BlackBerry Thunder 9500 surfaces, taking on iPhone 3G

The full touch-based BlackBerry Thunder 9500 has been awash in rumors online. Now several official photos have leaked to prove that the Thunder is a real deal and it will boast a spanking new Blackberry Touch UI OS.

If you have accidentally felt that you may be riding the tech wave with your super latest high tech mobile phone, RIM might just be able to prove you wrong. While we are still waiting for an official announcement, meet the BlackBerry Thunder.

The BlackBerry Thunder 9500 will run on a new Blackberry OS that's fully touch-centric and will sport a 2.5" 65K color touchscreen TFT display with 360 x 480 pixels resolution. Most importantly it will be a hybrid device, working in GSM and EV-DO networks supporting EDGE/HSDPA and built-in GPS.
Interestingly enough, those press-grade photos leak just days before the Apple iPhone 3G release in what seems to be a Blackberry PR attempt to dissuade some potential iPhone 3G customers.

And indeed, it looks like Apple iPhone 3G has got a tough competitor in the face of the BlackBerry Thunder. The latter will run a carrier music store which is similar to the iPhone's iTunes store and will allow users to purchase songs directly from their device.

Internet browsing on BlackBerry Thunder will be significantly improved to match the superb Safari browser in the iPhone. We hope the Thunder will also sport the sweet auto screen rotation feature as well - it's all about accelerometers these days.

The feature-rich device will probably run on the 624 MHz CPU known from the recently announced Blackberry Bold.

The BlackBerry Thunder 9500 will be exclusively available for Verizon and Vodafone customers but its pricing and availability are not confirmed by a reliable source.