BlackBerry Tour already generated a lot of fuzz among BlackBerry enthusiasts, and it seems that a little more will come from it in the near future as well, starting with a new rumored launch date for the handset on Verizon Wireless. According to the latest news on the Web, the phone should hit the mobile phone operator as soon as July 12.

In case the rumors prove true, Big Red would be the first carrier to make the device available on the market, followed shortly by Telus, which already announced that it would release the BlackBerry Tour on its airwaves on July 15. Given the fact that a series of CDMA operators have already made public their plans to carry the handset, it becomes rather important which one will have it first.

At the same time, the price tag for the BlackBerry Tour should prove an important aspect of the deal as well, and Verizon is now rumored to have the device launched with the price set at $199.99 on a contract. Compared with Telus' pricing, $249.99 with a three-year promo price, one can easily see that the US carrier is ahead of the Canadian, both with the launch day and with the cost.

Another carrier that announced plans to have the Tour for its subscribers is Sprint, though the company only informed it would introduce the phone later this summer, and no price details are available at the moment. It still remains to be seem whether other carriers will also introduce the handset, which, being a world phone, sounds like a great addition for many.

The BlackBerry Tour comes with a 2.44-inch display boasting a 480 x 360 pixel resolution, as well as with a 3.2-megapixel photo snapper that sports flash, image stabilization, auto focus and video recording, a full-QWERTY keyboard, 256MB of flash memory, a microSD/SDHC memory card slot with support for up to 16GB of removable storage space, and a wide range of connectivity options.