BlackBerry Colt outed as debut QNX smartphone

Research In Motion‘s debut QNX smartphone has emerged online, ahead of its release in Q1 2012.

Snagged by the folks at BGR, the handset – codenamed the ‘BlackBerry Colt‘ – will be the first smartphone to run RIM‘s QNX operating system which made its debut on the BlackBerry PlayBook. With the new OS onboard, the firm will finally be competitive against Android and iOS, while the phone will come touting lower power consumption, improved developer platform support, and rich multimedia capabilities ranging from Flash to 3D rendering. However, according to the tipsters, the Colt may launch without BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) support.

Back in June, we heard that RIM’s debut QNX phone could possibly come equipped with a dual-core processor, but it looks like that won’t be the case. According to the guys at BGR the Colt will come touting a single-core chipset, likely to clock in at 1.2GHz.

However, besides its revamped OS and not-so-speedy processor, little has been revealed about the so-called ‘Colt’. If earlier rumours are anything to go by, expect to see a 4.3-inch with a ’900+’ resolution, and high-speed connectivity.

Speaking in May, Carlo Chiarello, VP of RIM’s GSM/UMTS business unit told TechRadar that ‘[QNX] experience is going to start to come in to our high tier products. I can’t tell you timings specifically. But it looks marvellous!”

If speculation is anything to go by, we’ll be seeing the BlackBerry Colt in early 2012, with RIM’s Software Verification team”well into the testing process”.

[Source: BGR]