the Droid 2

After months of speculation, it's now officially official: the Motorola Droid 2 from Verizon Wireless will launch on August 12 for $199.99 when you sign a new two-year contract. 

 As expected, the Droid 2 will feature the same form factor as the original Motorola Droid, but gets a few upgrades under the hood.

Like the original Motorola Droid, the Droid 2 will feature a 3.7-inch touch screen, but instead of the square black frame found on the original, 

 

the new version features a curvier, silver case. It retains the slide-out QWERTY keyboard found on the first version of the phone, but according to information from Motorola, the keyboard will include "larger keys and better tactility for easier typing."

 

While I've yet to test out the new phone, a better keyboard would be a welcome improvement over the original Droid. I found its keyboard to flat to allow for easy typing.
e Droid 2 will ship with the very latest version of Android, 2.2. This updated operating system includes support for Adobe's Flash Player 10.1, which allows you to view multimedia Web sites as you would on your computer.

Other features include a 1-GHz processor and support for Verizon's 3G Mobile Hotspot service, which allows you to use the Droid 2 to create a wireless hotspot to which as many as five other devices can connect.

the Droid 2 video-2

Verizon Wireless will begin accepting pre-orders for the phone on August 11, and the device itself will be available on August 12.

the Droid 2 video