Research In Motion are facing critical mass, as declining sales and an extremely competitive market continue to cause issues for the Canadian smartphone maker. Much of their future success is riding on their upcoming operating system, otherwise known as BlackBerry 10.

The first incarnation of the operating system was unveiled at the Blackberry World Conference, set to target developers so they can test their application code. Research in Motion built the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device and have been tight lipped about the specifications.

CNET Asia managed to get a hands on with the device and have some early reports detailed on their site. They say that the 4.2 inch screen is a 1280×768 pixel panel, which is a 355ppi device, higher than the iPhone's 326 ppi Retina display. As we would hope, CNET state that the colour rendition is good, and very sharp.

They draw comparisons with the Playbook tablet, with full touchscreen support and the same matte black material on the rear of the chassis. They also checked the operating system on the device, and it detailed ‘Playbook OS 10'. There is also a new onscreen keyboard.

CNET reported Brian Bennett said “At first glance it doesn't look like much, just a standard layout with not many options for dual-functions. When you start typing, though–that's when the magic happens. Each letter you tap will cause the phone to display suggested words above the letter it thinks you're most likely to type next. I tried my hand at banging out a few messages and I often found myself staring right at the word sitting on the tip of my tongue. It's honestly an uncanny feeling, almost as if the device was reading my mind.”

They seem impressed with the device saying “If RIM's final BB 10 devices look as good as the Dev Alpha–and actually runs BB 10 OS smoothly–we feel pretty upbeat about its chances in the market. Let's just hope it doesn't follow the footsteps of the PlayBook, which received rave reviews when it was announced, but failed to perform after it was released.”

You can read more on this over here.

Kitguru says: An exciting development for RIM or do you no longer care about their products?

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