9/11/2011 07:31:00 PM
dannzfay
Apparently, a completely new series of BlackBerry devices might arrive on shelves in the near future, boasting both a new design, as well as a new operating system, and what might be one of these phones has just made an appearance into the wild.
Supposedly one of the next devices that Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion might bring to shelves in the coming months, the handset is different from anything BlackBerry that we've seen until now.
This is reportedly the same device that made an appearance in a blurry photo only a few weeks ago, and which was said at the time to be based on QNX. However, the handset is said now to sport model number BlackBerry 9980.
However, it seems that the mobile phone sports a wide range of elements put in the BlackBerry Bold series, and that it might be based on BlackBerry 7 at the moment, at least this is what the guys over at PocketBerry suggest.
The keyboard on this mobile phone is completely different from any other BlackBerry smartphone that landed on shelves until now, yet the volume up/down and mute keys on the right side remind us of the newly launched Bold 9900/9930 devices.
Other design elements are also there to point at a Bold 9900 successor, thus the BlackBerry 9980 name: placement of the headphone jack and micro USB, charging contacts at the bottom, or the BlackBerry battery that features the micro SD card slot on top of it.
Of course, this does not eliminate the possibility that the device in the photos attached to this article is a fake, and we'll take the info on it with a grain of salt for the time being, though we'll keep an eye out for more info on it.
After all, RIM confirmed the near availability of QNX-based devices, and they might arrive on shelves with new design elements too, although no one expects them to be as different as the BlackBerry 9980 appears to be. More images are available at MaxPAD here.
