Sleek BlackBerry London Leaks, RIM Prepares PlayBook OS 2.0

From DailyTech: From talking about "baking cookies" to drawing Saturday morning cartoon characters, smartphone maker Research in Motion, Ltd.'s (TSE:RIM) has been behaving a bit erratically of late. The troubled company is still solidly profitable, but has seen its sales and profits plunge in recent months as its business user-heavy customer has defected to Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android or Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone. In the U.S. it had sunk to a mere 4.5 percent of purchases by December 2011. The sales flops have forced a long overdue CEO change, bumping company co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie out of the top spot.

But for all the negativity surrounding RIM, the company appears to be in a position much like its Finnish phonemaker peer Nokia Oyj. (HEL:NOK1V), in that it appears to have realized its sales issues and committed to delivering exciting products. The first of those exciting products just leaked, under the code-name "London".

The phone could indeed be a game-changer if RIM can deliver the polished OS to back it. While the specs have not been announced yet, the phone in look allow is instantly appealing, bring to mind the popular iPhone and Droid Razr from Motorola. RIM has upped the ante over its rivals, though, completely eliminating the physical face button.

Rumored hardware includes either a Texas Instruments, Inc. (TXN) or a Qualcomm, Inc. (QCOM) dual-core 1.5 GHz ARM processor. The devices reportedly will carry 16 GB of NAND flash (expandable), 1 GB of DRAM, an 8 MP rear facing camera w/ flash, and 2 MP front-facing video-chat camera.

RIM is looking to ensure that it does not become the next webOS, preparing to roll out PlayBook OS 2.0. This new operating system's biggest addition is BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps -- a featured initially promised during launch hype for the PlayBook, but pulled at the last minute.

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