Some consumers imagine that buying a BlackBerry without a keypad would be like agreeing to eat a Hershey‘s (NYSE:HSY) Reese’s Peanut Cup sans the peanut butter: pointless.

That may be why the recently released “keyboardless” prototype of Research In Motion‘s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry 10 hasn’t garnered as much excitement as RIM execs had hope. However, Thorsten Heins, RIM’s CEO, who said a lot during BlackBerry’s recent BlackBerry World annual conference, wants consumers to remember that a prototype is not necessarily an exact replica of the final product.

In short, the company isn’t completely ditching the physical keyboard, according to Forbes.

“Building an operating system from the bottom up is not an easy task, it takes years, you do not do this in a ten-month development time frame,” Forbes quotes Heins saying at a press session during the conference. “I want the BlackBerry 10 experience to be perfect, there is much more to come than what you saw yesterday.”

BlackBerry, the granddaddy of smartphones, has taken a beating from competitors such as Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone, Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android and Samsung’s Galaxy.

Heins, who has held the reins at RIM since January, reiterated the company’s intent to take back market share in the U.S.

“I actually expect us to regain market share in the U.S.,” Heins told The Verge. “We’re here to win, very very clearly. I’m not here to be just in the game.”

RIMM shares slid around 6% lower, to $12, during Thursday afternoon trading.