Ah the BlackBerry Storm 2. It’s finally official folks: the latest touchscreen smartphone from the fellas who brought you the mighty emailing BlackBerry mobile phone. Wondering what numero deux brings to the table though? We’ve got the answer for you: a new touchscreen, with a revolutionary new SurePress display. What’s that exactly? And why are we in a fluster? Read on and we’ll break it down for you.

Cast your mind all the way back to this time last year, when the original BlackBerry Storm debuted. For the very first time, Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry and many a broken marriage, ditched the QWERTY keyboard in favour of a pokeable screen. But it didn’t just go with any old touchscreen, no no. RIM slapped in something called SurePress, and it’s here, tweaked, tinkered and upgraded in the BlackBerry Storm 2.

Until now, there have been two main types of touchscreen stuffed in phones: resistive and capacitive. Both detect prods in different ways, but both react without the screen moving noticeably – normally. The BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Storm 2 both have the fancier capacative touchscreen, but it’s more advanced, and that’s where SurePress comes in.

SurePress works by turning the touchscreen on the BlackBerry Storm into one big ol’ button. That’s right, you can physically push down the whole screen. Suddenly, you can feel when you’re typing, just like you would with a physical keyboard, and that makes it easier to dash out text at speed with minimal spelling errors.

How does the BlackBerry Storm 2 improve on that though? It still pops down when you lumber it with your digits’ weight, but with some wizardry under the bonnet, it only does it when the power’s on. After testing it out, we’re still convinced it’s voodoo, but it’s for real: the SurePress screen on the BlackBerry Storm 2 locks up completely solid when you flick the phone off.

What does that mean for you? You can slip the BlackBerry Storm 2 in your pocket without fear of breaking the chap, or clogging the edges up with extra grit. And if you’ve ever owned a regular BlackBerry with a rollerball, you’ll know how irritating that can be.

That’s reason alone for us to slap down our cash, but it’s got a whole bundle of other new features too. Want to know more about the BlackBerry Storm 2? Read all about it and see it up close in our hands-on video!

Out: October 26
Price: Free on contract

Don’t forget to check out all our hands-on pictures of the BlackBerry Storm 2…