One of our connects already did one for us, but there’s nothing like having a handset (and a box) in your own possession. Also what our guy reported seems to be spot on: this thing is thinner, lighter, and a lot more pocketable than Sprint’s HTC Hero. The only other change, we’re told, is that the DROID Eris has a proximity sensor on the screen. We’ll put together something more formal in a little bit, but in the meantime check out a couple photos after the jump!

You already know we smashed this one, but in case you don’t…  Release date? Check. Spy shots? Yes please. Unboxing? Sure. Press release? Well, we figure we would let Verizon handle that one. Today, HTC and Verizon officially announced the November 6th launch of the DROID Eris on the “there’s a map for that” network. This handset has all the goodies: Wi-Fi, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera, 3.2″ touch screen display, and HTC’s Sense UI. The price tag is set at $99 on contract after a $100 mail-in rebate. We’ve given this puppy enough attention, but you can hit the press release for all the minutia.Read

One of our connects just blessed us with a couple shots of the HTC DROID Eris and graciously unboxed the retail packaging. We could bore you with meaningless details about how the phone is thinner and lighter than the Sprint HTC Hero, feels much better in the hand, and is generally the best Android device besides the Motorola DROID our connect has used, but we’ll stop there. Enjoy the photos!

Thanks, Jon!

We scooped it, we previewed it, and now we’re officially reviewing it. There’s a good chance that even if you’re not into tech all that much, you’ve heard of the Motorola DROID thanks to Verizon’s big marketing push, and that’s a good and bad thing. As you’ll see in our review, the DROID is a fantastic device, but does it have what it takes to compete outside the world of the die-hard Android fans and techies in the consumer arena? You’ll see soon enough!

Hardware / Design

Design is always going to be subjective, but in a world of curves and tapered edges, it’s downright thrilling to see a handset that’s angular, retro-looking and extremely masculine. Sorry, ladies. You’ll always have Droid Eris… We just love the styling of the DROID. It’s minimalistic in a lot of ways, not cluttered with useless buttons and switches, and overall is solid as a rock. The slide mechanism is not spring-assisted, but the click is reassuring enough to warrant a comforting feeling when opening or closing the handset. One thing physically we’re not thrilled with is the looseness of the volume up and down key. It slides up, down, front and back and generally feels like it’s just going to fall off over time. Both the unit we received from Verizon as well as our older unit exhibit the same behaviors.

Contrary to other reports, the Motorola DROID exterior is actually mostly metal. The bezel around the screen is metal as is the mid-plate of the case. The only part that’s plastic is the rear back-plate and as we understand it, the reason that little chin exists is because that was the only place Motorola could fit the wireless antennas. They face out towards the plastic back as opposed to being Faraday-caged by the metal front.

Touch-sensitive keys are a, uh, sensitive area but they’re honestly fine at the end of the day. We’ve been banging on a DROID for many weeks and haven’t once had a misfire or accidental key press even though the keys are 100% touch-based. We don’t think they’re a problem even though some people have been concerned. Plus, you can’t beat the Haptic feedback. There isn’t a single key on the left side of the unit, just a microUSB port, and on the top there’s a 3.5mm headset jack followed by the power / lock /unlock button. On the right side, we’ve got the shady bi-directional volume key and a two-stage camera shutter key donned in gold. Or as Motorola likes to call it, brown sugar. Mmm, brown sugar.

When you turn the phone over, you get a rather simple but concise “brown sugar” speaker grill, battery cover with Motorola and Verizon logos, and that 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash. Oh, and the “with Google” logo, too. No, the phone doesn’t look like a billboard to us, but hey, you’re entitled to your own opinion. Inside it is packing a 550MHz OMAP3 CPU, dedicated graphics processor, 512MB of ROM, 256 of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a digital compass, and accelerometer.

Screen

You want one word to describe the screen? Stunning. A 3.7″ WVGA 854×480 capacitive high-quality display? We’ll take three. Like we said in our preview, it’s the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android device and possibly in general. Plus it’s responsiveness is second to only Apple’s capacitive displays, so we’re talking about a really, really solid screen here, people. The widescreen proportion might take a little getting used to for some, but all in all, it’s roomy and sports a rather nice resolution.

On the screen there is a proximity sensor and also an ambient light sensor. Both work magically to shut off the screen while you’re on a call, saving battery and preventing your face from triggering an on screen button, and also adjusting the brightness of the display to match the lighting in your current environment. Some people asked us if the screen on the DROID was dim as it appeared that way in a couple of our photos, and our quick answer would be: absolutely not. It’s viciously bright if you ask it to be, and the backlighting is a very assuring white as opposed to a tinted red, orange, pink or blue hue on some other phones we’ve used.

As we said, it’s second only to the iPhone as far as capacitive screens go, and coupled with the rest of the DROID, it’s a real winner.

Keyboard

After using the phone for almost a month, I can confidently say the keyboard is fine for most people. It’s not a BlackBerry and the actual spacing of the keys isn’t great, but it is really livable I think. Each key has a little bubbled-texture which makes it a bit easier to define one key from another, and the tactile feedback, while not perfect, is fine. The spacebar could use a little more tactility though as it’s probably the hardest key to press when you’re trying to type swiftly and accurately. There are two things that bother us about the keyboard and that’s the directional pad stage right, and the fact that two keys haven’t quite made it through metamorphosis. Can someone please point out another phone in the entire universe that shipped with two blank keys? Is this a joke? It’s not the end of the world but uh, how about a home key and a back key? How about a bigger spacebar? There ars a million things that could have been done to improve the keyboard layout even by two keys and it’s pretty hilarious that two keys are blank.

Backlighting on the keyboard is a nice white/teal-ish tint, definitely bright enough, and comes through just the letters and symbols.

The on screen keyboard that Android-lovers are used to for all intents and purposes has not changed. It’s the standard Android affair, there are settings to enable vibration-feedback on key press, an audible sound on key press, and the usual configurational options like auto-capitalization, word suggestions, auto-correct and completion. There’s virtually no improvement from other Google Experience handsets which is a bit depressing as the keyboard in Android has a bit of a ways to go to compete with that other popular touch-based phone. The landscape on screen keyboard is obviously very, very wide and a tad more forgiving with typing since the keys are obviously larger.

OS

Oh, Android 2.0. It feels like such a huge step forward for Android and it is. It really brings the mobile Google OS into 2009 with support for Exchange, a unified inbox (for non-Gmail), more resolution support, 3D graphics, and a whole lot more. Would we classify it as mostly a face lift? Yes. But that’s okay because at the core Android wasn’t too bad and most of the open issues in our mind have been fixed in 2.0. Unfortunately, there’s no multi-touch support in here which is a major downer. There is multi-touch support in the European version of the DROID, the MILESTONE, though. You might have read in our preview that we said that in the Maps application you can two-finger tap to zoom in. Well, you can also one-finger tap to zoom in. The software was sensing one input, not both simultaneously. Our bad.

