The successor to the Droid is finally here. Check out CNET's hands-on photos of the Motorola Droid 2 for Verizon.
Bonnie Cha
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
The Motorola Droid 2 is now available from Verizon for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. A limited edition R2-D2 Droid 2 will be released in September with exclusive "Star Wars" content and hardware designed to look like R2-D2.
2 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
New features
The Droid 2 brings such improvements as the latest version of Android OS, a faster 1GHz processor, and double the RAM.
3 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Design
The Droid 2 also sports a sleeker look with rounder, more-tapered edges. The silver-and-blue color combo is also quite attractive and different.
At 4.58 inches tall by 2.38 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick, the smartphone isn't compact by any means, but compared with the Evo 4G and Droid X, it almost feels small.
4 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Right spine
On the right side, you get a volume rocker and a camera button.
5 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Top view
The top of the device houses the power/lock key and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
6 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Keyboard
The original Droid's keyboard was rather awful with its flat keys and awkwardly placed D-pad. Thankfully, Moto got rid of the latter and raised the keys, so the typing experience on the Droid 2 is much better.
7 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Camera
Despite all the upgrades, Motorola didn't change the camera on the Droid 2. You still get a 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash.
8 of 8Sarah Tew/CNET
Picture quality
Overall, we were quite happy with the picture quality. Colors were bright, but we think images could have been slightly sharper.
