Better late than never, right? The BlackBerry Storm2 isn’t exactly rocket science. Usually companies whether it’s a car manufacturer, handset company, computer maker or others follow up on an existing product and label it “new and improved.” Just like clockwork, RIM has spit out another iteration of their BlackBerry Storm series and this time it’s the much-awaited BlackBerry Storm2 9550 for Verizon. Finally the handset packs everything you’d hope for in a BlackBerry as far as hardware specs are concerned: global roaming, Wi-Fi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a decent processor, and 256MB of RAM. Since the screen is pretty much the most important part of the Storm as it’s the only navigation and text entry method, it is great to see RIM improve on their existing implementation and almost knock it out of the park. What’s funny is that the same way the Storm2 works is how it was initially described to us way back in July of last year, and we’ve heard that the original Storm was actually supposed to be more like the Storm2, but we won’t get too far into that as it’s unsubstantiated at this point.

We covered the BlackBerry 9520 a bit as we have been playing with it for a little while, but the screen has got even better with a retail unit and it’s less noisy and even more fun to use. Typing is pretty easy, and the unit in general feels great in your hand to hold and use. As far as market positioning for the Storm2, Verizon hasn’t made things easy for RIM lately. Many people have said that this is what the first Storm should have been, and while we agree, we don’t think it’s too late. If you have to have a BlackBerry and you want a touch-based phone, the Storm2 is an excellent choice. If you’re comparing it to other touchscreen handsets though, the waters get a little murky and you’ll have to make that decision for yourself. Hit up the BlackBerry 9550 gallery for more shots!

Click on over to our BlackBerry 9550 hands on gallery!

With the BlackBerry Storm2 getting nice and official over night, we here at BGR thought that it would be nice for us to take a moment and focus on just what its launch means for our loyal readers that aren’t living in The New World. Earlier this week, UK-based The Guardian proclaimed that the Storm2 would be announced by both RIM and Vodafone this week. Clearly this was the case as we now know it will be arriving on or around the 26th of October, but its report missed out on one huge revelation — Vodafone’s exclusivity on the device will only last “a few weeks”. This of course paves the way for other carriers such as O2, Orange and T-Mobile to get in on the Storm action. While all of the aforementioned Storm2 candidate carriers have remained mom mum on the matter, The Guardian is hedging its bets on Orange carrying the Storm2 in time for Christmas. What does this all mean for the UK? Well, when one considers that every major carrier is going to be offering the iPhone 3GS and has the option of picking up the Storm2, it looks as if a major price war is about to erupt in time for the holidays.

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While it’s certainly not much to go on, The Guardian is reporting that the BlackBerry Storm 9520 aka Storm2 will be announced this week by Vodafone UK. Specifics are scarce and it is not entirely clear as to when consumers will actually be able to actually purchase the next-gen Storm, but at the moment we’re more interested in another matter. You see, The Guardian seems to think that Vodafone subs will be able to walk away with a new Storm for free on all tariffs over  £30 ($47.40 USD). Now, whether or not these contracts are for the standard 18 months or painfully long (for the UK) 24 month affair might be an issue for some, but the fact remains that Vodafone seems to be clearly targeting O2 and its much more expensive Palm Pre.

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We’re not at the final OS build (haven’t even updated this to latest available OS) and that’s always something to take into consideration. With that said, however, the Storm 2 really makes SurePress a viable touchscreen mechanism that people will enjoy using. This obviously should have been done the first go around, and there’s big bad all-touch-screen smartphones to battle, but we like where RIM has gone with it and we’re eagerly awaiting an official announcement. More photos after the break!

Thanks, Mark!t

UPDATE: Had a chance to load a more recent OS on here (5.0.0.224) and it’s improved the screen feel immensely. Any wonkiness and erroneous screen taps seem to have gone away. Plus, you know… there’s threaded SMS now.

We’ve got some new info that leads us to believe the BlackBerry 9550 will be the model number of the BlackBerry Storm 2 due out later this year on Verizon and probably Vodafone. Besides a much better (hopefully) screen tech, the big news with the BlackBerry Storm 2 is the inclusion of Wi-Fi. Here’s a run down of the specifications for the BlackBerry 9550:

• CDMA 1xRTT/EVDO Rev. A
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE
• Single-band UMTS/HSDPA (2100MHz only)
• Wi-Fi b,g
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• 360×480 resolution capacitive screen
• OS 5.0

And oh yeah… remember those rumors of a BlackBerry 9520 (AT&T/Rogers 3G Storm)? We’ve confirmed that unit does in fact exist and could possibly be released relatively soon.

UPDATE: Not to completely confuse everyone, but we wanted to clarify that if and when AT&T, Rogers and other carriers get the Storm, it will be the Storm 2 (new version) not the first 9500/9530-based model.

Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean that the mobile phone industry is safe from leaks. HoFo user clearskies08 has posted pictures which are purported to be from an internal Rogers and Fido flagship presentation. They reveal all of the flagship smartphones that the two carriers plan to release in 2009. Virtually every single phone in the line-up has been written about before in one way or another so we’ll spare you their specs, but rest assured, if even one quarter of the phones in the presentation end up hitting store shelves, 2009 is looking to be a hell of a year for Rogers and its dog. Hit the jump for a complete list of handsets along with images from the presentation.

• Blackberry 82XX Pearl Flip (3G version of 8220 Pearl Flip but with GPS, WiFi, and video calling)
• Blackberry 9520 Storm (North American 3G GSM bands and 802.11 b/g WiFi)
• HTC Touch 3G
• HTC Touch Pro
• HTC Touch Viva
• Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5
• Motorola Q11
• Motorola VE66
• Nokia N79
• Nokia N85
• Nokia N96
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Samsung M8800 Pixon
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X1a
• Sony Ericsson C905

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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