In the new version of Android it seems that we’ve been given some more fluidity and some nice shortcuts to simplify our lives and not make them more complex. You’ll notice you can tap on a thumbnail of a contact photo anywhere in the OS and have a quick-launch list of immediate correspondence options.

There is still a lot of things Android 2.0 doesn’t fix and it’s pretty annoying. For one, there’s no way to set a real password on the phone. Seriously, drawing lines, shapes and farm animals with your finger to unlock the phone was cute in Android 1.0, but in 2.0? Get it together. It’s also inexcusable that there isn’t a password timeout interval you can adjust so you’re not forced to play tic-tac-toe each time you want to unlock your phone and read your email. Also, there are still no configurable hardware keyboard settings for repeat delay and repeat speed. Openness is great for mostly everyone: consumers, developers, etc. It also, however, brings shoddy code (from some 3rd party developers), fragmentation, and other hurdles. There has been countless times that programs for whatever reason have froze and the standard Google “Wait or Force close” prompt didn’t pop up for sometimes over 15 seconds. We don’t have a program waiting, but if it does, give us a way to force close something without having to wait for you to tell us it’s borked.

Maps is greatly improved, not taking into account Google Navigation. Configurable layers are fantastic as you can overlay what you want (Traffic, Latitude, Wikipedia, Local Search, Satellite, Transit Lines, etc.) when you want to access it instead of having specific modes that only allow you to consume one group of information at a time.

Contacts have now been updated to include sorting and viewing options as you can finally combine multiple contact sources natively (Google, Exchange, Facebook). Visually it looks great and it’s functional, too.

Android’s biggest issue as a whole is the lack of decent applications in our view. Sure, there are 10,000 but do you really need 25 star gazing applications? Nothing is functional and nothing can be compared to the other mobile OS’ apps in terms of quality. It’s not a shot, it’s just fact. You can’t replicate the desktop-class applications on Android yet for one reason or another, and that is a big issue.

I have a major Exchange issue that basically prevents me from relying on the phone as far as my email is concerned. I get a pretty big number of emails a day (around 500) and it’s not that the DROID stutters or can’t handle the volume, it’s that when I configure the phone to fetch the last day, it fetches the last three days. I’ve tried to play with settings, delete and re-add the account — nothing.

I used another Exchange account on the same Exchange server and that works fine. But, even though the account works and messages come through on time, it still went back and synced the last three days of mail instead of one. There are other glitches and bugs with the Exchange implementation on the DROID, but since it is software and something rather important, we have our hopes that it will be resolved in an OTA update. For now though, mail isn’t completely useless, it’s just not something we can count on. Well okay, maybe it’s useless.

Voice:

The built in voice recognition is positively top notch. Since Google’s voice search OS-wide queries your speech with an online synthesis system, this means that first off, your results should be pretty darn good, and second, that it can always improve and “learn” from more and more users. The downside is that if you don’t have a data connection, voice searching and voice control won’t work at all.

The scope of what’s covered by the voice recognition is pretty amazing. We’re talking about getting directions, searching for something like a product online using Google search, locally searching on Google Maps for a store, restaurant or item, and looking up and calling contacts from your address book, all of which are beautifully integrated into the OS.

Music:

Sadly the music side of things in Android 2.0 didn’t get much of an update. Or really any update at all. Look, we get it, you can’t do everything and that’s fine. Google Navigation as you’ll see is fantastic, we’ve got social networks integrated, a better browser — all that good stuff. But it’s not like much had to be done with the music application. Skin it a little bit and we think people would be happy. That’s not to say it doesn’t work, but the layout is a little tired, playlists and navigation is a little cumbersome and we just think music deserves a little bit more attention then it is getting.

Google Navigation

Uh oh, Google just ate everyone’s lunch right? Well, kind of. Google Navigation is amazing at the conceptual level, and even as far as usability goes it’s great. It’s fast, clean, and hey, it’s in beta so don’t flip out. We love satellite view for navigating and we love that it’s truly an internet-connected navigation app that never needs updated. It caches your route so it’s not totally network-dependent, but there isn’t any offline maps or anything like that, so some might take issue with that.

We found Google Navigation to be a joy to use and while it lacks some of the features and functionality traditional mobile navigation applications have, we’re pretty sure that will come in due time. For a first go, it’s very usable and it’s probably something we’d buy the damn car mount just to use. Searching for places and locations along the route is great and so is the robotic-sounding lady that will actually read you the entire street name instead of just giving you basic voice readouts like, “make a left in .8 miles.” You can also add layers to the navigation program and overlay traffic, parking locations, gas stations, banks, restaurants and more for viewing on the map while you travel along your route.

Browser

It’s amazing how a simple double-tap gesture will dramatically change the usability of a touch-screen-based browser. Literally, it’s one thing (besides CPU speed, a great screen obviously, etc.) that makes a big difference. Again, there’s no multi-touch and to be honest, a simple pinch-zoom gesture is really missed. With that said, the browser has improved a lot as far as rendering, being HTML5 compliant, sometimes fast, and very, very stable. Visually, as Android 2.0 in general seems to do, there’s some spice added. Visual bookmarks are fun, the improved URL bar at the top complete with favicon is also a nice touch. In addition to being HTML5 compliant, there’s also support for offline caching for browser-based apps among other improvements. The widescreen resolution and pixel density of the screen really make the browser very friendly to use even without having to zoom.

When you look at speed, the browser is pretty good. Running over the same Wi-Fi network, the DROID performed pretty reasonably compared to our iPhone 3GS. The 3GS we’d say has about 20% on the DROID for straight page loading and rendering, though scrolling speeds are noticeably faster on the DROID. Well, loading is pretty fast. It’s an interesting thing because the browser will sometimes be incredible speedy, and other times just get bogged down on really rudimentary sites. Your mileage may vary, but the speed of the browser can easily go from fast to frustrating and we’re not 100% sure why. One thing that’s annoying about the browser is that there’s no shortcut to jump back to the top of the page when the keyboard is closed. Big deal? Nope, just little things that go a long way that Google continues to miss as far as usability and user experience is concerned. Flash support is not built in to Google Experience phones at this time, but is said to be coming in 2010.

Not having a dedicated search box by the URL bar seems to have its advantages as we love performing searches and seeing related results instantly below. It’s also great that there are little visual icons like a star, clock, and search icon so you can differentiate between your bookmarks, history and live search data.

Phone calling / speaker

It’s a little strange when you ask a group of people about Motorola’s phones and their experiences with them. The strange part is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the middle; it’s a love it or hate it affair when it comes to phone performance among other things. Thankfully the Motorola DROID is an amazing performer in the phone calling arena. It’s got “the network” sure, but the phone itself also has incredibly accurate audio reproduction when using either the earspeaker or loudspeaker on the handset. Now, there’s one weird thing about making calls on the DROID and if you hold it up to your ear and talk, you can sort of hear yourself a little bit more than you can on another phone. The DROID has noise-cancellation built in so we’re thinking it might have something to do with that and the audio routing, and it’s definitely not cause for concern, just something we’ve noticed after using it as a phone for a pretty long time.

