Verizon to Launch Two Powerful Droids Tomorrow

Verizon has been teasing the Droid X launch for the last week or so and now people are wondering if the company may launch the Droid 2 at the same time. The lads over at Android and Me got their hands on a Droid 2 "a little early" and point to tomorrow as the launch day for the device.

Both are Motorola devices so it would make sense for Verizon to launch the two together. With the Droid X being all touch and the Droid 2 packing a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, they'll appeal to slightly different crowds and so it's less likely they'll cannibalize each other's sales. Still, it's a risky move in that the two will have to share the spotlight; we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if Verizon is really going to try and pull it off.

While we're waiting, though, Android and Me has some details on specs for the Droid 2. AAM reports that though the Droid 1 and 2 look extremely similar (same size, weight and battery), there are some cosmetic differences. The Droid 2 lacks the d-pad present on the original Droid and, as a result, the keyboard on the Droid 2 is slightly raised with bigger keys, which makes for more accurate typing. While the Droid has more of a black and gold theme, Droid 2 is dark blue and silver.

However, the real changes are happening under the hood. The Droid 2 packs a 1GHz TI OMAP3630 CPU (up from 550MHz on the original and more powerful than the rumored 750MHz we heard about last week). It's also got twice the RAM (512 MB) and almost doubled the frames per second of the Droid 1 during benchmarks.

Interestingly enough, Android and Me says that save for the physical keyboard, 4.3-inch display, 8-megapixel camera, 720p video capture, and micro HDMI out, "the Droid X and Droid 2 are essentially the same phone on the inside." So if you prefer a device geared more towards media, you can rest easy that the Droid X will provide something similar to the benchmarks below.

"The Droid 2 scored 1199, which is the highest we have seen for any phone running Android 2.1. A Nexus One with Android 2.1 scores around 500 in this benchmark and that score almost triples to 1489 when Android 2.2 is installed."

Hands up who else can't wait for tomorrow?

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.