The first live image of the upcoming BlackBerry Thunder, RIM’s first touchscreen device, has emerged, and it looks strikingly similar to the mockup we saw last time.  What we now know is that, despite dropping the hardware keyboard, RIM has managed to preserve all of the so-called “convenience keys”.  Send, Menu, Escape and End/Power all line up below the display, together with screen lock and play/pause keys at the top.

To the sides, the left “convenience key” opens a preset application (and shares casing space with a USB port) while on the right sits the headset jack, volume keys and another “convenience key” mapped to the camera.  According to the initial report, it will be a lifelong exclusive to Vodafone and Verizon, with EV-DO, HSPA, GSM, CDMA, and even UMB.

Rumors speculated that we could see the Thunder - which also goes under the BlackBerry 9500 moniker - as early as Q3 this year.  It’s not hard to believe that RIM would be working as quickly as possible to push out a rival to the iPhone.

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