Motorola has officially unveiled the successor to the DROID 2 with the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) powered DROID 3. Coming in at 0.5-in (13 mm) thick, Motorola is calling its new device the world's thinnest smartphone with a physical full QWERTY keyboard. Motorola's original DROID (a.k.a. Milestone, 2009) and the DROID 2 (2010) were both well-spec'd Android QWERTY sliders when introduced, so we wouldn't expect anything less with the DROID 3. It outshines its predecessor with a larger and higher resolution 4-inch qHD 960 x 540 touchscreen, doubles the internal storage to 16 GB and now includes a front facing camera for video calls.
Powered by a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP4 CPU with 512 MB of RAM, the DROID 3's 8-megapixel camera is equipped with autofocus and an LED flash and can record Full HD 1080p video that can be outputted to an external display via HDMI. There's also a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) front facing camera for video calls and a microSD card slot to add another 32 GB of storage space. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and DLNA, but no 4G/LTE support. It also comes with Adobe Flash Player 10.
The device works as a 3G mobile hotspot, with the ability to connect up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. For enterprise buyers, Citrix GoToMeeting and Citrix Receiver come pre-loaded, along with device and SD card encryption, complex password support, remote data wipe of device and SD card, and Quickoffice available out of the box. To make switching between work and home, ESP smart dock technology allows users to apply a set of predefined user settings, depending on the place where the DROID 3 is docked (e.g. home, office, car).
The Motorola DROID 3 is priced at US$199.99 with a 2-year Verizon Wireless contract and US$459.99 for just the smartphone. Verizon starts shipping DROID 3 from July 14.
