RIM BlackBerry Storm2 coming to Verizon on Oct. 28; $179

Verizon announced on Monday the official availability of the highly-anticipated BlackBerry Storm2, the successor to the ill-received BlackBerry Storm, Research in Motion's first touchscreen handset.

The official price will be $179.99 after $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract.

As a reminder, here's a full breakdown of how the Storm2 stacks up to its predecessor.

Key highlights:

• A 3.25-inch (360x480) capacitive SurePress touchscreen display (184 ppi)
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 256MB of flash memory (double original Storm)
• 2GB onboard memory with microSDHC expansion (16GB card included)
• EV-DO Revision A; UMTS/HSPA (2100 MHz); and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks
• 3.5mm headset jack
• 3.2 megapixel camera with video recording
• built-in GPS
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 1400mAh battery rated for six hours of 3G

If you're an owner of the first-generation Storm, RIM is also expected to roll out the BlackBerry OS 5.0 update for download, offering usability enhancements sought by users such as:

• Typing accuracy and selection improvements
• Usability and visual enhancements: inertial scrolling, spin boxes that make it easier to set dates and times, gradient shading on buttons, and more use of animation
• BlackBerry Browser is improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing as well as support for Gears and BlackBerry Widgets
• BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 customers gain the ability to set follow-up flags, manage e-mail folders, access remote files (Windows Shares), forward appointments, view calendar attachments and more