RIM may axe Colt and Milan as chances slim

RIM may have slashed two out of the three BlackBerry 10 phones it was planning to launch this year, a rumor emerging Thursday said. The Colt and Milan were said by BGR to have been dropped, leaving just the touch-only London. The Milan may not have even been a BB10 phone, instead being a BlackBerry 7 QWERTY slider that carriers didn't want given how similar it would have been to the Torch 9810.

The London is still expected to look much like the mockup of before, but with minor alterations. RIM hadn't commented on the rumor and likely won't discuss unannounced hardware.

In a more official capacity, RIM has confirmed that it will show BlackBerry 10 at Mobile World Congress, the annual Barcelona trade show starting late February. It's unknown if any devices would get a formal outing at the show or if the OS will be presented in the abstract.

While the MWC showing will likely help bolster the company after the uncertainty of its fall BlackBerry 10 (then BBX) debut, having just one device on its next-generation platform delayed to later in 2012 won't help the company's chances when Apple, HTC, Samsung, and others are all expected to have similar or better performance to the dual-core, LTE-equipped hardware RIM is waiting on. RIM has been somewhat buoyed by the success of the BlackBerry Bold 9900, but its performance continues to trail peers at similar prices.

By Electronista Staff