BlackBerry Storm 2, the long-rumored successor of the already available Blackberry Storm, has made it into the wild in a series of early photos. As many of you might already know, the handset has been confirmed by Research in Motion, though no official announcement on the device has been made until now, though it is expected to make it to the market before the end of the ongoing year.

According to the news on the Web, the BlackBerry Storm 2 comes with the internal codename Oden, and it seems that enthusiasts will be able to enjoy Wi-Fi connectivity with the handset, something that was not present on the original Storm.

At the same time, we learn that the second iteration of RIM's touchscreen device will also come with GPS. The mobile phone that can be now admired in the recently spotted pictures resembles a lot the original BlackBerry Storm, while also bearing something from the design of another unreleased handset from RIM, the BlackBerry Onyx/Driftwood.

The upcoming BlackBerry Storm 2 is expected to come to the market with a wide range of improvements over the previous version, including a new soft keyboard, which was rumored at one point to come as a “new approach to text entry.” Now we learn that it has been tweaked, but it does not feature radical changes from the earlier version.

As you can see in the photos, the handset looks quite thin, and it seems that RIM replaced the fourth button with some touch-sensitive controls. Although there are no exact details on the capabilities of the BlackBerry Storm 2, most of the improvements it should come with, compared to the existing model, are expected to be included under the hood, so we'll have to wait for more info on it to surface.

Hopefully, the BlackBerry Storm 2 will make it to the shelves before the holiday season, and those who are not that happy with the Storm they own at the moment but still like the device will be able to make a decent upgrade. Stay tuned to learn more on the nice-looking Storm 2 as soon as details become available. More images with the handset are available on Engadget Mobile.