BlackBerry Magnum prototype spotted, canned in favor of something better? January 22, 2010

Okay, before we get too far here, keep your excitement in check: you’ll apparently never be able to buy this. The good news, though, is that CrackBerry seems to have it on authority that the phone you’re looking at here — an early Magnum prototype — has been scrapped in favor of something better, the “Dakota,” possibly a stealthy tribute to diehard BlackBerry user Dakota Fanning. In all seriousness, though, both devices are centered around the concept that you’d have a touchscreen up top, a traditional Bold-style keyboard down below, and scrap the trackball / optical pad altogether — a new concept for RIM. Differences between the Magnum and Dakota are a little hazier, but one notable change is apparently a move to liquid lens tech for the camera; considering how much these guys innovated (or over-innovated) with SurePress, we wouldn’t be surprised. Prototype BlackBerrys have a tendency to leak like an old faucet, so we sure it won’t be long until we get some more intel on these bad boys.