The speakerphone isn’t the loudest speakerphone, but it’s delightfully crisp and projects sound very well. When bumpin’ some music, we didn’t notice a single distortion, crack — nothing, even at full volume. Speakerphone voice calls also exhibited from the same pleasurable and accurate audio reproduction. We love making calls on the DROID.

The phone interface has received a little upgrade as far as visuals are concerned, but it’s straight forward and damn fast. Dialing has no slow downs or hiccups, calls connect instantly, and there’s no fuss. We’re also really feeling the upgraded call screen with improved end key, dialpad button, speaker and mute button. These slightly changed icons and new arrangement make accessing the essential calling functions a lot easier and more efficient.

Camera

The camera, a 5 megapixel autofocus dual LED flash, is straight up disappointing. It doesn’t seem to be hardware-related as we’re almost positive it’s a software issue, but man… did Kodak just say peace out to Moto or? This thing couldn’t focus on any sort of scene, portrait, landscape, a close-up — nothing — to save its life. On top of pictures not coming out focused properly, the camera application is ridiculously slow, sometimes pausing up to 7 or 8 seconds after you’ve taken a picture before it will let you snap again. What’s worse is that with geo-tagging enabled, delays get even longer.

With Android 2.0 there’s a brand new camera interface which is much-needed and actually isn’t horrible. It’s just not that intuitive and adjusting settings on the fly is damn near impossible. This is a common theme with Android and that’s because most coders aren’t designers and aren’t GUI experts. It’s pretty simple. For instance, the camera will display the automatic flash indicator in the lower left of the viewfinder, yet you can’t click on it. Wait, what? Yeah exactly. The logical among us would expect to tap the indicator and be able to cycle through the options quickly. But you have to slide your finder left to right to bring out the settings drawer, flick down to the flash setting option, tap it to bring the flash setting to the forefront, tap the desired choice and then slide the options drawer back into hiding– all when Megan Fox slipped out from the club while you were fiddling with your camera settings.

There’s also no review settings, so it’s not like you can take a photo and it will show it on screen for a certain amount of time where you can see that you accidentally sneezed during the photograph and want to delete it quickly. You have to tap the recent photo thumbnail in the upper right of the application and only then are presented with the option to delete, share, or set as (wallpaper, contact icon). Like we said, the optics seem to be fine, the dual-LED flash is perfect, but if the camera doesn’t focus properly, takes a long time to launch/shoot, and doesn’t allow on-the-go adjustments quickly, it’s a pretty useless camera. And in the end, we’d take our 3.2 megapixel Bold 9700 camera with flash and even iPhone 3GS camera without flash any day of the week, month, or year over the DROID’s camera.

Battery:

The Drizzy packs a 1400mAh battery, the same one used in the Motorola CLIQ, and there couldn’t be a starker difference between the two. Our Motorola CLIQ would run out of battery if we looked at it funny. The DROID on the other hand surprisingly has some of the best battery life on a mobile device we’ve used in recent memory. It’s definitely up there with an iPhone 3GS and BlackBerry 9700 — really remarkable for such a fast-powered handset with huge display, and it’s a CDMA phone! Very impressive and like we said before, even though the battery is user-replaceable, we really doubt you’ll ever need to with normal daily use.

Conclusion

So, what’s the wrap up, you’re asking right? We absolutely love the Motorola DROID. It’s a perfect storm between awesome hardware, great software, and a great network. That’s not to say it’s for everyone. It isn’t the most consumer-friendly device off the bat and it’s going to take some time and a whole bunch of improvements before we think Android can totally compete in the consumer space like others can, but Android is getting there slowly and this device in general couldn’t be a better way to show it off. There’s obviously some compromises like a pretty flat QWERTY keyboard and a little heft from the inclusion of metal as a design element, but the pros easily outweigh any cons if you’re on Verizon. And even if you’re not, it’s the most compelling alternative to the iPhone we’ve ever used. What’s important is that this phone exists and can easily fill a big void. It bridges a big gap and will be Verizon’s star device for the rest of the fourth quarter. Probably.

The price of $199 is a great price point and we can see VZ moving truckloads of these. International roaming would have been something to put a lot of people over the edge, but besides that, (and the fact they couldn’t fit in another thing) luckily most of the shortcomings the DROID has are software-based and can be easily rectified in the near future. This isn’t the only Android phone coming to Verizon, but from what we’ve seen it’s the best so far and something you’re really going to want to try out in the store and get a feel for. It’s easily one of the fastest and smoothest phones we’ve ever used, easily the fastest Android device on the market (as of November 6th), and definitely the most impressive. Motorola’s CLIQ, as we confidently told you, is a bottom-feeding device. It’s cheap, pretty poorly made physically and software-wise, and the DROID effectively wipes any bad taste out of our mouths. The Motorola DROID is now Motorola’s most important device in recent memory, and they’ve hit it out of the park with this one. We’ve been told there won’t be a USA 3G DROID (GSM) coming anytime soon (or ever), so if you’re looking to scoop one up, your best bet is on November 6th from Big Red.

Lovers of all things BlackBerry might want to stop on by their local Verizon dealer this Wednesday as that’s the day “a powerful new Storm rolls onto Verizon Wireless’ network” (sorry, we couldn’t resist.) Going for $179.99 on a 2-year contract after a $100 MIR — no word yet on full retail — the Storm2 is everything that Storm 9530 users could hope for in that it is reliable, dependable and has Wi-Fi. We’ve got a production unit from Verizon that we’re currently testing and will publish a review of it shortly, but for now the best we can give you is a press release couple enormous press shots after the jump.

BASKING RIDGE, NJ, and WATERLOO, ONTARIO — Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that the BlackBerry® Storm2™ smartphone will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications stores, online at www.verizonwireless.com, and through business sales channels beginning Oct. 28. The BlackBerry Storm2 with BlackBerry® OS 5.0 evolves the BlackBerry® touchscreen platform with hundreds of hardware and software enhancements – including new SurePress™ “clickable” display technology and built-in Wi-Fi® – delivering the exceptional multimedia experience and communications capabilities customers have come to expect from their BlackBerry smartphones.

