We've been waiting for a long, long time for this — RIM has finally announced an official launch date for the LTE-capable BlackBerry PlayBook. It'll be available in Canada "on select carriers" this August 9th, one week from today. Unfortunately, there's no word on pricing or which carriers will be offering the upgraded device, but we expect RIM will make that all known before long. There's also no word on whether or not this device has the upgraded 1.5GHz processor that was rumored a few weeks ago, but we'd imagine RIM would have wanted to highlight that in its announcement if it came to pass. As for those of us not living in RIM's home country, the company says that more PlayBooks that support "various high speed cellular networks" will be launched in the US, Europe, South Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean "in the coming months." Given how long the LTE PlayBook has been in the works, we're hoping this international launch doesn't take too long.

Thanks Ruben!