Here's a video walkthrough of the BlackBerry 10 keyboard

There's not long to go now until BlackBerry 10 touches down, and here's a detailed look at the BB10 keyboard.

Vivek Bhardwaj, RIM's head of software portfolio, is the man talking us through. He says the aim was to recreate the look of the traditional BlackBerry keyboard, and from what I can see, it's mission accomplished. Hit play on the video below for the full walkthrough.

The white font on the black background, along with the fact each key is "kind of maximised edge-to-edge" means that "visually, it's a BlackBerry keyboard."

It's personalised, too. "When it comes to next word suggestions," Bhardwaj says, "they're personalised with your own vocabulary." The predictions themselves are in-key, and you just swipe to type. Sounds a bit like SwitftKey, or the keyboard in Android Jelly Bean, to me. But that's no bad thing.

It also appears to be smart. If you're in a rush, bashing out messages and forgetting your spaces, it'll recognise and drop them in where they should be. (It'll be interesting to see how it deals with company names -- like BlackBerry, or SwiftKey -- made of two words joined.)

Bhardwaj says it'll also know when you're typing in a different language, and will automatically switch between them. All just from the words you're writing, without you having to toggle any settings.

BlackBerry 10 will launch in the new year. Many think it'll be make or break time for RIM, which has been struggling of late. Just a couple of days ago, more pictures of the BB10 L-Series handset leaked, revealing the influence of a certain fruit-flavoured device.

And if you're worried about abandoning the old-style physical keyboard, don't fret -- RIM will release a second BB10 handset at launch that'll have proper keys.

What do you think of the BlackBerry 10 keyboard? And what about BB10 as a whole? Can it bring RIM back from the brink? Let me know in the comments, or on Facebook.