Key Features:

• Smooth design and premium finish with sloped edges, chrome accents, glass lens and stainless steel backplate
• Large (3.25”), dazzling high-resolution 480 x 360 display at 184 ppi
• Capacitive touchscreen with integrated functions (Send, End, Menu, Escape) and new SurePress technology that makes clicking the display practically effortless
• 3G and global connectivity support for making phone calls in more than 220 countries and accessing data in more than 185 countries (with more than 80 destinations in 3G)
• Network Connectivity: EV-DO Revision A; UMTS/HSPA (2100 MHz); and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks
• Supports Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
• 256 MB of Flash memory
• 2 GB of onboard media storage and a microSD™/SDHD memory card slot with a 16 GB card included

Software Updates on BlackBerry Storm2:

• Features BlackBerry OS 5.0, which includes typing accuracy and selection improvements, as well as usability and visual enhancements such as inertial scrolling, spin boxes that make it easier to set dates and times, gradient shading on buttons, and more use of animation
• BlackBerry® Browser is improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing as well as support for Gears and BlackBerry Widgets
• Customers running BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0 will gain the ability to set follow-up flags, manage e-mail folders, access remote files (Windows Shares), forward appointments, view calendar attachments, and more

Additional Features and Specifications:

• 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, Image Stabilization (IS), flash and video recording capabilities
• Premium and easy-to-access phone features, background noise suppression technology, loud distortion-free speakerphone and face detection (proximity sensor) that prevents accidental clicks and blanks the screen while the customer is on the phone
• Media player for videos, pictures and music, plus support for BlackBerry Desktop Manager for both PCs and Macs, and BlackBerry® Media Sync, for easily syncing Windows Media® Player music with the smartphone*
• 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and dedicated volume controls
• Bluetooth® (v2.1) capable with support for Secure Simple Pairing, hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits and other Bluetooth peripherals
• Built-in GPS for maps and other location-based applications, as well as photo geotagging; and Verizon Wireless’ VZ NavigatorSM service is pre-loaded
• V CAST Music with Rhapsody
• Access to BlackBerry App World™, featuring a broad and growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones, with categories including games, entertainment, IM and social networking, news, weather, productivity and more
• Support for Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Broadband Connect tethering service
• Removable, rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides up to 5.5 hours of talk time or up to 11.2 days of standby time

Pricing and Availability:

• The BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone is available beginning Oct. 28 for $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement on a voice plan with an Email and Web feature or an Email and Web for BlackBerry plan. Customers will receive the mail-in rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. Data plans for the BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone begin at $29.99 when added to any Nationwide voice plan.
• New Operating System for Existing BlackBerry Storm Customers
• Existing BlackBerry Storm customers will be able to update their handsets to the new BlackBerry OS 5.0 software via Web software load (www.blackberry.com/update), BlackBerry Desktop Manager, or from Verizon Wireless’ download site (www.verizonwireless.com/storm). The software is available today.
• For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com. Business customers can contact their Business Sales Representatives at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ.

* Certain music files may not be supported, including files that contain digital rights management technologies.

Read

If you’re a Droid-chaser, you’ve no doubt been hooked to BGR for the past few weeks (more than normal, maybe?). We have our very own Motorola Droid handset, and although the software isn’t final, it’s solid enough where we feel comfortable giving you a nice preview of the unit. Remember, again, this isn’t a final unit and things can and will change for the better. Read on for our Motorola Droid Preview!

P.S. As we have been doing, we’ll follow up on this preview with a review based on a retail unit at release.

P.P.S. I just want to add that this is a Google Experience phone, and my line about Verizon and GPS was a joke. Verizon hasn’t and won’t touch or control any functionality on the Droid. GPS is 100% open, there’s Wi-Fi, Android Market, etc.

Hardware / Build quality:

When the Motorola Droid is released in the coming couple weeks, it will be the most advanced Android device on the market as far as specifications go. Software too, as it’s the only one said to be running Android 2.0 until months from now, but that’s for another section. There’s a 550MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor, separate PowerVR GPU, 256MB of RAM, CDMA Rev A., Wi-Fi, GPS, a digital magnetometer, accelerometer, proximity sensors, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash, notification LED, four touch-sensitive navigation buttons, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port — jesus. In the last year or two, spec sheets really haven’t meant all that much to people. Rational people, that is. What means a lot more is the OS your phone is running since that’s what going to enable you to take bad ass pictures and immediately share them with a close group of friends, or edit work documents on your phone while conducting an online presentation, and so on. But what’s actually pretty funny is, Android devices have been a little underpowered, so the spec sheets do matter, and the Motorola Droid absolutely topples every single Android device ever released as far as the hardware specifications are concerned.

We love the build quality of this phone. It’s mostly metal, and while it’s heavy, it gives you a reassuring quality feel that you just don’t find much nowadays as handsets get thinner, lighter, smaller, and cheaper. It’s practically the opposite of the Motorola CLIQ as far as the physical attributes of the device goes. Really solid and it seems to be manufactured very well. The slider is not spring-assisted, but when you push the metal bezel around the gorgeous display upwards, you get a satisfying click. It does the same when you slide it closed as well.

Screen:

It’s the largest capacitive screen we’ve ever seen and it’s positively amazing. It’s crisp, sharp, vibrant, bright, and really, really responsive. It’s almost iPhone-level in terms of the capacitive touch. We’re not sure if the screen is glass or plastic (we’ve heard glass but it’s incredibly hard to tell), but it doesn’t seem like it would scratch easily regardless of the material. The 3.7 inch display powers a 854×480 resolution image and shows off Android’s true colors. You see what we did there?

What’s interesting is this whole touch-button phase. On the HTC Desire/Predator/Your face, it also features touch-sensitive buttons just like the Droid does. The great part about the Droid’s implementation is that there’s haptic feedback when you press a button and to be perfectly honest, we don’t mind them at all. Would we prefer physical keys? Yeah, sure, but these work just fine and we haven’t come across any problematic occurrences.

Keyboard:

Everyone is bitching over the keyboard. Well, it’s probably better than you’d think, but it’s not perfect. As has been discussed ad nauseum, the unit we have has two blank keys. They don’t press in at all, so it’s not just like there isn’t anything written on them, they are just flat. We had initially been told this was because the keyboard design wasn’t finalized, and if you’ve been Droid-chasing for a while you’ll have noticed many different keyboard revisions. Love it or hate it, this keyboard design is actually final and will be on the device you buy from your favorite Verizon Wireless store. As far as the actual ‘board goes, there isn’t as much feedback as we’d have liked from the keys, but since the phone is so darn thin, there had to be compromises somewhere. People have asked why Motorola didn’t just make the phone into a keyboard-less version, and our answer would have to be: they are. We like the keyboard on the Droid and we’re really anal about keyboards. The directional pad on the right is a little weird at first but it doesn’t hamper your typing too much, but there isn’t enough tactile feedback to make it perfect. Something that’s a little annoying is the proximity of one key to another key, but all in all we’ve been able to bang out emails, texts, and other forms of text entry very efficiently on the hardware keyboard very quickly after using the device. It’s not the best, but it certainly isn’t bad, and it’s definitely better than the T-Mobile G1’s keyboard.

And oh… a ton of people are asking, and we’re not sure why you wouldn’t assume it already, but you can indeed use the on-screen keyboard in portrait as well as landscape mode.

Phone calling / speaker / call quality:

The Droid sounds great as a phone. Calls with the handset over Verizon’s network sounded clear and the phone application itself performed really well. It’s speedy and there weren’t any hiccups unlike some other Android devices we’ve fooled around with. The dialpad is pretty standard and if you’ve used an Android device, you should be right at home as this is a straight Google affair after all. Google Voice obviously works flawlessly (we’re not sure why it wouldn’t, unless you’re talking about the animal sacrifices Verizon makes to disable GPS on the phone…) and the phone application is quick! That’s probably what we love most about it… number dialed. Call connected. Have a nice day.

