It was a logical step for RIM to take, but underground rumblings of a BlackBerry Bold-style smartphone that combines a signature BlackBerry keyboard with a more modern touchscreen have now mainfested - in the form of the leaked BlackBerry Dakota.

According to Boy Genius Report, the screen is 2.8 inches across and capacitive (read: multi-touch). It runs BlackBerry OS 6.1 and packs 768MB of RAM and 4GB of onboard storage. Also included are the usual smartphone bells and whistles; an accelerometer, proximity sensor, 5MP camera, HD video recording et al. The device can also apparently be used as a 3G mobile hotspot.

No word on when an official announcement will come from RIM as yet, but at a glance this is starting to look to us like the most impressive BlackBerry yet.

Via: BGR