Blackberry Storm3 rumours – touchscreen yes, keyboard no

This story obviously goes in the realm of really wild speculation while stoned. But rumours have a place when it comes to upcoming gadgets – the rapacious geek crowd need something to feed their imagination, and we won’t be the first ones deny them that.

Last month, what we heard is that the Blackberry Storm3 would have a touchscreen, as well as a slide-out keyboard. Also, we heard names such as ‘Mr.T’ and ‘Blackhawk’. There was the sketch of a Blackberry with multiple hardware keys, as well as a slide-out keyboard and a trackball which did the rounds for a while.

What we hear now, thanks to bbleaks, is that there are two prototypes of the Storm3 in circulation. One has a slide-out keyboard, and the other one doesn’t. Chances are, it is the second one which will be the Storm 3, or the so-called Talladega. BBleaks says that one has a 90 per cent chance of becoming the Storm3. So all those who wer dreaming about the addition of a slider keyboard to Storm phones, you might be out of luck.

Next – the Blackberry Storm3 will continue with the SurePress piezo electric tactile touchscreen tech. Seems a capacitive touchscreen is not under consideration. Big disappointment there again.

Overall, it looks like the Talladega-Blackhawk-Mr. T or whatever it called Storm3 will be just a better version of the Storm2. That is not going to enthuse many – and also not going to turn the fortunes of RIM around, I am afraid. Other rumours about the Blackberry Storm 3 include 16.7 million colour screen, 512 MB RAM, a widget enabled UI… But if you look at it, there is really nothing there that could do what the HD2 could do for Windows Mobile, or a N900 for Nokia, or the Motorola Droid for Motorola – the Storm 3 is not going to be a game-changer.

Now, here is the obligatory reminder that this is all still int realm of rumours and speculation, and we are criticising RIM for a phone whose name we are not even sure about… but that’s how it goes when it comes to rumors. We will keep you updated on any new photos or rumours that break out about this phone.