BlackBerry Magnum Makes a Video Appearance [Touchscreen & QWERTY Keyboard Hybrid BlackBerry Smartphone to be Launched Soon?]

Posted on TFTS by Chris Smith on Thursday, 28. January 2010 under: Mobile/Cell Phones

The BlackBerry Magnum appears to be RIM’s first hybrid smartphone. We have talked about it earlier on here at TFTS and today we seem to have a more than welcomed hands-on video for you of the Magnum in action.

I guess what happened one night is that a BlackBerry Bold and a BlackBerry Storm met for drinks and a movie. Before you know it one thing led to another and the Magnum appeared. The Magnum took the looks and the QWERTY keyboard from the Bold and the touchscreen from the Storm.

When I say it looks like the Bold I really mean that. It seems that the original Bold was the source of inspiration for the Magnum. Almost all the buttons are in the same places. The keyboard looks the same and event the back is similar. Sure it lacks the trackpad but you’ll have a SurePress screen to do all the menu navigation you want.

The video below shows the Magnum being compared with two of RIM’s hottest smartphones, the Bold 9000 and the Bold 9700. What it doesn’t show is the operating system. It will be interesting to see where RIM is going with its touchscreen UI.

After we’ve just seen the iPad, which comes with a great user interface, we can’t but wonder what the next iPhone will bring. Naturally we will also start to ask questions about the competition and their future products. Besides Android and webOS we’ll be looking forward to see RIM ready to impress us with a couple of new phones this year.

The Mobile World Congress in Spain is getting closer and closer and one could only hope that cell phone manufacturers will have some very hot handsets to show us.

The MWC is a good place to unveil a product like the Magnum, although, as you can clearly see in the video below, the prototype is not quite ready.