It was right before Thanksgiving last year when hundreds of people waited in line to get their hands on the Blackberry Storm, the first touchscreen device from Research In Motion. But in the weeks following, the device was criticized as being drenched in bugs, and even the NYTimes’ well-respected David Pogue called it “a dud.”

RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) hurried to send out fixes for the problems, and as the exclusive provider of the device, Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) managed to sell 500,000 during the first month. Now, the two have teamed up for a do-over, and may be launching the Storm 2 as soon as this week, reports the NYTimes.

This time, the device appears to be what the first one should have been, which will make it more stable. But whether it will be as big of a hit among consumers as the iPhone is, we’ll have to wait and see. Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam is optimistic. He’s been carrying around the revamped device for a few weeks to see how consumers respond to it. In a Verizon store in New York, he showed it to a couple of NYU students. “They came back and said ‘Oh, my gosh.’ They were very excited. This is what they hoped the original Storm should be,” McAdam said.

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• BlackBerry Storm Sales “Promising” But Not Spectacular
• Reviewers Get Earful After Calling The BlackBerry Storm Buggy; But User Complaints Keep Coming