RIM – now officially known as BlackBerry – makes the best physical keyboard smartphones. In its heyday the company rode on the success of not only BlackBerry’s secure operating system which made it popular with business professionals, but also on those who prefer using a physical keyboard over a virtual one. Perhaps it is fitting that BlackBerry did not forget this surprisingly large group of users, with the launch of the Q10 smartphone.

The Q10 retains the iconic BlackBerry look with its signature physical keyboard with chrome borders. However, the 3.1-inch 720 x 720 LCD screen is also touch-enabled, meaning that the gesture-centric BlackBerry 10 OS can still be utilised via touch (actually, it’s still the only way – the cursor did not make it into the Q10, just the keyboard).

Hardware-wise, the Q10 is the same as the larger Z10 smartphone. There’s the mysterious dual-core 1.5GHz processor which could be from Texas Instruments or Qualcomm, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable memory. Interestingly, the Q10 seems to be fitted with “the largest battery of any BlackBerry phone thus far“, and CNET states that it will be a 2100mAh pack. The camera, too is the same 8MP and 2MP rear and front-facing modules as the Z10.

Also, just like the Z10, local pricing and availability for the BlackBerry Q10 is not yet known, though hopefully we will hear something on February 20.