The Blackberry Bold 9800 “Torch” might show up in stores as early as August 15^th. Spare parts for Research In Motion’s coming smartphone have already shown up in stores online and John Albright—a member of the BlackBerry Partners Fund—is claiming that it will be available on the 15^th of August. The phone has been expected to launch between August and October, so this might really be the release date.

Research In Motion (RIM) has been working on the smartphone for quite a while now, and many see it as the company’s best chance to regain its crown as the manufacturer to beat. Featuring a slide-out keyboard as well as a touchscreen that supports multitouch, the phone is sure to impress newcomers to the BlackBerry line as well as veteran users who have grown inseparable from RIM’s signature QWERTY keyboards. Perhaps the new phone’s biggest selling point will be BlackBerry OS 6, which is also expected to be making an appearance shortly.

Since the 9800 will be packing multitouch, RIM’s newly redesigned but unreleased browser should drastically improve the web browsing experience of those lucky enough to get one. The new browser is also based on the same Webkit technology that Apple’s and Google’s mobile web offerings use. Of course, the 9800 will also have the advantage of a RIM designed keyboard, which is perfect for those who type out a lot of emails or send a lot of messages.

So is this the real release date?

Are we finally going to get to buy RIM’s highly anticipated new phone?

Will it finally put iPhone 4 users back into their place?

Leave a line and let us know what you think and if this will really be the phone that changes RIM’s fortunes.