Flagship Touch-Powered BlackBerry Dakota LeaksFlagship Touch-Powered BlackBerry Dakota Leaks

Scoring another BlackBerry exclusive, the Boy Genius Report today published an image and specification sheet of the BlackBerry Dakota. This smartphone, which has not been officially announced by RIM, combines a touch screen and traditional BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard in a device that looks like the original BlackBerry Bold.

The stand-out specs of the Dakota include a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 capacitive touch display, BlackBerry operating system 6.1, and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording, flash and image stabilization. RIM just recently revealed developer tools for BlackBerry 6.1, which builds on the improvements made by BlackBerry 6. This may be the first device to ship with the newest software on board. The display is a bit smaller than the BlackBerry Torch's 3.2-inch diagonal, but it shares the same resolution. Packing the same resolution into a smaller space means the display will look sharper.

On the radio side of the equation, the Dakota has quad-band GSM/EDGE and tri-band UMTS cellular support. That means it is most likely headed to AT&T before other carriers. It also has the standard smartphone GPS, Bluetooth, and 802.11b/g/n radios. It adds one whopper of a radio, however: Near-Field Communications. By including NFC, the Dakota could be one of the first BlackBerries to support contactless mobile payments.

Rounding out the features, the Dakota also has 4GB of internal storage and 768MB of RAM. A magnetometer, accelerometer and proximity sensor will help it support applications. There's no mention of processor power (the Torch has a 624MHz processor).

It's not the stunning "super phone" that RIM needs to hold Android and iOS at bay, but its at least a step in the right direction.