If you’ve been holding out for the full-fledged successor to Motorola’s immensely popular Droid Android smartphone, today is your lucky day. Motorola and Verizon officially announced today that the Droid 2 will be available in stores on Thursday, August 12, for $199 with a two-year contract. If you’re eager, you can pre-order the phone starting tomorrow.
There are no big surprises with the Droid 2. For months now, gadget sites have been reporting on its specifications — which include a 1-gigahertz processor (over the original Droid’s 600Mhz CPU), 512MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera (without high-definition video recording), and a 3.7-inch display. At first glance, you’d be hard pressed to find any major differences between the Droid 2 and its predecessor — save for its rounded edges, and redesigned keyboard.
Even though it’s not a major redesign of the Droid, the Droid 2 is powered up in all the right ways beneath the hood and should be competitive with newer Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S. It also remains one of the few Android smartphones with a physical keyboard.
The Droid 2 will come with Android 2.2 (an upgrade that hasn’t hit the original Droid yet), full Flash 10.1 support, mobile hotspot capabilities (for $20-a-month), Swype’s alternative keyboard, and support for media streaming through the DLNA protocol.
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In keeping with the Droid’s Star Wars origins, Verizon also plans to make available online a special R2-D2 edition of the phone in September. It will include exclusive Star Wars content, and will feature the beloved R2-D2 prominently.
