Editor’s note: I think this is one of the ugliest phones ever produced, and if this comes out, I feel sorry for anyone taking it out of his or her pocket to use it. Where is RIM’s head on this one? It had better be a prototype.

Today BGR posted a photo of the BlackBerry 9670, RIM’s second flip/clam shell device. The one piece of greatness I got out of the photo is that it is shown running OS 6.0. You can read GuruDaniel’s review for more on that. As far as the hardware goes, the 9670 is much more aesthetically pleasing than the Pearl Flip, but does that really cut it? Is anyone out there in 2010 really waiting on a clamshell BlackBerry? Its expected to have a 5 megapixel camera and a large external display when closed, but is anyone really going to care?

Nowadays it seems like there are only two popular form factors in the smartphone world. That would be a one-piece device with a QWERTY keyboard (such as the Bold or Tour) or a one-piece touch screen device such as the Storm, iPhone or Nexus One. I feel like RIM is pushing too many types of BlackBerrys out into the market. I’m not saying they should only work on a single device like Apple, but they should focus on a select few. Choosing to create a bunch of different pieces of hardware also forces them to work on that number of software builds.

In my opinion, creating this device was a complete waste of time. Does anyone else think RIM should have spent their time instead focusing on the forever awaited ‘Dakota’?

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