Research in Motion isn’t quite ready to offer its first touchscreen-equipped smartphone to the world just yet, but we did manage to snag a look at what the new user interface will look like. Because the Storm (which you may also know as the BlackBerry Thunder) lacks any sort of physical keyboard, RIM had to opt for an on-screen virtual keyboard instead.

As you can see, the landscape-oriented keyboard appears to have well-spaced keys and a slick black and white gradient look to it. This is much more attractive that previous spy pictures that showed off a less than stellar keyboard. I can’t say for sure, but I’m thinking that a SureType virtual keyboard while in portrait mode would be more appropriate, though RIM could surprise me on this front too.

It’s also interesting how the letters on the virtual keyboard are all italicized. This adds style, I suppose, but at the slight price of reduced legibility.