BlackBerry Storm 3 Rumored to be Powered by QNX OS

Rumors of a BlackBerry Storm 3 have been on-again, off-again as the future of the Storm franchise, at least in the U.S. under the helm of carrier Verizon Wireless, has been uncertain. The latest Storm 3 rumor has it that the 3.6-inch AMOLED Storm 3 will get some updated specs bringing it on-par with many modern smartphones, and will also bring with it a new BlackBerry 7 operating system, which will be powered by QNX, the operating system that will debut on the BlackBerry Playbook, Research in Motion’s 7-inch slate that’s heavily geared for productivity and multimedia.

If true, this will help BlackBerry become more competitive against other consumer-centric competitors, like iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and webOS while still maintaining an advantage with its enterprise-customers in terms of emails, secure environment, and ease of use.

Research in Motion was caught off-guard by the iPhone and multitouch when the original iPhone debuted. Since then, it had partnered with U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless and foreign carrier Vodafone in delivering the original Storm, a device that was meant to compete with the iPhone but received negative reviews by mainstream media due to its conflicting nature of touchscreen utilization on a primarily non-touch-based operating system. Since then, with the debut of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 on U.S. carrier AT&T and the BlackBerry 6 operating system, Research in Motion had made the OS more touch-based and adopted Webkit as an underlying framework for the OS and for its browser.

Unfortunately, though, BlackBerry 6 wasn’t radical enough for many users and its reviews were mixed. A lot of reviewers, myself included for a different site prior to joining the GottaBeMobile team, have stated that it’s the best BlackBerry to date, but still not competitive with other OSes. With the rumored Storm 3, BlackBerry 7 OS powered by QNX, RIM will have a fighting chance against its competitors. Given the hype, hope, and anticipation behind the BlackBerry Playbook, QNX may be RIM’s secret weapon to regaining its smartphone dominance.

Video above: BlackBerry Playbook powered by QNX OS

Other rumored and anticipated specs behind the Storm 3 include 512 or 1 GB RAM and 1 GB of ROM. The device may have a 1 GHz CPU, and a 5-megapixel or 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and up to 8 hours of talk time. Hopefully, RIM will be able to pack in a 720p HD-capable video camera on the Storm–thus far, RIM has only included VGA-capable cameras on its smartphones.

Via: Phone Arena