BlackBerry Thunder 9500

BlackBerry Thunder 9500 touchscreen smartphone should be coming soon to Verizon Wireless and Vodafone customers in the U.S. and Europe.

BlackBerry Thunder 9500 seems to become the first touchscreen smartphone in RIM's 9000 series. According to Wall Street Journal, the Canadian manufacturer will be offering the BlackBerry 9500 on Verizon Wireless and Vodafone networks, exclusively. Vodafone has a track record of getting BlackBerry smartphones exclusively in Europe, and an exclusive agreement will obviously also cause extra buzz for Verizon Wireless.

The BlackBerry Thunder 9500 is scheduled to hit store shelves in the third quarter of 2008, most likely in September. According to Wall Street Journal, the BlackBerry Thunder 9500 will ship with 3G support like the recently introduced BlackBerry Bold, but it's not currently known whether HSDPA and EV-DO versions will be released simultaneously. RIM has also worked hard to improve the battery life of its 9000 series of smartphones, which is kind of reassuring.