Uncovering the DROID

This must be a sign of good things to come for the smartphone (especially the Android) industry – but is it knock-the-iPhone-off-its-pedestal good? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Boy Genius Report and Tech Crunch are both posting mini previews of the “DROID” formerly known as the Motorola Sholes. Motorola, Google and Verizon are all three said to have had a hand in the design of the latest Android device set to hit Verizon on Oct. 30. BGR reportedly had a hands-on moment with the DROID and said in a recent blog post that the device is “the Android device to beat, easily the most impressive…even in its non-final form [it’s] the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing.” Those are some pretty strong words of acclimation. While this phone might very well be impressive, it should be interesting to see how the device will fare on Verizon’s open network. In any case, it looks a lot better than the Motorola CLIQ.

So far we’ve been told that the device is running Android 2.0 and a killer Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor (same chip as Palm Pre), has a super-slim slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a huge, impressive capacitive touchscreen. Hopefully we’ll get some solid specs soon, but as of right now we’ll have to settle for the colorful commercials Verizon is pumping out.