Details on the Touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder

Update: SEE REAL THUNDER IMAGE HERE

Disclaimer: the image is a photoshop. Cool bit of news here coming from the BG. While the BlackBerry Nation was in General Session at WES, he dropped some details on the BlackBerry codename "Thunder" touchscreen smartphone in the works.

Those of you who follow the CB blogs will remember I made mention a few weeks back of the BlackBerry Storm touchscreen in the works. Since then (if you're a CB podcast listener), you will have known we already talked about the BlackBerry Thunder name a couple of times and if you click into the CrackBerry forums the Touchscreen forum has referenced both the Storm and Thunder name for days now. Word on the WES floors is that the "Storm" is still the planned hybrid (which of course does contain a touchscreen) and the Thunder is the full-touch. Maybe we'll see some details on the Storm emerge in the days ahead. As for the BG's news on the "Thunder", here's the scoop:

The BlackBerry Thunder, as it is codenamed now, (all you "reporting" on it as the Storm are incorrect) will launch in Q3 of this year. It is a full touchscreen BlackBerry — no slide out keyboard — with only 4 physical keys. Those are the send / end phone keys, the BlackBerry menu key, and the back key. Here is the most interesting part, though: it will launch as a worldwide lifetime exclusive on Verizon and Vodafone! We’ve heard the unit will be a hybrid device with CDMA EV-DO Rev. C (for clarification, Rev C., known as UMB is practically dead. If the device will indeed launch with a 4G solution, our bet is on LTE), and GSM HSPA for traveling internationally. Verizon and Vodafone will have the same unit. Currently, the model number is the BlackBerry 9500, though it’s very early and that’s likely to change. This is HUGE for the Verizon lovers. For once they’ll get an exclusive device, but Verizon will have a sales quota for the device and if they don’t meet those numbers, we’ve heard the exclusivity will then dissolve and it’s over.

I have two thoughts on this... a) I can't wait to see REAL pics of this surface and b) I sure hope a couple of these babies come up for sale on eBay! Thanks for news Boy Genius, you've made many a Verizon customer extremely excited today.