More pics of the new BlackBerry flip phone – whose idea was this thing?

There must be a crack surplus at BlackBerry HQ, because they really seem to have lost it with these new designs. The old half-and-half BlackBerrys have something special about them, something fundamentally strong. You know it’s a good phone because it’s refined. This flip phone (the 9670) and that slider we saw a while back, however, present a slightly less promising picture.

It’s probably not final hardware, but the general size and shape are clear… gah! Looks like a kid’s version of a flip phone I had back in 2003. Sure, the new BlackBerry OS is going to be good fun, but if it’s launching on this hardware, they’re going to find it a tough sell among the “people with eyes” market.