Mark your calendars! NOV 6th is the date when we humans will get to hold DROID by Motorola, the amazing touch screen smartphone. I believe iPhone has really met its match in the Motorola DROID. Here is a look at the stunning images, features and technical specifications of this real iPhone competitor.

Hardware:

The Motorola DROID is the first smart touch phone based on Google Android OS 2.0 and has a full physical QWERTY keyword hidden under the touch screen display. It is based on a 550MHz processor, which is an improvement over most of the other Android handsets. It features a 3.7-inch WVGA touch display with 480 x 854 pixels of resolution which is much higher than iPhone’s touch screen which is only 320×480 resolution.

It will work on Verizon Wireless’s CDMA EVDO Rev A network and has GPS, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and Wi-Fi radios on board; no mention yet of GSM network support. Droid has a horizontal slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, 3.5mm headset jack, microUSB port and 16-Gigabytes MicroSD card pre-installed.

As for the battery, Motorola claims 6.5hrs of continuous usage including phone, web, email, etc or around 270 hours of standby time.

Multi-Media & Camera

The Motorola DROID features a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with the works like 4x digital zoom, dual-LED flash, notification LED, four touch-sensitive navigation buttons, image stabilization and DVD-quality (720 x 480 pixels) video capture at 24 frames per second.

Internet

With a super fast processor and Verizon’s lightning fast 3G network, internet browsing will be as fast as it can be with being viewable on a huge display with double-tap zoom, and over 400,000 pixels, more than twice than the leading competitor which obviously is iPhone. The added bonus is that the browser is a a multi-window HTML browser. You can view Web, E-mail, Google Maps videos and more in a widescreen 3.7” high-resolution screen.

Applications and Multi-tasking

DROID is the first device with Google Maps Navigation App, providing turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps.  It’s powered by Google and connected to the Internet. Use voice shortcuts and simply say “Navigate to [your destination],” and you’ll be on your way. DROID provides the ability to customize with thousands of applications and hundreds of widgets available on Android Market like Facebook, Twitter and games. And view plug-in calendars, contacts and social network status messages with apps from Android Market

Multi-tasking is one of major features that iPhone lacks and the Motorola DROID has. You can toggle back and forth with up to six applications at a time.  With multi-tasking you can keep tabs on all your messages with integrated Gmail and Exchange E-mail pushed directly to you, but don’t let them get in your way.  With the Android notification panel you can go straight to the message or simply ignore it, and get back to the task at hand.

Pricing and Rate Plans:

• DROID by Motorola will be available exclusively at Verizon Wireless Stores and online on Friday, Nov. 6, for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement. This is after a $100 mail-in rebate.
• To get the most from DROID by Motorola smartphone, customers will need to subscribe to a Nationwide voice plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan.  Nationwide voice plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access for 450 minutes and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan is $29.99 for monthly access.

Technical Specifications:

OS and Interface

• ANDROID PLATFORM: Android 2.0
• NAVIGATION TOOL: Directional key with center select
• OPERATING SYSTEM: Android™ 2.0
• BACKLIGHT: Yes
• CUSTOM NAVIGATION: Multiple, customizable home screens (three)
• DEDICATED KEYS: Volume control, Camera, Back, Search, Menu, Power/Lock, Home
• HAPTIC FEEDBACK
• KEYPAD LOCK
• LIGHT-RESPONSIVE DISPLAY
• QWERTY KEYBOARD
• TOUCH SCREEN
• VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
• VOICE COMMANDS

CDMA

• CDMA 1X 800/1900, EVDO rev. A

Camera

• Image stabilization, real-time color effects, scene modes, location tagging
• MEGAPIXELS:5 MP
• DIGITAL ZOOM: 4x
• FLASH: Dual LED
• FOCUS: Automatic
• IMAGE EDITING TOOLS: Cropping, rotating, Geo Tagging

Music & Video

• MUSIC PLAYER: Yes
• VIDEO CAPABLE
• VIDEO CAPTURE
• PLAYABLE FORMATS: AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, WAV, WMA, OGG, eAAC+, AMR WB, AMR NB, AAC+, MIDI
• STREAMING MEDIA: Audio, Video
• VIDEO CAPTURE RATE: DVD quality (720×480 resolution) up to 24 fps capture; up to 30 fps playback

Battery

• BATTERY TYPE: 1400 mAh Li Ion
• STANDBY TIME^: up to 270 hrs.

