First touchscreen BlackBerry unveiled

In terms of text entry, the BlackBerry Storm features a SureType keyboard when the smartphone is in portrait mode and then switches to a full Qwerty keyboard in landscape mode. The Storm has a built-in accelerometer so it will automatically rotate the screen, depending on whether the phone is held vertically or horizontally.

The Storm features a 3.25-inch diagonal display with a 480x360 pixel resolution and support for 65,000 colours. It measures 4.4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by half-an-inch deep. It's equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack, has four shortcut keys (Talk and End, Back and BlackBerry menu), and a microSD slot behind the back cover.

In terms of phone features, the Storm, like the RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, offers dual-mode functionality. This means the phone switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks to offer seamless international roaming, all while keeping the same phone number. It also works on Europe's 2,100MHz UMTS/HSDPA band as well as Verizon's EV-DO rev A network, plus there's a full HTML web browser.

Other wireless options include Bluetooth 2.0 with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets and GPS, but no Wi-Fi.