who was a die hard KB fan was resistant to touch...at first. Now they love it. With phones becoming thinner, lighter, and touch becoming better and better...I just think they will eventually go away. It also seems like less phone are coming with KBs than touch.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

But we are still miles behind the age where touchscreen keyboards will do good for all of us.

Nonetheless, yes, we have to let go of them sooner or later, but they are awesome :(

[random_n]

The hardware looks fine to me (if perhaps a bit horizontally challenged), but it's the software that makes or breaks it. I've really had it up to here (makes motion at neck level) with BlackBerry OS 4 through 7, their tendencies to mangle contact lists, stop receiving messages until the battery is pulled, and the ties to that awful barrel of kludge they call BES.

I do generally like my Playbook (hey, it was cheap!), but the PIM apps aren't going to be out for at least a few weeks and the fact that it barely scrapes by with a full 1GB of RAM while just running the web browser and a SMB daemon is somewhat concerning. That is to say, it starts acting goofy when the RAM runs out or the Android player gets worked too hard, and goofy is exactly what I've grown to hate about everything from RIM.

[FMH]

It looks like a merger between Kindle Fire and Android's UI.

Not bad at all. This will fly off the shelfs with ease.

[hagjohn]

I'm sure they will still have some phones with keyboards but I think those will fade out over time.

[Dick Montage]

Didn't the CEO of RIM say "all android smartphones are the same". And now hey bring out this...