Verizon's DROID has stormed a planet near you!

The Droid is no longer pending and siting off in the future. The DROID is here and live now!

Verizon stores are running on over drive attempting to keep up with the demand for the new Motorola DROID phone which is given life by the ANDROID 2.0 operating system.

the Droid is capable of fully multitasking and the phone features more power than it's Apple enemy and probably has the exec's at Apple looking for a fox hole to dive into.

So what does the DROID have?

the DROID is 4-1/2 x 2-1/4 inches and weighs just shy of 6 ounces. It features a large 3.7-inch, high res 854 x 480 pixel touchscreen display that is supposedly highly responsive and highly accurate. I sports a 5 megapixel camera which can capture DVD quality video and a full slide out Qwerty keyboard.

The DROID utilizes an Arm Cortex 550mHz A8 processor with 256MB of built-in memory, a 16GB microSD card and can be expanded to 32GB.

It has a replaceable rechargable battery (that beats the I-Phone right there)

So it out performs the I-Phone and ofers more gadgets and whistles than the I-Phone.

Whats the catch??

Wait - it has to be the price right?

Nope.

The DROID costs $199.99 when bought with a new two-year contract. In most instances, however, you'll end up paying $299.99 up-front, then getting $100 back via a mail-in rebate.

If you don't go to the Verizon store for the DROID you can save $100 up front.

If you buy your DROID at Best Buy they will automatically credit the rebate at the time of your purchase, meaning you'll pay only $199.99 for your DROID.

Well if it isn't the initial cost then it has to be the service plan you will be required to carry.
With the I-Phone you have to carry an $80 a month plan.
The DROID requires a Verizon voice plan, minimum of $39.99 for 450 minutes and an unlimited data plan, which runs an additional $29.99. Text messaging is not included and costs $5 extra to add on. All totaled up that still beats the I-Phone Rate charge.

You will not have to pay extra to utilize the DROID's Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync feature.

huh - think Apple is nervouse yet?

Well maybe they will be after the hear that not only is there a better phone with a lower contract fee available but there is a scaled down verzion of the Motorola DROID called the HTC DROID ERIS

The DROID ERIS is the budget minded (who isn't these days) alternative to the Motorola DROID.

The DROID ERIS will cost $100 with a two-year contract, making it the most affordable Android phone currently on the market today.

The DROID ERIS runs HTC's aesthetically appealing Sense user interface overlay  and not on the Android 2.0. The ERIS runs on ANDROID 1.5 but HTC plans on moving it to ANDROID 2.0 soon.

The DROID ERIS is lighter, and more easily pocketed than it's big brother the DROID.

But the drawbacks are that the HTC DROID ERIS has no keyboard and has a smaller display (3.2-inches verses the Droid's 3.7-inch display), and a less-powerful processor. The Droid Eris also ships with Android OS 1.5 so it is missing all of the Android 2.0 goodies found on the Motorola Droid, like Google Navigation and a universal inbox.

the DROID ERIS has a 5-megapixel camera with video recording and uploading capabilities the same as the DROID and the DROID ERIS browser supports Flash Lite.