OS:

Ah, Android 2.0. We’ve detailed it quite a bit, but we can definitely explore it a little more for you… I personally never liked Android 1.0. Well, that’s not true completely. I liked it, but I just didn’t see it being the OS we expected. It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t fluid, it offered very basic functionality — not a good way to start. What has happened between Android 1.0 and 2.0 is that a lot of missing functionality has been added, the UI has been made a little bit more streamlined in some places, and it generally brings the OS up to speed with other mobile platforms. Out of the box Exchange compatibility is our absolutely favorite new feature, but we’re sure people will appreciate the new unified email Inbox, voice commands / search, a new Google Maps, better multimedia support, a new browser, and the list goes on and on. Once you have a chance to use Android 2.0 on any device, whether it’s HTC or Motorola or Samsung, we think you’re going to love it.

Battery:

This might come as a shock to many, but the Motorola Droid has the best battery life out of any Android device we’ve ever tested. It completely smokes the Motorola CLIQ — obviously it’s not constantly pushing as much data, but it’s not even a fair comparison. With push Exchange configured, Facebook, and a linked push Google account (Gmail, contacts, etc.) we had no problem lasting through a whole day of usage. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were disabled, but it’s still a pretty amazing performer as far as the battery is concerned. Yes, it has a user-replaceable battery, but it’s probably good enough to be sealed up to be honest. Motorola recently made a boo boo and let the Droid appear on their website, and official battery times are: 6.5hrs of continuous usage (phone + web + email + anything else, continually) or around 270 hours of standby time.

Accessories:

There’s a really cool accessory that we’re told will be available at launch and it’s a charging dock/multimedia station. It turns your phone into an alarm clock/weather display/music player by using a magnet to control and launch the corresponding application. We discovered that by putting the phone in our BlackBerry 9700 holster in a certain position, Car Home would launch.

We then moved the magnet and the multimedia mode launched, so we’re guessing there’s going to be some sort of car cradle/dock/thing that will be available as well in addition to the above station.

Conclusion:

You know how we roll at BGR, we don’t hold anything back — if it’s hot, it’s hot. If it’s not, it’s not, and we’re not afraid to call it like it is. The Motorola CLIQ was a pretty big disappointment for me personally, but oh man does the Droid make up for it. Sure, there’s a little hype sprinkled in because this is the first Android 2.0 device I’ve had the pleasure of using, but once you move past the initial “wow” factor, the Droid really delivers. Whether it’s Verizon’s ad campaign or Motorola’s that pits the Droid against the iPhone it doesn’t matter. The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good. Did you notice how Verizon still hasn’t announced the BlackBerry Storm2?

We really enjoyed using the Motorola Droid and think you’re going to love it. It’s not as straight forward as an iPhone and a little more involved than a BlackBerry, but if you’re up for the challenge, so is the Droid.

There are a couple more comparison shots below!

Had enough Android goodness yet? Good, neither have we. While we don’t have many new details on this one we do have an image — and isn’t an image worth 1,000 words after all? This HTC, Verizon branded, touch-screen Android handset has been brought to light (in a very low light setting) by a new connect. All they could provide (other than the pic) was that it was extremely fast, similar in size to Sprint’s Hero, and was sporting the luscious Sense UI.

Thanks, nmc1way!

If you thought you were in Android heaven, think again. We’ve just been given the go-ahead from one of our Motorola connects, and what you’re looking at is the Motorola Calgary (that’s a codename you might remember) slated to hit Verizon. Let’s focus on what appears to be a pretty popular theme with Motorola’s recent comeback efforts: a decent low-to-mid range handset with BLUR, and a high-end super smartphone, both Android of course. This would give Verizon customers (mostly those fickle teenyboppers) a real smartphone completely positioned for their liking, instead of the featurephones which shall remain nameless that are currently available on Big Red. In terms of hardware, there’s three touch-sensitive Android keys on the display, an optical joystick which we’ve been told performs really well, a workable QWERTY keyboard, and it sounds decent as a phone. The Motorola Calgary also features a 3 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, GPS, digital magnetometer, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot, and spring-assisted slider.

Our connect has been testing it over the past month and said the OS builds running on it are incredibly smooth as well as responsive. It’s certainly no Droid, but hey, it doesn’t have to be. No hard release date but we might be looking at a Q4 release… Hit the jump for some more pics!

Thanks, Big Ed!

We absolutely nailed this puppy to the wall over and over and over again, so it’s only fitting we’d be doing the first actual unveiling, right? We’re not going to get too in-depth though, that will come at a later time. Here are some brief thoughts before the photos:

• It’s running Android 2.0. Duh.
• It’s thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we’ve ever seen.
• It is the fastest Android device we’ve ever used. (It’s running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
• The feel of the device is very reminiscent of the OQO 02 model computer. Just smaller. It’s metal with a non-spring-assisted slide, very sturdy, and half soft-touch plastic.
• Awesome capacitive display. Plus it’s huge. Easily the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.
• The QWERTY keyboard is actually pretty usable and has a soft-touch rubberized finish. We’ve been told the keyboard design isn’t final on this unit, thus the two no-shows.
• Have we mentioned this phone flies? It’s the Android device to beat, and easily the most impressive. From what we’ve been told, Google had a direct hand in the Motorola Droid. Something to the point of almost dictating every move Motorola made when designing and making the phone. Interesting, huh?
• There’s a desktop cradle/charger that will ship with the Motorola Droid that we’ve been playing around with. It turns your Droid into a “multimedia station” and displays local weather, the time, etc.
• No one wants to listen, but it makes the CLIQ looks like a child’s toy (partly because it is, and partly because the Droid, even in its non-final form, is the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing).

Ok, enough of that — enjoy the photos! We’ll put together a nice little review soon.

Click on over to our Motorola Droid hands on gallery!

Oh the soap opera between the Palm Pre and Verizon Wireless — it’s denied, it’s confirmed, it’s tweeted. VZWOffers has reiterated announced that Verizon will indeed have the Pre “early” next year. America’s largest carrier will seemingly have the BlackBerry Storm 2, Motorola Droid, Tour, and Pre in their lineup at the same time — Big Red is starting to show some love for the hardware!

Thanks, Matt!

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Okay, this one might be a bit of a difficult thing for some people to accept considering it involves something that few people know about, but we’re going to throw caution to the wind and run wild with it. At pretty much every single Verizon retail outlet they have these little gizmos known as “Cellebrites”. These Cellebrites are used by Verizon employees to transfer customers data from phone to phone. And gee whiz, would you guess what two devices have popped up in the latest update for the Cellebrite? If you guessed the Motorola A855 Sholes/Shules/Droid/Tao and the Calgary A555, you’d be bang on. Mmm hmm. And of course you know what this means, right? Yes indeed, we might soon be treated to some official details of the already accidentally/on-purpose leaked devices. Hit the jump or some more pics of the now celebrated Cellebrite.

