I don't know how The Boy Genius got his hands on it, but he did. He's posted the first part in a two-part review of the forthcoming BlackBerry 9630 Niagara. Think of it as an 8900, Bold and Storm merged into one ultra device that has the best of all things BlackBerry. Verdict? It's going to be a smash hit.If there's BlackBerry on the horizon to be excited about, the Niagara is it. It is larger than the Curve, but smaller than the Bold. It has the styling queues of the BlackBerry 8900, but has mish-mashed the strongest points of the Storm and the Bold.

As for radio configurations, it appears as though the Niagara follows in the Storm's footsteps. That is to say, EVDO Rev. A for fast browsing in the U.S., plus GSM/EDGE/UMTS (2100MHz) for data roaming overseas. There's no Wi-Fi on the Niagara, just as on the Storm.

According to the Boy Genius' first take, the QWERTY keyboard is excellent. He says the size is just right. That's good news for all your Storm-haters out there who can't get used to the SurePress method of typing. He also liked the display, and said battery life was decent. He rated call quality as excellent. It runs BlackBerry OS 4.7.1, same as the Storm, but deletes the touch functions of the Storm. It has solid build quality and feels tough.

In all, it is clear that The Boy Genius is very excited about this device. He says, "RIM and Verizon, congrats. This will seriously screw with AT&T's BlackBerry customers and poach more than a few."

Based on his initial impressions, I can't disagree. You can read his full review here.

As long as it steers clear of the bugginess seen on both the Storm and the Bold, it could just be the best 'Berry yet.