Motorola Droid Android Phone Coming From Verizon Next Week? Motorola Droid aka Tao aka Sholes to be Announced on October 6 at MOTODEV Android Event; Available in December from Verizon

Verizon s first Android phone is a phone that Big Red s subscribers have
been waiting for a while now. It s not a secret anymore that Motorola
will be the company making it and, if rumors and predictions are
correct, the handset should be announced next week. Previously known as
the Sholes or the Tao, the Droid will be announced at Motorola s MOTODEV
Android event on October 6 and Verizon will bring it to the restless
masses in December.

We ve seen shots of the Sholes all summer long. A Motorola phone
combining a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard and destined to run
Android under Verizon s flag. Then the name suddenly changed first to
Tao and then the Droid but the phone has basically remained the same.

According to analysts, the Droid s release is imminent. Motorola s
MOTODEV Android event is approaching fast so it would make sense letting
the Droid out in the open. Especially since October 6 is the day when
Microsoft is going to launch Windows Mobile 6.5 into the wild. A little
Android competition might could not hurt, could it? Following the
predicted announcement Verizon should start selling the phone but don t
expect to get it sooner than late November or early December.

I personally think that Verizon should have entered the Android business
a long time. It certainly has enough subscribers and a dependable
network to support these Android phones since Google s OS is getting
more and more popular. Verizon s strategy seems to be the concurrent
launch of an Android phone and RIM s BlackBerry Storm 2 right in time
for the holidays which isn t a bad move at all.

What does the Droid bring to the table? Besides to the 3.7-inch
capacitive touchscreen display capable of WVGA resolutions and the full
QWERTY keyboard, the handset will offer a 5-megapixel camera, an ARM
Cortext 500MHz processor and a custom Motorola user interface. Don t
expect MOTOBLUR, the social networking-based UI of Motorola s CLIQ, to
be included, as people say at this time that it won t be available on
the Droid. The good news is that the phone will probably come with
Android 1.6 running in the background but we ll still have to confirm
all the features above before we pop the champagne and start the
celebrations.