Video: Motorola Droid gets unboxed, handled, loved

The Motorola Droid is as hot as it gets in the smartphone space right now. It’s the first Android phone for Verizon Wireless and it’s the first (that we’ve played with) to sport the newly announced Android 2.0 OS. It’s not just the slim-and-trim Motorola Droid’s impressive 3.7-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and slide-out QWERTY keyboard that make it a force to be reckoned with – the Android 2.0 OS blesses the Droid with integrated turn-by-turn GPS navigation with voice guidance and street view through the new Google Maps Navigation application.

Unfortunately, the closest you’ll be able to get to a Motorola Droid at this point is Best Buy’s pre-order. Us? Well, we’ve had the pleasure of playing with the Droid for a few days now. The Droid’s massive display is as good as it gets. The vanilla Android UI responds without any lag. Despite the huge display and full keyboard, the Droid is as comfortable in the hand and pocket as the similarly-sized iPhone 3G/3GS. And, with a respectable 5-megapixel camera and Google Maps Navigation adding icing to an already impressive handset, we have to say the Droid is living up to the hype.

So, how does it fare as a competitor to the HTC Hero and a possible candidate to unseat the iPhone as the de facto leader in the smartphone space? Check out our unboxing/hands-on video to see for yourself!

Here’s a quick rundown of the Motorola Droid’s spec sheet:

• 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen at WVGA (854 x 480) resolution
• Full HTML5 browser that supports Flash and will be upgradeable to Flash 10 once it becomes available
• 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash; video capture at 720 x 480 resultion, 24 frames per second
• 16GB microSD card included
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS
• 1400 mAh battery
• Google’s new Google Maps Navigation application (more on that here)
• 60 mm x 115.8 mm x 13.7 mm; 169 grams