RIM: BBX phones to mimic PlayBook specs

RIM: BBX phones to mimic PlayBook specs
RIM promising the world great things

RIM has dropped a few tasty hint-nuggets about the new BBX phones, due to launch early next year.

The Canadian company is looking to join the race of super-phones on the market at the moment, and will be taking its cues from the BlackBerry PlayBook for the design, according to Alec Saunders, RIM's vice president of Developer Relations and Ecosystem Development.

Speaking to PCMag.com, Saunders said the phones, running the new QNX OS, would be less like the current keyboard/screen design that dominates the current BlackBerry range, and would be slimmer, all-touchscreen affairs, but with an eye-melting 1024 x 600 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

It's all good

"Look, if you build [an app] for the PlayBook, then it will run on BBX. We have maintained aspect ratios, BBX also has the ability to upload multiple dimension graphics … [and the standard resolutions] are the same as PlayBook," Saunders said.

He also confirmed that the rumours of no BES support, the enterprise email client that served RIM so well in the business world, are wide of the mark, stating: "I think you're seeing an evolution of a platform … you should not expect [BBX] to be behind the PlayBook."

This suggests that RIM has found a way around the problems of integrating the platform onto devices, as it's taken a long time for the brand to finally stand up and say its next-gen phones weren't going to be poor cousins of the current BB range when it comes to functionality.

Via Slashgear

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.