A photo of a dummy device was recently leaked by technology website The Verge. It appears that the photo is of a dummy of the BlackBerry 'London,' which is one of the rumoured contenders as the first RIM phone to run the next-gen operating system, BBX.
Rumours are suggesting that this design has replaced the 'Colt' as RIM's high-end BBX frontrunner, with the Colt expected to have looked similar to existing, more common place BlackBerry designs such as the Torch. The London design is in fact similar to the high-end Porsche Design P'9981 Limited Edition phone recently released by RIM for £2,000.
We're intrigued by the thought processes that may have been behind the London design, given the involvement of the BlackBerry in the recent London riots. Perhaps RIM expects this device to have an equally large impact? Either way, website BGR.com is claiming that we will not likely see this new handset out in the wild until Q3 of next year, which is an obviously lengthy wait.
With the London design seemingly aimed at the high-end market, it's looking more and more as if RIM doesn't intend to go mainstream with BBX phones until the end of 2012 or perhaps even 2013. Of course, most of what we are discussing is speculation, though the new design certainly supports recent news that all BBX phones will have the same 720p, 16:9 screens as the PlayBook to ease the development process.
BBX has shown itself to be a promising, high-performance OS with exceptional HTML5 support, though, with it seemingly being such a long way from release and even further away from full adoption, will any of it matter by the time it hits the market?
