We caught a glimpse of the Motorola Droid 3 yesterday, but shortly after the initial leaked pictures surfaced, another pair of shots of the handset arrived. This time around, the pictures show off the Droid 3’s keyboard, which now sports a dedicated number row.
The Droid 3 is shaping up to be quite the monster, and we imagine that it will ship with a qHD display, and likely some dual-core innards as well. Prior to the Atrix 4G and Xoom, Motorola used Texas Instruments for their smartphone CPUs, so it’s possible that we could see the dual-core OMAP 4440 in this bad boy. And what better way to stand out in a soon to be crowded market of Tegra 2 dual-core devices?
Looking back, the Droid 2 wasn’t much of an upgrade from the original. That’s especially evident, now that we’re beginning to see what the D3 may bring to the table. The only thing less than impressive for the Droid 3 is that it will ship with Motoblur, and that’s something that won’t going away anytime soon. Motorola has toned their custom skin down on Droid devices, making it more bearable for power users, but we’d still rather see a Motoblur going the way of the Dodo bird.
The handset looks to be a bit thinner than its predecessor, and now sports a 5-row keyboard, complete with a dedicated row for numbers. Even with the improvements on the Droid 2’s keyboard over the original, Motorola may have finally made a great keyboard for their side-sliding smartphone line. No longer will users have to hold down an extra button to punch in a number, which can slow you down when you’re trying to bang out a quick email or text.
The Motorola Droid 3 looks to be a solid upgrade from the D2, and while we’re not in love with Motoblur, there are home replacement apps for that. With a larger, high-res display, faster guts, and a solid keyboard, the Droid line may soon see the revival we’ve been looking for.
[Via: Droid-Life, HowardForums]