Moto Droid previewed well

Although not due to be unveiled until next week, Motorola's Droid stands to be Verizon's best phone to date, a preview finds. The first look at BGR characterizes it as one of the best Android devices to date, with high build quality, a fast processor with PowerVR graphics, good call quality and a long-lasting battery that can run for an entire day. Android 2.0 is also significantly more polished and brings a much improved browser and e-mail.

The hands-on also goes into more detail about the Droid's unique dock, which cradles the phone on its side and changes the interface of the phone itself. When attached, the smartphone starts into an alarm clock mode and gets new, large icons to switch to music playback, displays the current weather and has oversized controls. Motorola's design is also intelligent enough to automatically invoke the GPS-oriented Car Mode with a special, as yet unidentified dock.

Combined, the Droid's features are enough to cast doubt on the prospects for all of Verizon's existing phones as well as flagship phones at other carriers. It's not expected to significantly damage iPhone sales, but its quality is sufficiently high that it may explain Verizon's rumored decision to downplay the Storm2 and hold up the Droid as its actual iPhone rival.

"The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone," the site says. "And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales."

By Electronista Staff

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iPhone, industry, Verizon, Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry, Motorola, Palm, mobile phones, Apple