Mysterious QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry 10 prototype appears

The other day, we showed you a picture purportedly of the BlackBerry Jakarta aka BlackBerry Z3. While this is one of the low-end models being designed, produced and warehoused by Foxconn, BlackBerry is believed to be working on a pair of high-end models in-house. One is expected to be the quad-core powered BlackBerry Ontario while the second could be a 64 bit octa-core model.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has already said that most new BlackBerry phones will feature a QWERTY keyboard.  And that brings us to a couple of leaked photographs showing us both sides of a QWERTY equipped BlackBerry handset. The odd looking device has brought forth some rumors. One is that the device pictured is nothing more than an early prototype of the BlackBerry Q5.

Another possibility is that this is a developer model for an upcoming high-end BlackBerry 10 device, possibly the Windermere. That model is supposedly one of the two high-end models we spoke about last December. Even if it is the Windermere, it almost certainly does not look like a final design.


source: hibbers.com via Crackberry

UPDATE: We have some more information on the BlackBerry Windemere, which is apparently the device pictured. The keys can be pressed on, but numbers and other keys would be accessed using a swipe gesture. Because it is so wide, BlackBerry is thinking about allowing two apps to run side-by-side at the same time.

source: BGR