It does appear now that AT&T will be the first to offer the new BlackBerry slider in the U.S. when it is released. The new BlackBerry will apparently be the first in the new product family to be called Torch, and will called be the 9800 or Torch 9800, if you will.

While we still have no release date confirmed by the carrier or an official announcement for that matter, our sources tell us that the 9800 is undergoing field trials and technical acceptance testing. According to our sources, the 9800 is ahead of schedule and perhaps closer to release than many have thought, but issues with version 6 OS seem to be the major release hold up.

From the whispers that we are hearing, a summer release is possible, but don’t look for it until August.  However, we think that September is more likely the release date at this point.