Motorola Droid Official U.S. Release Date: Nov. 6

by Frank Liao | October 29, 2009 at 10:38 am

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The new Motorola Droid (see pic) will be available for sale in the U.S. starting on November 6th. It will be on sale for $199, after a $100 mail-in rebate, with a mandatory 2 year contract with Verizon. The smartphone will have exclusivity over Google's much ballyhooed Android 2.0 OS.

One of the cool exclusive features of Android 2.0 is the Google Maps Navigation App, which is the complete integration of Google maps with a voice operated turn-by-turn GPS device. Surely this is bad news to Garmin and Tomtom, whose GPS devices will not have any of these fancy Google maps features.

The device offers voice-activated search that allows users to speak a query and the Google-powered search engine will deliver Web results or results from the device such as contacts, music, and photos. The voice search also works with the new turn-by-turn directions for Google Maps. It allows users to view geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia entries, and transit lines on the map.

The phone uses a CDMA-based wireless chip that supports the EVDO standard, which is Verizon's 3G weapon of choice.

The early preview versions of the Droid have not included any of the typical Verizon software that gets bundled with all of their phones.

Historically, when Verizon ships a phone, the stuff in the VCast Music Center, VCast Video, VCast Navigation, and VCast Electo Pet Shop – essentially bloatware that masquerades as value added software. Swiping through the Droid menus I found none of that.

Crunchgear thinks that the Droid "has the best start-up sound in the whole world." I recommend checking out their youtube video embedded on this page to hear it for yourself. It sounds like throat singing to me.

Billshrink put together a nice comparison between the price of ownership for iPhone, Palm Pre, and Motorola Droid. The iPhone and Droid tied at $2,839 for an average plan over 24 months, while the Palm Pre came in at $2,309.

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