Motorola has been rumored to be working on a NVIDIA Tegra 2 Android phone and, as with the original Droid, it may be the first phone to ship with the newest Android version, Gingerbread.
Motorola was first to get dibs on Android 2.0 when it launched with the Droid and that tradition may just continue if this rumor turns out to be true. The handset, which we know very little about, may launch before the end of the year, but in all likelihood will be released in early 2011.
What’s more interesting is that there’s a possibility that the handset may not be limited to just Verizon. Possibly debuting at CES this coming January, the handset could launch at multiple carriers, not unlike what Samsung has done with their Galaxy S line. We know how that’s going for Samsung – Pretty damn well.
Supposedly, the hardware has been finalized but Motorola is still working on the software, which makes me a little nervous. Could Motorola be throwing a customized skin on top of the first Gingerbread phone? Moreover, would Google let them?
Since it’s an open source OS, anything is possibly, but I would imagine that Google had some sort of deal with Motorola to ensure that the phone will ship with stock Android so all can see what Gingerbread really offers. In the end, we really have no idea what’s going on with the handset, or the availability of Gingerbread, but let’s hope both are released relatively soon.
If this mystery handset does end up showing its face at CES in January, then maybe a companion device, like a tablet, may rear its head as well. For the moment this is all speculation and as far as Gingerbread goes, if the first handset running the new version of Android is released early next year, then it will have missed the expected announcement which was expected to be sometime this month.
If you haven’t noticed, this article is littered with rumors, so we must suggest to not take any of this as fact. Instead we have to wait longer and hope that whatever Google and Motorola have been working on will be worth the wait.
If Google doesn’t knock Gingerbread out of the park, I may have to reconsider my next phone’s OS. Either way, I may be swayed to any Tegra 2 device at this point.
[Via: Phonedog]