Verizon Droid

Remember the talk in early October about a third Verizon Android smartphone from a small company and certified through the carrier’s Open Development program? The HTC DROID Eris and Motorola DROID pushed that mystery device to the back of our minds, but an FCC filing has seemingly revealed the device as the Saygus VPhone V1, another sliding form-factor with a 3.5-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, 624MHz Marvell PXA310 processor and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera.
Other specs include 512MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM, a microSD slot, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS; there’s also an accelerometer and digital compass. An FM radio is a welcome addition, but we wish Saygus had found room for a proper 3.5mm headphone jack; still, the mini USB port can act as USB Host for peripherals, and there’s a front-facing camera for video calls.

If there was any doubt about this headed to Verizon’s CDMA EVDO Rev.A network, the fact that Saygus’ own site mentions the same “third mystery device” article seems to clinch it. No word on when we might see it arrive, but given the FCC clearance and Verizon’s current full-steam-ahead adoption of Android the “early 2010″ predictions seem reasonably probable.

[source: SlashGear]

It comes as little surprise given we’ve already seen it unboxed and know the pricing, but Verizon Wireless have officially announced that, as of tomorrow, they’ll be offering the DROID Eris by HTC. Basically another version of the HTC Hero, the HTC DROID Eris packs a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera, EVDO Rev.A and the HTC Sense UI.

There’s also a microSD slot – Verizon are popping in an 8GB card as standard – and both GPS and a digital compass. The browser gets Flash Lite for in-page video streaming and there’s all the usual Gmail, Google Maps and other standard Android applications. No Google Maps Navigation, however, as the DROID Eris – unlike the Motorola DROID – doesn’t come with Android 2.0.

As we’ve already heard, it’s the pricing that makes the HTC DROID Eris something of a bargain. Verizon have priced at it at $99.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) and presuming a new, two-year agreement.

[source: Slash Gear]