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The much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm has finally been officially unveiled, following months of rumors, leaks and hype. The handset is largely seen as yet another response to the success of the Apple iPhone, but the RIM hopes to differentiate itself by making its touch-screen more tactile than those of its competitors – namely, by making it “clickable.”

This means that when users want to select something, be it anything from starting an application to typing a text message, they’ll actually have to press down on virtual keys. While this admittedly takes some getting used to, a handful of tech journalists who have been given access to the phone early believe the touch-screen is one critical area where the Storm actually beats the iPhone.

Of course you also get many other features familiar to smartphone users, such as email, web browsing, built-in camera, integrated GPS, and media player capabilities – though it notably lacks Wi-Fi. It’s compatible with virtually every single network on earth and offers 1GB of onboard memory storage plus a microSD/SDHC memory card slot to support up to 16GB of additional storage.

No pricing has been announced as of yet, but the BlackBerry Storm will be available later this fall exclusively to Verizon Wireless users in the U.S. and Vodafone users in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Check out a few hands-on reviews at Wired, Engadget, and Cnet.