American blog site The Boy Genius Report, who was fairly well informed about this week's BlackBerry Bold launch, has provided some juicy info on RIM's much rumoured touchscreen device.

According to BGR, the BlackBerry "Thunder" as it is apparently codenamed, will offer a full touchscreen with just four physical buttons - send and end phone keys, the BlackBerry menu key and the back key.

Reportedly due for release in the third quarter of this year, an interesting angle to this rumour story is that Verizon (in the States) and Vodafone will apparently be granted lifetime exclusive deals - as long as they meet sales quotas.

Another intriguing snippet is the possibility of a "4G" LTE chipset, although this does not necessarily tie in with network availability within this timescale. You'll know more when we do...

>> News - BlackBerry Bold launches
>> Via - BGR