Engadget Mobile points us to TXCaesar's Rom Kitchen, where Da_G has cobbled together a build of Windows Mobile 6.1 for the original BlackJack. We waited and waited (and waited some more) for Windows Mobile 6 to be officially available for the BlackJack, so it's a safe guess (if a depressing one) that we'll have to do the same for 6.1 on the BlackJack. That's assuming, of course, that it will be made available for the sweet little guy in the first place. He has a newer, cooler brother in the BlackJack II (which will see 6.1 for sure), so it doesn't feel like a safe bet that 6.1 will appear on the original.

The ROM looks to occupy the netherworld between “cooked but nowhere near whatever the official will be” and “Basically the official 6.1 ROM.” It's also still not finalized and development is ongoing, so handle with care. Hopefully it's a little better than the hacked-up Windows Mobile 6 ROM that we excitedly installed and then saw our BlackJack choke on.

If you hadn't noticed, Windows Mobile 6.1 should be officially announced at CTIA on Tuesday and we are exited.

Update: Looks like BGR received yet another one of those mysterious Q9s with WiFi. This one has what appears to be a finalized version of Windows Mobile 6.1 with a few new features. Go check it out.

...That's the prediction from Pocket Lint [via Gizmodo]. Sounds pretty good to us. We would normally be a little gun shy about this sort of prediction, especially since we whiffed our prediction it would be unveiled at MWC2008. However, CTIA just happens to start on April first. And Head-of-The-Division-That-Contains-Windows Mobile Robbie Bach just happens to be giving the keynote. And WMExperts just happens to be planning on heading over to Las Vegas for the show.

So file this one under “Very Likely.”

Speaking of CTIA: expect wall-to-wall coverage. We'll live-blog Bach's keynote, we started up a Twitter feed for WMExperts, and heck, we will even post up direct from the show floor via our trusty Motorola Q9h.

Windows Mobile 6.1, if you'll recall from the many leaks, features a much-improved Today screen experience and (FINALLY) native threaded SMS, among other improvements.