What the what? A clamshell smartphone from Research In Motion? That's what pictures spied on the Internet lead us to believe. Unlike the BlackBerry Pearl, this one is a bit of a clunker in the looks department. I truly hope this is a prototype design from our friends over the border.

All we have is this set of pictures. Nothing else. It shows a keypad that clearly resembles the one on the BlackBerry Pearl. That means SureType for text input and a trackball for navigation around the screen.

There's clearly a camera with a flash, and an external LCD display as well. On the side, you can see a microUSB port, as well as what looks to be a 3.5-mm headset jack.

As always, this photo gallery comes courtesy of The Boy Genius's spies. Aside from this set of pictures, nothing else is known about the Kickstart. Nothing is mentioned about specifications, which carrier(s) might carry it, or when on earth it might ever see the light of day.

Some drawings of potential RIM clamshells floated around the Internet about a year ago, so it stands to reason that this phone is on RIM's road map. How far is has yet to go is anyone's guess.