The Blackberry Storm 2 may be launching sooner than imagined, and with a trick up its sleeve

An official RIM spokesperson has confirmed that the Blackberry Storm 2 could be launching as early as this year and that RIM are developing a new text input method for the device.

The announcement was made during TeleVisie 2009 in the Netherlands by Segond von Banchet, Channel Sales manager for the region who said that the new storm would arrive late this year or early next.

Interestingly he also commented that the successor to the Storm would “offer among other things a new manner to input text”, we’re also pretty sure that RIM will rectify the mistake it made first time round and add Wi-Fi into the mix too.

We’re not sure quite who will be carrying it in the UK, but apparently it’ll be on the KPN network in the Netherlands rather than the Vodafone-exclusive that was the first Storm. We’ll be sure to bring you more on this as we get it.

We’ve already had our hopes dashed against the cruel rocks of reality with the original Blackberry Storm, so will it be a case of once bitten twice shy, for the touchscreen Blackberry fans?