Messaging

• EMAIL: Corporate (Exchange 2003 and 2007), Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Attachment and browser document viewer (Microsoft Office and pdf)
• MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING (MMS)
• PREDICTIVE TEXT
• TEXT MESSAGING (SMS)
• INSTANT MESSAGING (IM): Google Talk
• IMAGE FILE FORMATS: BMP, PNG, GIF, JPEG
• VOICE MAIL: Standard voice mail, Verizon Visual Voice Mail (capable)

Connectivity

• BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY: Stereo Bluetooth® technology v2.1 + EDR (profiles supported: HFP, HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, PBAP, and OPP for video/still images
• SYNCHRONIZATION: Support for Corporate calendar, email and contacts (Exchange 2003 and 2007), Google contacts, calendar and Gmail, Facebook contacts
• WIFI: 802.11 b,g
• DATA ACCESS: Yes
• CONNECTOR TYPE: Micro USB
• DATA TRANSMISSION RATE: USB 2.0 High Speed

Internet and Games

• WEB BROWSER: Webkit HTML5 with geo location and multiple windows, Flash 10 ready (expected 1st half 2010)

Accessibility and Compatibility

• HEADSET JACK: 3.5 mm
• HEARING AID COMPATIBLE: Rated for M3, T3; TalkBack, KickBack and SoundBack menu readout
• TEXT TELEPHONE (TTY) COMPATIBILITY

Calling

• CALLER ID: On main display, Picture ID, Ringer ID
• SPEAKERPHONE
• ADVANCED SPEECH RECOGNITION
• AUTOMATIC REDIAL
• CALL WAITING
• CONFERENCE CALLING: Group call
• EMERGENCY DIAL
• MUTE CALL
• NOISE REDUCTION: Dual microphone noise reduction
• PHONE BOOK: Unified contact list (Gmail™, Exchange, Facebook™)
• SPEED DIAL: Direct dial shortcut, direct message shortcut
• VIBRACALL
• VOICE DIALING
• WAIT AND PAUSE DIALING

Google Mobile Services

• ANDROID MARKET™
• GMAIL™
• GOOGLE CALENDAR™
• GOOGLE CONTACT SYNC™
• GOOGLE LATITUDE™
• GOOGLE MAPS STREET VIEW
• GOOGLE MAPS™
• GOOGLE MAPS™ NAVIGATION ^BETA
• GOOGLE QUICK SEARCH BOX™
• GOOGLE SEARCH™ BY VOICE
• GOOGLE TALK™
• YOUTUBE™

Included Applications

• ENTERTAINMENT: YouTube™, Amazon MP3 Store™
• LIFESTYLE: Google Search™ by Voice
• MAPS AND GPS: Google Maps™ Navigation (BETA)
• SOCIAL NETWORKING: Facebook™
• Others: Calculator, Calendar, Corporate (Exchange) calendar, Alarm Clock, Flight Mode

Personalization

• RINGTONE FORMATS: AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, OGG
• RINGTONES: Preloaded and downloadable
• WALLPAPERS: Preloaded and downloadable

Physical

• DISPLAY TYPE: TFT
• COLORS: Licorice w/brown sugar accents
• DISPLAY SIZE: 3.7"; WVGA (480 x 854 pixels); 16:9 widescreen
• WEIGHT: 6 oz.; 169 g
• SIZE (H X W X D): 2.4 x 4.6 x .5 in.; 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm
• ANTENNA TYPE: Internal
• FORM FACTOR: Slider

Technology

• ACCELEROMETER: Yes
• NETWORKS: CDMA 1X 800/1900, EVDO rev A
• PROCESSOR SPEED: Arm® Cortex™ A8 processor 550 mHz
• REMOVABLE MEMORY: 16 GB microSD pre-installed; supports up to 32 GB microSD expandable
• SENSORS: Proximity, ambient light and eCompass

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