Your mileage may vary, but it appears that Sprint’s telesales has begun offering up the HTC Hero a few days ahead of schedule. We called telesales ourselves to check out the matter and were told that we could order up some Android goodness tonight for $279.99 on a 2-year before a $100 MIR. We’ve already given you our thoughts on the device and if you can deal with a little bit of lag here and there, it’s off to the races starting right now.

Thanks, JayTV and everyone else who hit us up!

Need more proof that Verizon is on the cusp of releasing the BlackBerry Storm 9550? If so, you might want to check out this BES 5.0 flyer that one of our BlackBerry connects just sent us. Aimed towards corporate folks, the flyer lists what a glorious and indispensable business tool the still-unannounced BlackBerry 9550 is when running on BES 5.0. You know, good stuff like follow-up flags, advanced folder management, calendar appointment forwarding, wireless contact sync, document editing with DocumentsToGo and remote file sharing with the Files app. Yes friends, this is hotness personified. Hit the jump for a larger pic!

Thanks, PatBeats!

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It looks like Samsung is all aboard the Android bandwagon now with another slick device, this time coming to Sprint. After announcing the Behold II for T-Mobile, Samsung is making the Moment official. Like most Samsung devices as of late, this one looks a tad bland but some of the features certainly make up for it: 3.2″ AMOLED screen, slide out QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 800MHz processor, which is huge! If anything, that processor is the biggest thing this device has going for it. Now if only Samsung will change things up in its design department, it could have some serious winners. Still, at $179.99 with a two-year contract, you could do worse. Also lastly, Samsung’s OS-agnostic TouchWiz UI isn’t on here. That’s going to make this most like the fastest Android handset on the planet.

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While Sprint’s HTC Hero is housed in a different and arguably less sexy shell than the standard HTC version, the internals are the same. That’s a 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a whole lot more running on Sprint’s CDMA voice and data network. We’ve put together a bunch of things we loved as well as things we disliked about the Sprint version of the HTC Hero after the break along with some photos.

Why, why, why is our beloved Teflon coating gone? Sprint thought the Hero in its pure form was most likely a bit too edgy (that pun was definitely intended) and opted for a more simple and rounded casing. It’s not all bad, though. The physical buttons we really had issue with are now very workable and the trackball has been replaced with a larger one making scrolling a bit more easy. The screen and screen size are exactly the same and we’re told that the Sprint units run the updated HTC ROM that fixes a lot of the Hero’s initial slowdowns.

Unfortunately, the Sprint HTC Hero is still laggy and a bit too slow to use as a main device by our standards. It’s just not fast enough. Not when you have the Palm Pre or iPhone 3GS to compare it to. We can’t tell you how many times our attempts to simply unlock the phone have ended in it being swift-kicked across the room. It freezes, the browser is clunky at best (that Adobe Flash integration doesn’t seem to be helping), and it’s really frustrating to use at times. Exchange support is great, but it doesn’t do much good if it takes 12 seconds to open a single email. Sometimes, it literally takes 12 seconds. There’s countless examples we could give, but our initial review still stands pretty much true: it’s an awesome phone (even in its new shell) that’s hampered by the CPU it is powered by. Is it usable? Absolutely. Is it as fast as it should be? Not a chance. It’s definitely in the upper echelon of greatness and Sprint’s smartphone lineup is pretty fantastic at the current time. Compared to anything other than the Palm Pre on Sprint, though, especially if you’re not a BlackBerry friend, the HTC Hero would be our choice. It’s available on Sprint starting October 11th for $179.99 with a two-year service agreement.

Love your Bell service in Canada? Don’t really want to spring for a brand new BlackBerry Tour? Well, it seems as if Bell is gearing up to launch the BlackBerry 8530 pretty soon. Full retail price is showing up at $499 without a service agreement, but don’t let that scare you off too much — it should be pretty reasonable once a contract is factored in. We also have shots of the BlackBerry 9700 making its way into Bell’s system meaning that it’s likely we’ll see Bell’s HSPA network overlay launch with it in tow. As always, hit the jump for some bigger and better shots.

We just got word that Palm’s second webOS device, the Pixi, is set to launch on October 20th. This includes Sprint corporate stores as well as Best Buy locations presumably.

This intel is from new source but it sounds right. The question is, with the original Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS already out and the Motorola CLIQ, BlackBerry Storm 2 and Bold 9700 coming soon, does anyone care?

We just received word from a tipster that the much-awaited Motorola Sholes or Motorola Tao will actually be called the Motorola Droid on Verizon Wireless. The above information is not confirmed at this time, but we have independently confirmed that regardless of whatever name Verizon (or Moto) chooses to run with, their Motorola Android handset will not run MOTOBLUR. It will be a straight with Google device and will be the first Google Experience handset to offer built-in Adobe Flash support natively.

We have heard that the announcement will be made not next week but the week after.

UPDATE: We’ve been given specifications for the handset:

• 3.7″ screen
• 854×480 WVGA capacitive screen
• 5 megapixel camera
• ARM Cortex 500MHz CPU
• Facial recognition using the built-in camera (apparently you take a photo of someone and Google will pull in search results based on the image)
• Custom Motorola Interface/UI, no MOTOBLUR, no Verizon UI
• Available in black and titanium colors

We’ve also been told there will be a keyboard-less version that’s planned for 2010.

While heralding the launch of the HTC Imagio, Big Red snuck in a few extra goodies and made the rugged, PTT-capable Motorola Barrage, the entry level Nokia 2705 Shade, the QWERTY-packing Verizon Wireless Razzle and a 3G-enabled Gateway netbook official. All rumors and innuendos about these myriad of devices have been confirmed with launch dates and pricing as follows:

• Motorola Barrage: Available on October 1st for $129.99 after a 2-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate. Non-camera version available October 21st
• Nokia 2705 Shade: Available on October 6th for $29.99 with a 2-year contract
• Verizon Wireless Razzle: Available on October 6th for $69.99 with a 2-year contract
• Gateway LT2016u: Available on October 4th for $149.99 after a 2-year contract and a $100 mail-in rebate

With a feature phone for every family member, a smartphone and a netbook to boot, there is a proverbial cornucopia of new wireless devices on the way for Verizon Wireless customers. Now if Big Red could just take the wraps off that Motorola Tao so we can stop squinting at those blurrycam photos. Hit the jump for a few more press shots.

Although not a soul alive is shocked by the news, today Verizon Wireless announced it will be releasing the HTC Imagio — its first Windows Mobile 6.5 device — online starting October 6th. The Imagio, known to most by its codename Whitestone, will feature the following key specs: 3.6″ WVGA touchscreen display (resistive, of course), 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, Wi-Fi, EV-DO Rev. A, quad-band EDGE and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA for international roaming. Being a WinMo device from HTC, TouchFLO 3D is naturally included while Verizon will be chipping in MediaFLO support for those who are willing to part with an extra $15 per month. So what will the Imagio cost come its big day? $199.99 on a 2-year deal after a $100 MIR which isn’t all that shabby, all things considered.

