Research in Motion's next smartphone with its new BBX operating system will have the same resolution as the BlackBerry PlayBook. The screen resolution of 1024x600 will be a unique size for smartphones.

Alec Saunders, RIM's vice president of Developer Relations and Ecosystem Development talked to PC Mag about RIM's upcoming smartphones with its BBX operating system. According to Saunders BBX has the ability to upload multiple dimension graphics with the same standard resolutions as the PlayBook. The multiple dimensions graphics will mean that future RIM devices could have different screen sizes.

Saunders also confirmed that BBX will support e-mail and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which isn't natively supported in the PlayBook. The company has said that the first BBX phones will launch early next year.

Research in Motion unveiled its new operating system, the BBX in October. BBX is a hybrid of the current BlackBerry OS found in RIM smartphones and the BlackBerry QNX OS found in the company's PlayBook tablet. RIM hasn't revealed much about the BBX other than it combines features in the phone and tablet platforms. At the time of the announcement RIM only demonstrated a photo application app that was built on a cascades framework. BBX will also have support for 3D gaming and HTML 5. There's no word yet whether BlackBerry owners can upgrade to BBX or if the new OS will only run on newer phones.

Research in Motion has been having a tough time of late. BlackBerry services went down worldwide in October which left millions of customers without messaging services. RIM shares have been declining in recent months and last week RIM stock fell below $20 in the U.S. market a far cry from its past highs of $70. Once the world leader in smartphones, RIM is now trailing against Apple and devices that run Google's Android software. The iPhone and Android smartphones are gobbling up BlackBerry shares around the world. Samsung, which uses the Android software is now the number one smartphone maker in Asia-Pacific, Western Europe and Latin America, one of RIM's strongest markets.

The new BBX phones could be RIM's only chance of regaining lost ground but it could already be too late. Research in Motion had a chance to become a third option in the market after Apple and Google but instead the re-organized Nokia with Microsoft's operating system could usurp that role.