Research In Motion has confirmed that the first device powered by the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system to be released by the Canadian company will only have a touchscreen keyboard.

The news of the omission of a physical keyboard for the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone comes via a statement from a RIM spokesperson as reported by The Associated Press.

Nonetheless, the spokesperson told the news organization that RIM will also release smartphones powered by BlackBerry 10 that have physical keyboards.

As to why the struggling company opted to debut BlackBerry 10 on a smartphone which doesn’t have a keyboard, the company has remained mum.

Nonetheless, RIM has reportedly spent a lot of time refining the onscreen keyboard of the BlackBerry 10 OS with reports saying that it is superior than other virtual keyboards out there.

However, RIM’s identity has always been strongly-linked to its smartphones having physical QWERTY keyboards.

RIM is expected to start releasing BlackBerry 10 smartphones later this year.

Image from THE LIGHT SURGEONS on Flickr (CC)

About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .