Cellguru got his hands on the BlackBerry Magnum, the touchscreen QWERTY hybrid that we’ve been hearing rumors about for some time now. While this device has been scrapped and will probably never see the light of day, there are also rumors of a BlackBerry Dakota which could come to market. The Dakota is still in very early planning stages so it’s still in the air about what to expect. It’s unlikely that the Dakota will come in a Bold 9000 form factor, which is sort of a shame.
Personally, I want RIM to bring back the Bold 9000 form factor. I don’t mind a bit of bulk in my device and the Bold 9000, for me personally, has been the most comfortable device to type on. The worst part of the 9000 is the trackball and it’s a little slow for some of today’s applications but all of that would have been solved with the Magnum. It wouldn’t be great for developers though, who would have to deal with even more fragmentation in the platform.
So what can we expect from the BlackBerry Dakota? Not much is known about the device other than it is rumored to be a touchscreen, QWERTY hybrid that will come with a liquid lens camera. The liquid lens camera changes its shape to focus, rather than relying on a bulky mechanical focus method. My guess is that RIM will go with a smaller form factor, something closer to the 9700. Only time will tell.
