Hasta La Gadget!

If you like Blackberry’s physical form factor and Android’s app marketplace, and you want to spend less than $200, Motorola’s Droid Pro was tailor-made for you. Verizon’s online preorders for the feature-packed smartphone start tomorrow, Nov. 9th; it will ship and be available in stores Nov 18th.

Physically, the Droid Pro has a 3.1″ touchscreen along with a full QWERTY-keyboard, a 5MP still and video camera, 4 GB of memory (2GB internal), Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity and a 1 GHz processor. On the software side, it’s running Android 2.2 (Froyo), Adobe Flash Player 10.1, with QuickOffice’s productivity and both Google’s or Exchange’s push email, calendar and contact support built-in.

Verizon and Motorola also tout the device’s security features (VPN integration, remote wipe, and complex password support, with Device and SD card encryption in early 2011) and global-readiness for road warriors, offering voice and data in over 200 countries.

The Droid Pro costs $279.99 up front with a two-year service agreement, with a $100 Verizon debit card following later in the mail. Net, it’s $20 less than iPhone 4, all the new Windows Phone 7 handsets, the Samsung Galaxy and even Motorola’s own Droid X (which still ships with Android 2.1).

But the Droid Pro’s $180 is quite a bit more than all of Verizon’s Blackberries, which range between free and $150 out-of-pocket with the same two-year contract and data plan terms. A few users might like what they see and being willing to pay a little more than the Blackberry or a little less than those other smartphones.

DROID PRO By Motorola Now Available [Verizon]
DROID Does Business [Verizon]

See Also:

• The New Droid Pro – Or Should I Say, “Android Bold”?
• Apple Tries Short-Circuiting Droid With Patent Lawsuit
• Hands On With the Motorola Droid X
• Motorola Droid Rules Android
• Verizon, Motorola Unleash the Droid – Video – Wired
• Motorola Upgrades the Droid With Droid X
• The R2-D2 Droid Phone You're Looking For

Right on schedule, a day before Windows Phone 7 hits its stores in force, AT&T is letting a couple of new BlackBerry Torch SKUs out to play. They’re basic repaint jobs, described by the carrier as Sunset Red and Pure White, the latter of which almost lives up to its name by including a white keyboard but falters by sticking to the noir optical pad. Pricing is set at $499 if you never want to see AT&T again after purchasing one or $99 if you can commit to a two-year relationship. Same as with the “Charcoal” Torch.

[Thanks, Matthew]

BlackBerry Torch now burns in red and white hues at AT&T stores originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, folks, it’s true: Engadget’s capable of scooping itself at its own reader meetup, as evidenced by the BlackBerry Style we just checked out at RIM’s booth here. The phone is pretty much what you’d expect from what you’ve seen in the shots so far, essentially a clamshell riff on the Curve line; to that end, we’d argue that it feels a little cheaper than your average Bold, but it still seems to be a marked improvement from the Pearl flips of days gone by — and at $99 on contract, we think that’s exactly the market they were likely going for. Interestingly, the keyboard looks more like a Bold component than a Curve one… and depending on the faction of BlackBerry users you fall into, that’s either a very good or a very bad thing. Like the old Pearl flips, the Style’s definitely large and in charge, boasting dimensions barely smaller than the Bold — when closed! Check out the gallery below.

BlackBerry Style first hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The so-called BlackBerry Style got kind of lost in all the recent PlayBook noise, but fear not, clamshell lovers — it seems the phone is still very much on track. Some literature leaked this week by way of BGR suggests that it’ll be called “Oxford” at retail, and that a gray version will be launching at the tail end of this month — October 31, to be exact — for $99.99 on contract after rebates and discounts, while a purple version will follow on soon thereafter. For what it’s worth, we’ve been hearing from other sources recently that the name of this thing is still Style, not Oxford, but it’s more than possible that they’ve made a last-minute branding decision internally. We prefer Style, we think… but regardless of what it’s called, we’d wager the wild QWERTY clam format is going to make for some pretty polarizing water cooler chat.

[Thanks, Delon]

BlackBerry Style (or Oxford?) launching on Sprint October 31? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s unclear if the tiny, little shot posted on French carrier SFR’s Club SFR pour Palm blog is in fact the rumored upcoming Pre 2 or just an old Pre shot, but let’s put it this way: considering that we can’t readily tell the difference, it better be an old one. At any rate, the sparse details in the blog post line up with everything we’re expecting so far, namely that the new model will use a 1GHz processor — presumably a TI OMAP3630 — and will sport a full half gig of RAM on board. Between those two spec bumps, we’d fully expect the refreshed webOS 2.0 to scream… but we won’t really know for sure until Palm gives us something to work with. In the meantime, SFR, thanks for the teaser.

Update: Check out another shot from SFR’s site after the break — it looks like they don’t have any intention to pull the news down, otherwise we have to believe they would’ve done so by now.

Continue reading France’s SFR jumps gun, announces Palm Pre 2: 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, webOS 2.0

France’s SFR jumps gun, announces Palm Pre 2: 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, webOS 2.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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