Verizon’s Droid Phones to Multiply

Verizon Wireless is milking its “Droid” license for all it’s worth, with not just the Motorola Droid phone, but additional models from Motorola and HTC. Today, Verizon and Motorola took the wraps off the first model, simply called the Motorola Droid, to be released on November 6 for $199. Pretty much all this stuff has been rumored for a while now, such as a 3.7-inch touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, a microSD slot with a 16 GB card, Bluetooth, USB 2.0 and a Cortex A8 processor that maxes at 600 MHz. And of course, the phone runs on Android 2.0, which affords faster Web browsing, multiple accounts and better contact management. What’s really new are rumors of two more phones that will use the Droid name, HTC’s Droid Eris and another unnamed Motorola model that’s only code named “Calgary.”

The Droid Eris will reportedly have a 3.2-inch screen, a 5-megapixel camera and GPS, but no hardware keyboard. Unlike the Motorola Droid, the Eris will ditch Android’s standard interface in favor of HTC’s Sense interface that it’s been putting on its newest smartphones. Pricing isn’t know, but the launch date is supposedly November 6. The Calgary, meanwhile, is like a lower-tiered Droid, with a smaller screen and 3-megapixel camera. It will, however, pack Motorola’s BLUR interface for social networking. Verizon wasn’t kidding about its newfound love for Google. [via Christian Science Monitor]