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While all the world is heralding the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 on October 6th, Verizon Wireless will be launching two new feature phones that will almost certainly go unnoticed. We have already seen renders of the Razzle and now we have the launch date and pricing. The Razzle will see an online launch on October 6th with other channels to follow once remaining Blitz inventory has been sold off. Pricing is decent, coming in at $69.99 with a 2-year agreement. Also launching on the 6th, the Nokia Shade is an entry level flip phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, 1xRTT connectivity, 2.5mm headphone jack and changeable faceplates. The Shade will launch for $29.99 with a 2-year agreement. Hit the jump for a few more slides.

As is well known, Sprint and Clearwire are slowly pushing forward on their ever expanding 4G network. Mirroring a report from back in June of this year, Sprint is once again said to be working on a WiMAX-enabled smartphone that will support both 4G and 3G connectivity. Just as current CDMA mobile phones switch switch between 1xRTT and EV-DO, the new handset will manage WiMAX and EV-DO signals in a similar manner. The big question is not whether or not Sprint will make such a smartphone, but which OS will this new handset run? Analysts suggest that Android will the platform of choice with Samsung as the manufacturer supplying the necessary hardware. This rumored 4G/3G smartphone will reportedly launch when Clearwire reaches the 100 million subscriber mark in the US, a goal expected to be achieved towards the end of 2010.

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Some of you might be privy to a little bit of confidential BGR info, but for those of you who are not: I went to Chicago recently. In a car. Besides me harboring a hate for the entire of state of Pennsylvania, (because it’s ridiculously long to drive through) the trip was quite successful. One of the main reasons why I didn’t mind being in a car seven times longer than being in a plane was because I was blessed by two MiFi units; a Verizon Wireless unit and a Sprint unit. Plus, what better way to really test out two mostly identical devices on two completely different networks when you’re covering around 1700 miles round trip. I didn’t do a really vigorous string of tests or anything near our much-loved BGR Carrier Wars series. Instead I used one unit exclusively on the way to Chicago from New York City and the other unit on the way back. Here’s what I found…

The first MiFi I used was the Verizon Wireless unit. We all know how good Verizon’s reputation in the data department is and I had high hopes for this little bad boy. Before we get into how it fared, let’s look at the physical unit itself. It’s definitely smaller than you’d imagine if you have never seen or held one before, and Verizon opted to go with a glossy black top plastic piece with a soft touch rubberized finish on the underside. While this obviously goes well with Verizon’s black, red, and white color scheme, the review unit was scratch city already when I received it. Will this affect the device’s performance? Absolutely not, but I’m not terribly sure high gloss black plastic was the best of ideas as far as exteriors go. On the underside of the Verizon unit is a nice little sticker that will give you the pre-set passcode for the wireless network it transmits.

This is helpful so you can get going immediately when you purchase the unit instead of fumbling for the user manual or frantically calling that bastard salesperson that sold you the device. What’s really fantastic about the MiFi in general is that you get access to a router configuration page just as you would on your Linksys, Belkin, or whatever brand router you use at home or at the office. On that page you can customize just about anything including presents for different network modes (temporary hotspot, secure, open, etc.), port forwarding, MAC filtering, power and standby settings and a bunch more. You’ll see that Verizon and Sprint have different network configuration pages and we’ll go over both of them a little further down.

Here’s Verizon’s wireless configuration page and you’ll notice it looks just like their horribly-designed and crafted VZAccess Manager apps. But, Verizon isn’t about sparkle, they’re about substance and their configuration page (and arguably VZAccess Manager software) is extremely simple and quick to navigate and setup. After renaming the wireless network to something a little more clean (Verizon MiFi — original, I know) and setting a new Wi-Fi passkey, I was ready to go.

Immediately 5 bars of glorious mobile Wi-Fi appeared on my MacBook Pro. I entered the passkey and was off and running. After knocking through some work over IM, in the web browser, and in Outlook, I decided I’d start to speed test the Verizon MiFi. The highest speed I saw was around 950kbps and the lowest was around 780kbps (in Rev. A coverage areas). I think I completed one speed test over 1X and that was about 120kbps.

You can see a shot of one speed test I did that yielded 802kbps down and 557kbps up. Not bad at all if you need to have data access while on the move and definitely in line with Verizon’s other data products like USB sticks or ExpressCards.

Both MiFi units support high level security including WPA2-PSK and WEP Wi-Fi networks.

As far as Sprint’s unit goes, the finish is quite different on the top part of the casing. There’s a brushed aluminum texture which is glossed over with a clear coat that really doesn’t show scratches. Major bonus. Besides just looking lighter and being less scratch-prone, the Sprint MiFi externally is basically the same exact hardware as the Verizon device. Sprint doesn’t have a sticker on the underside of the unit with a default passkey for the Wi-Fi network, but since this review unit came with an open Wi-Fi network it wasn’t an issue I had to deal with. Bets are that it would be on the box or in some sort of included paperwork…

After selecting and configuring the Wi-Fi network to my liking (again, Sprint MiFi2200 — totally brilliant, right?) I was a happy camper on I-80 East. For some reason, and this might not actually be the case with every unit, I noticed the range of Wi-Fi signal to be a little worse on the Sprint MiFi than on the Verizon MiFi. I had read about this somewhere and it mentioned that since the Sprint unit was part metal compared to all plastic the Wi-Fi range suffered a bit. That’s obviously not true as the Sprint unit is not any part metal, so I’m not sure what exactly the reason for that was or if maybe the unit I was testing was a little broken in. Just think about how many Wi-Fi clients had been using that MiFi before me. Yikes.

While both units are pretty much identical when you get down to the nitty gritty, Sprint’s MiFi offers the ability to use the built-in GPS. This is really cool if you don’t have a GPS-enabled mobile phone and could possibly be a life-saver in some situations. You have the option of searching directly from the router configuration page using your GPS location, and displaying the coordinates of where you are, among other things. Very nice and very cool. As far as the look and feel of the configuration page goes, Sprint’s was really clean and had a bit more polish, shall we say, over the Verizon page. There was also an option in the power preferences to have the MiFi enter standby mode when plugged into a charger which the Verizon page didn’t have.

Not too surprisingly, speeds were a bit better on Sprint’s unit. We’d say an average of around a 150kbps difference even though there’s about a 300kbps difference from the speed tests we took photos of. The trade off is that Sprint’s coverage was not as good as Verizon’s and many times the Verizon unit would be in a Rev. A coverage area when the Sprint unit would only be chugging on 1X. Battery life was the same on both units at around 4 and a half hours of straight usage which actually ended up lasting throughout maybe half the day when going about the city on and off.

Both MiFi devices can support up to 5 wireless clients each simultaneously which is an incredible feat for a device so small and compact. You can also connect your MiFi via a microUSB cable to your computer and tether it while also charging the unit. The downside here, though, is that once the unit is connected to a computer over USB, routing data over Wi-Fi is not possible. Obviously if the unit is plugged into a microUSB wall charger you’re free to charge and surf without a hitch. Both units got mildly warm with strenuous usage, nothing alarming or even concerning. While I’m not daring enough to keep a MiFi in my pocket, when left in my backpack it turned out to be an awesome traveling companion, gladly picking up the slack from AT&T’s horrendous Chicago coverage.

