Lucky Boy Genius and his connections. He had a chance to spend some intimate time with the upcoming Motorola Droid smartphone. Here’s the recap of his impressions:

• It’s running Android 2.0!
• It’s thin, only slightly thicker than the iPhone 3GS.
• TI OMAP3430 CPU is running the show, hence the Droid is super-fast.
• Reminds of the OQO 02 model, only it’s smaller.
• Huge capacitive touchscreen, great keyboard with soft-touch rubberized finish.
• The device will ship with a desktop cradle/charger which turns Droid into a “multimedia station” to show local weather, time, and so on.
• The MOTO CLIQ looks like a toy compared to this baby.

Needless to say – I want one! And now some photos:

As it prepares to launch the Motorola Droid smartphone, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless released a viral video arguing how it’s better than the iPhone. The upcoming device will be more customizable, more open, have a better camera with flash, full QWERTY keyboard, widget support, and so on. I’m not sure that will persuade the iPhone fanatics but it’s worth trying, nonetheless. A dedicated website is also set for the November launch where interested users can sign-up to be informed when they can actually grab the Droid. Here’s a video and you be the judge whether Verizon can pull this out or not. Enjoy!

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

A new MOTO iDEN phone has been spotted at the FCC. It’s the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) i410, which as you can see from the image above, is quite ugly like most iDEN phones are. Specs wise, Moto’s clamshell comes with a small external screen, push-to-talk functionality, GPS, Bluetooth connectivity support, speakerphone, messaging and basic web access. And that’s about all we know at this stage and it’s not to say we care to know more. Still if we catch a press release and again it’s a slow news day like today, we may write about it. Stay tune, nonetheless.

[Via: PhoneScoop]

The Motorola Droid (codename: Sholes/Tao) has been seen time and time again with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) branding, so it’s clear that it’ll be launching with CDMA internals. But, thanks to a newly discovered FCC filing, we’re learning today that there’s a distinct possibility we’ll be seeing a GSM variant coming down the pipeline in the near future. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be coming to AT&T (NYSE: T). Or, T-Mobile (NYSE: DT).

The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Sholes passed through the FCC in CDMA guise recently, obviously on its way to Verizon. But, today’s FCC filing shows a variant of the Android phone bearing GSM frequency support. But, the GSM Sholes doesn’t seem to support the 3G frequencies that AT&T uses. It doesn’t even support the 3G bands for T-Mobile’s 3G network.

We’re not sure if Motorola is just covering their bases, or if they think it’s acceptable to push a non-3G Sholes onto American shores, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on any upcoming GSM Sholes details.

FCC link [PDF link]

[Via: Androphones]

By now we all realized Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is super serious when it comes to their support for the Android platform. In that sense, we were not surprised to learn that they will be making phones for China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), which plans to introduce 8 MOTO-made Android-powered devices during next year. Of course, we’re talking about the “OPhone version” of Android that is used by the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers.

I’m glad Motorola is steadily finding its way out of the crisis which it faced after the RAZR glory has passed away. On that note, I’m sure adding some “China sales” will help their bottom line and hopefully make their R&D work even better.

[Via: Reuters]

Is Motorola (NYSE: MOT) bringing a Sholes tablet to market in Europe next year? Well, if you believe this latest “leaked” roadmap from DialAPhone, then Motorola is apparently getting ready to release a tablet version of their Sholes Android phone in Q1 2010. The purported tablet seems to sport much the same feature set as the Sholes handset, which is expected to go live later in October – 3.7-inch touchscreen, WiFi and HSUPA. The only difference seems to be that the Motorola Sholes Android phone’s camera has been upgraded from 5-megapixels to 8-megapixels for the Sholes Tablet.

The roadmap also makes references to the Motorola Motus and Zeppelin. But, we’re not sure how reliable any of this “roadmap” really is. Grains of salt all around.

[Via: EngadgetMobile]

The above photo is from The Boy Genius’ Twitter account, which is set to private so I can’t link to the particular tweet in question:

ok, just a special for my twitterers. HELLOMOTODROID http://twitpic.com/li49c

Stay tuned to The Boy Genius Report website, something tells me he is going to post more pictures pretty soon.

For those of you who don’t know what you’re looking at above, that is the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Sholes, the long awaited Verizon (NYSE: VZ) device rumored to be running Android on top of the fastest hardware on the market, the ARM Cortex A8. As you can see from the photo above, it looks like it is running Android 2.0, a version we know absolutely nothing about … yet. The Sholes hit the FCC a little over 2 weeks ago, and blurry spy shots appeared around the same, but this is the first time we have a clear shot of the Sholes, which I guess I should stop calling Sholes since it’s now known as the MOTO DROID.

Nextel Brazil has recently launched the Ferrari special edition of the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) i9 handset. The device which is already offered in the U.S. through Sprint and SouthernLINC sports a 3.1-megapixel camera, GPS, QVGA screen, push-to-talk functionality, Bluetooth, media player, and a microSD memory card. As expected, this special edition is different in the sense that it has a promptly placed Ferrari logo and also comes pre-loaded with some Ferrari-branded content like wallpapers, screensaver and even ringtones that mimic the engine of the most popular Ferrari models.

As for the pricing, Nextel Brazil is selling the Motorola i9 Ferrari for R$1199 (about $688), which is a lot. Then again, you do want the prancing horse symbol on your phone, right?

[Via: Unwired View]

The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid (aka Sholes/Tao) and the Motorola Calgary are gearing up to bring Android to Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless! How do we know? Well, BGR got their hands on photos of a Verizon Wireless Cellebrite data-transfer tool showing telltale signs of supporting the new Android phones from Verizon. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Cellebrite, it’s basically a one-click tool that wireless retail employees use to transfer all your contacts data from one phone to another. And, now that Verizon’s fleet of Cellebrites are compatible with the Motorola A855 Droid and A555 Calgary, all signs point to a short term launch. Possibly on December 1.

For those of you paying attention, the Motorola Droid and Calgary are the two Android smartphones that Verizon recently announced would be launched later this year. The Droid is supposed to pack a3.7-inch touchsreen (capacitive is a good bet), 600Mhz ARM-based Cortex A8 CPU (same as iPhone 3GS), 5-megapixel camera and even a secondary Image Signal Processor clocked at 430Mhz – giving it the punch to compete with high-end Android smartphones like the HTC Hero. And, with native Flash support on Android 2.0 (Eclair) the Motorola Droid might just be the Android phone of choice when it goes live.

[Via: BGR]

Just a quickie I happened to notice here while reading through some tweets. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has just launched a Twitter promo, offering 25% off the Motorola Rival, LG enV3 and Samsung Alias 2.

To take advantage, head on over to Verizon, find the Rival, enV3 or Alias2, and enter the promo code ‘25MSG‘. Happy shopping!

[Via: @VZWOffers]