RIM Betting Big On 'London' Phone?RIM Betting Big On 'London' Phone?

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook Teardown

The fine folks over at The Verge have published what purports to be the first image of the first BBX-based BlackBerry from Research In Motion, code-named the London. The device is a slab-style touch phone that strongly resembles the recently announced Porsche Design P9981 BlackBerry in overall aesthetic.

According to The Verge's source, RIM is targeting a release date of June 2012 for the London. Loose specs for the London point to a TI OMAP dual-core CPU at 1.5GHz, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of onboard storage, an 8-megapixel main camera, and a 2-megapixel user-facing camera for self-portraits and video chatting.

Fans of the SyFy Channel's Battlestar Gallactica may recognize the shape of the London, which is octagonal. (It resembles the shape of paper/books in the SyFy Gallactica series). It is long and narrow, and the corners are chopped to give it eight side surfaces. It has silver accents at the top and bottom, with the display rimmed in black.

[ RIM needs to move quickly or lose third-party developers. Read RIM Loses Developer Interest, Microsoft Gains. ]

The Porsche Design P9981, a special edition smartphone being launched in the Middle East, has similar silver accents and shape, though it has a physical QWERTY keyboard and the London does not.

The London is said to be thinner than the iPhone 4, and about the same length/width as Samsung's Galaxy S II.

The Verge says it parsed the image for evidence of tampering and/or PhotoShopping, but was unable to detect anything. Still, given the extremely long lead time from launch, it is highly possible this is a prototype or mock-up that is not intended to be a final unit.

In other BBX-related news, Omega Advisors hedge-fund manager Leon Cooperman says RIM's new operating system has some tricks up its sleeve.

"People think it's a melting ice cube," said Cooperman in a recent interview with BusinessWeek. "We think the new operating system is going to surprise people," which leads Cooperman to think that RIM is going to beat is projections for the first wave of BBX smartphones.

We know very little about BBX. RIM says the new smartphone operating system draws on both its QNX-based PlayBook tablet, as well as its current BlackBerry 7 platforms. BBX is said to take the best of both and cram them into devices with displays that mimic the PlayBook's (in terms of aspect ratio and pixel count).

Cooperman's firm is bullish enough on RIM's prospects with BBX to have purchased 1.43 million shares in recent months.