As you can see from the review, both units are pretty much identical at the end of the day. Little minor exterior differences and even smaller hardware differences (I actually believe they are identical, just Verizon doesn’t enable the GPS function that Sprint does), it’s pretty tough to immediately call one a winner. I wish I could be more clear and really recommend one over the other — Sprint’s was a little bit faster in places, Verizon’s had better coverage and was a tad more reliable — but it’s really personal preference. I’ve been a Bell Atlantic customer and now a Verizon customer for a very long time and like their coverage. After I ship back the Verizon unit, I’ll be purchasing a Verizon MiFi for my personal use, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t be happy with a Sprint one.

Both devices retail for $99 with a 2-year agreement with qualifying monthly data plan.

September is the month of the feature phone at Verizon Wireless thanks to launches of the Samsung Rogue, Samsung Intensity, Nokia Twist and soon the Motorola Entice. Our ninja just hit us with all the Entice info fit to print and those looking for a cheap phone with fair specs definitely won’t be disappointed. Those looking for anything else, on the other hand, definitely will be disappointed. The Entice is an entry level clam shell that will replace the Motorola W755 in Verizon’s lineup. Features include a 2.2-inch color display with a resolution of 176×220 pixels, 1X/EV-DO connectivity, 2 megapixel camera/camcorder, built-in music player, microSD expansion (up to 8GB), one touch access to Bluetooth, music and speaker phone, threaded messaging, 2.5 mm headset jack and support for all of the Verizon-specific services like V Cast, Chaperone, VZ navigator. The phone will be available online starting September 22nd and will appear in other channels when the current stock of W755’s has been depleted. In terms of pricing, you’re looking at $39.99 after a $50 mail in rebate and a 2-year contract, $109.99 after a $50 mail in rebate and a 1-year contract or $219.99 for full retail.  Hit the jump for the full slide, some closeups of the handset and the detailed specs.

Just like we told you late last month, the Samsung Rogue u960 and the Intensity u450 are now available from Verizon Wireless. The Rogue features a 3.1-inch 800×480 AMOLED touchscreen display, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3 megapixel camera with flash and camcorder, EV-DO Rev. A connectivity, microSDHC support, 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth, GPS and Sammy’s TouchWiz interface with new social networking widgets. The Intensity is Samsung’s new entry level offering with a 2.1-inch 176×220 color display, side slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 1xRTT connectivity, 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, microSDHC support and a 2.5mm headset jack. The Rogue will set you a back $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract. The Intensity in “Grey” (yes, according to VZW the color is Grey, like Lady Jane) is $29.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a 2-year contract while the Flamingo Red version is free after a $79.99 instant online discount.

Read (Samsung Rogue)
Read (Samsung Intensity in “Grey”)
Read (Samsung Intensity in Flamingo Red)

As if an Android handset and a couple of Blackberry handsets weren’t enough, Verizon Wireless customers may have yet another handset coming quickly down the pike. A trusted ninja let us know that VZW’s Touch Pro2 is slated to launch on September 11th for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and the obligatory 2-year contract. If this is in fact the case, and we have no reason to doubt it, it will be a massive slap in the face to both Sprint and T-Mobile as each of their Pro2s bear a $350 price tag. Wow. Go and revel this long Labor Day weekend, Verizon fans — and when the week is out, don’t forget to hit Big Red for a brand spanking new TP2.

Thanks, goldciv!

We just got a heads up that the above image you see just showed up in Best Buy’s internal systems… and you know what that means? Some solid HTC Hero pre-order action happening for Sprint come September 13th. This isn’t confirmed by any means as Best Buy shots aren’t always spot on, but they provide an incredibly good general look at possible releases dates and information. Also, for your reference, the September 13th date looks to be the start of the pre-sale for the HTC Hero on Sprint at Best Buy, not the actual handset release date.

Thanks, to our Best Buy ninja!

We just got hit with a nice outline of some of Verizon Wireless’ upcoming handset release dates, and boy do they look appetizing. First up is the Motorola Sholes, a phone most of us assumed wouldn’t be launching until very late in the year. According to the information we obtained, it looks as if we could see that handset hit Verizon as early as October. See that Nokia Twist 7705? Any bets what that will be? Our sheet shows it landing on VZW in late September with an estimated $230 subsidized price.

Next up is the LG Chocolate Touch which should hit in October for around $230 as well as an HTC Razzle/Blitz 2 (maybe marketing confusion or two different devices? If you know, drop a comment). The rumored Samsung Intensity gets a September launch date at $130, but what you’ve really been waiting for is the BlackBerry stuff, right?

Our roadmap pegs the BlackBerry Storm 2 for launch in October with an undisclosed price (we’d guess $199), and while that’s great and all, the BlackBerry Curve 2 is more intruiging. Since the BlackBerry CDMA lineup doesn’t see as many devices as their GSM counterpart, we assume that’s why the BlackBerry Curve 8530 will launch as the BlackBerry Curve 2 marketing name. Cost isn’t disclosed for that one as well, but with a late November launch window and some smart moves by Verizon, we could probably assume that’s going to run $49.99 – $99.99. Full photos after the jump, guys!

It looks like all you Samsung Glyde fans who have struggled through the handset’s touchscreen issues will soon have another Sammy to complain about drool over. Looking quite sharp with its black and silver exterior, the Samsung Rogue sports a touchscreen display, qwerty keyboard, Bluetooth, GPS, a 3 megapixel camera and EV-DO Rev. A support. According one of our trusty ninjas, Rogue shipments are arriving in Verizon stores now for a launch that is imminent. Hit the jump for a few more closeups and keep those fingers crossed in hopes that this Samsung slider is free of the issues that have plagued similar offerings.

Welcome back to Carrier Wars, the ongoing feature where we ask our readers to post their 3G speed test results, we collect the data and dish the outcome, and then a bunch of people whine about said outcome in the comments section. So far we have AT&T clocked in with raw averages of 933kbps down/180kbps up and Verizon Wireless on the books with raw averages of 701kbps down/322kbps up. Next up to bat: Sprint. While Verizon and AT&T bicker about who has the nation’s “fastest” or “most reliable” 3G network, Sprint is apparently flying under the radar by advertising “America’s most dependable 3G network”. Well Sprint fans, it’s time for you to break out those 3G handsets and latch on to Sprint’s uber-dependable network — we want your speed test results.

Please post your test results in the comments section of this post and you get extra points for linking a screenshot. We only care about 3G and we absolutely must know what handset you’re using; again, this is to separate EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. 0. So what are you waiting for Sprinters? Get moving!

Note: Don’t forget guys, we want phone model, average download speed AND average upload speed! If you’re wondering how to perform a speed test on your phone, check the first few comments below for links to various options.