Want a GSM Motorola DROID? Say ‘hi’ to the Motorola MILESTONE!
By Will Park on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 9:11 PM PST In Android, Devices, Hottest Hardware, Motorola, New Hardware, O2, Verizon
The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid is all the rage right now. It’s chock full of Android 2.0 goodies like Google Maps Navigation and enough smartphone hardware to satisfy even the hardest core of mobile enthusiasts – all wrapped in a slim, yet masculine, package. But, Motorola is going to have to look beyond Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s CDMA network to go truly global. In fact, Motorola’s already got O2 (NYSE: TEF) Germany in its sights. Yup, O2 will soon launch the GSM version of the Motorola Droid/Sholes as the Motorola MILESTONE.
O2 lists the price [PDF link] of the MILESTONE at €404.20 ($595), but that number should get a nice little price-chop after some carrier subsidies. The O2 website shows the Motorola MILESTONE looking every bit the GSM Droid we expected it to be, which is a good sign that German’s won’t have to wait too long before picking up their MILESTONE.
We’ve already seen the GSM Droid pass through the FCC and pop up in Vietnam, so it’s not surprising to see it going official in Europe. The only question is, when will Motorola release a US-spec GSM Droid?
[Via: BGR]
If we can forget about US spec. and go directly to a global 3G spec will be nice. We need a quad band GSM/3G at once. Please….
I think Will is using the term GSM here as an umbrella term to include the various 2.5G and 3G TDMA standards that trace their lineage back to GSM (in contrast to the CDMA standards used by Verizon).
Why are they giving the GSM version a different name? Do Verizon own the Droid brand? Perhaps ‘Milestone’ sounds pretty cool to a German speaker but it sounds utterly crap to an English speaker…right?
Actually George Lucas owned the Droid brand. Verizon had to pay to use it.