BlackBerry Slider Leaks, Mirrors Break EverywhereBlackBerry Slider Leaks, Mirrors Break Everywhere

Tech spies have unearthed pictures of a purported BlackBerry slider smartphone. The device, which bears a passing resemblance in form to the Palm Pre, has a touch screen and slides up to reveal a full, physical keyboard. Too bad it's so ugly.Research In Motion is in dire need of a new hit device. Sure, its Curve line of phones is selling well enough, but none of the current crop of BlackBerries packs any real sex appeal. The BlackBerry slider recently spotted by the Interwebs is not going to do RIM any favors in the sex appeal department, however.

Similar to the Palm Pre, it has a decent-sized touch display on the front with the usual set of BlackBerry buttons and an optical mousepad tucked below. When closed, it looks a bit like the Storm or Storm2. It slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard underneath. Based on the spy pictures, it's hard to tell if the keyboard will be any good. RIM is typically pretty good at engineering good keyboards (with the exception of the Storm and Storm2's SurePress system).

The fine gentleman over at CrackBerry.com at first speculated that the pictures were an early design and not a final (or near-final) rendition of the hardware. Turns out, though, that the pictures are indeed of a close-to-production unit. Personally, I think it is hideous, and not what RIM needs to be churning out right now.

CrackBerry's Kevin Michaluk sort of agrees. He writes, "Part of me thinks this device looks a little expected and safe. What RIM needs at this stage in the game is to hit a homerun with something really consumer focused that's a little more divergent." It's hard to argue with that sentiment. RIM's devices have always been conservative -- as to appeal to the business-y types.

RIM hasn't announced a new phone in quite some time. The upcoming CTIA trade show (March 23-25) would be a perfect opportunity. Will it reveal this device for all to see?