* A Final Update for Now: Sometimes it takes a post-gone-kinda-wrong like this to get to the real nitty gritty of it all. One of our trustiest inside sources finally got a look at this, and while not commenting on the photos themselves, let us know that the 9900/"Pluto" as its been referred to thus far on the blogosphere is now pretty old stuff internally, and while it did exist in this type of form factor the project has now been scrapped in favor of a new one which will feature much more improvementsand technologies that will ultimately become a Bold replacement. Details are limited at this time, but things like a "new optical trackball" should be on the table. So when it comes to images like this coming from a carrier/partner source, while new to us things like this can happen when they're old to RIM. Again...we'll leave it here for now, take it for what its worth, and we'll see what happens in the months ahead. *
* Update: So our friends at BGR vote shannigans on this one, pointing out that the first image of the 9900 we posted looks like an 8800's mic hole is showing below the keyboard, while in the second photo (above), that's not the case. Touché. At the same time, we're still hearing that "that is the 9900" so there's only one thing left to do now... get some real photos of a real device, and not this photo of an image stuff on a piece of paper stuff. Stay Tuned... we'll be back... *
A few of you are questioning the authenticity of our previous post of a Rogers document featuring the "BlackBerry 99xx", so here's another photo for y'all to scrutinize from the same source. Suffice to say, I do believe the original source of these images is credible even though the photos are a bit blurry - it looks like a typical device simulator capture that we have seen on other pre-release devices (and yes, I added the blacked out section at the bottom of this particular photo for protection of original source). If you care to disagree and assume photoshop, that's cool too, no worries here. I can see where that notion would come from - you could photoshop this if you wanted. It's a free world and all will be known with time. We pass on the goods as we have them and wouldn't post something just for the sake of posting if we didn't have pretty good faith in the source. Of course, that said, every blog has made some mistakes before. So I guess we'll see!
As for the SurePress vs. no SurePress debate, more "votes" have been arriving in favor of the 9900 featuring SurePress, so you can take that for what it's worth too (again, all will be known in time). Geeez... ya know, after the release of the Bold, Pearl Flip, Storm and Curve 8900 I thought we'd all be getting a little rest on the new device front, but it seems the crazyiness is back full swing!
