Comments on: Prototype Motorola Droid With Silver D-Pad Hits EBay

By: Aubrey Skye

Aubrey Skye — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:32:05 +0000

So do all of these comments mean that a found Droid cannot be activated?

By: JimmySmith

JimmySmith — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:23:34 +0000

BRONZE not GOLD

I haven’t seen one person get that right yet, anywhere.

By: pb

pb — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:19:39 +0000

I can also vouch that this is a real prototype phone. Don’t hold your breath on an engineering bootloader, however. A lot of the earlier revisions still had regular builds and bootloaders. There were a lot more than 5, however, closer to 500. Motorola devs had them, as did Google Android devs. The keyboard keys are a little deeper than the normal Sholes, and chances are this phone is running an early build of Andorid. The last time I saw a phone like this, the camera took pics with the HP logo floating all over the frame as it was a beta driver. ESN is most likely blacklisted, and Motorola can go after you for possession of stolen property. Will they, prolly not, but aside from being a collector’s thing, anybody who buys this with the intent to use it should really think twice.

By: David

David — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:51:25 +0000

Keep in mind, if anyone’s willing to take the risk, that while the ESN is probably not blacklisted it also might not be fully functional. I’ve tested engineering units of many phones recently and most of them have had identical ESN and serial numbers (unique numbers are out of scope for lab devices according to the FCC) which means they’ll get on the network but have all sorts of funky issues including the market not working.

By: Izzyd

Izzyd — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:03:19 +0000

what an idiot this guy is, or at least the guy who got issued the device. Why anyone in there right mind would post pics with a serial number that can get back traced is a moron and deserves to be fired or go to jail. However the device is real that is a given, and it is most certainly a VZW model of it. At best tho it would be worth about $150 as that is not final build and it will have issues.

And just becasue it is a prototype does not mean the ESN is no good, odds are it is a given to be good to go. I had family who worked for Moto and had gotten many devices over the years to test/try that are marked like this and they activate just fine.

By: cyber75sax

cyber75sax — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:13:03 +0000

A buddy of mine who works for Motorola has one of these. It also has a volume switch on the side that is non-functional, and it just received a software update on Saturday, giving it a slightly different lock/unlock screen. It doesn’t come with a 16GB microSD, though, and it is not a Verizon phone. IMHO, you get a better deal with a contract from verizonwireless.com.

By: g1DROID

g1DROID — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:22:01 +0000

I still think instead of gold or silver it seriously should have been red. My opinion of course.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:15:20 +0000

How can he claim “What I can guarantee is that the ESN is clear, the Touch screen and all buttons work. And the WiFi Bluetooth and other radios work”, yet tries to sell it as “New, Never Opened”? How can it never have been opened, and he still claims all those things work?

By: azDroid

azDroid — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:00:46 +0000

What is up with the myopia pictures? Isn’t anyone bothered by the out of focus images?
When I buy something off ebay the pix better be clear and sharp so I can see what I’m buying!

By: Shea Cardinalli

Shea Cardinalli — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:49:26 +0000

I’m still trying really really hard to understand why this auction is being reported on by major media outlets across the internet. I can sort of understand why Phandroid would report on it. Seriously though…its an overpriced PROTOTYPE that is not much different than the real thing. Bet you the ESN doesn’t work like the real thing though, watch out!

By: Del

Del — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:15:05 +0000

Aren’t we supposed to be talking about what we think about the different color scheme and not the trustworthiness of this deal in particular?

Anywho, I like the silver as well as the Gold/Brown sugar versions. Personally I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the gold version, I think it looks old school. The silver is okay…but I still prefer the current rendition.

Make new friends but keep the old…one is silver and the other’s gold.

By: C

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:57:45 +0000

This is most definitely real, I used to work for Mot and had several of these. There for sure are more than 5 of them in existence, they are an old revision of the hardware but it won’t make any difference to the end user.
I can also confirm that this is 100% stolen property, and belongs to Motorola. They had a system for tracking the ownership of each phone, though it was pretty easy to circumvent so I doubt they will be able to track back who stole this phone. Whatever manager’s name is on the tracker for this phone is about to have a real bad day though…

By: MonkeyCheese

MonkeyCheese — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:36:09 +0000

Ok to me someone with an ebay rating of 30 isn’t quite trustworthy to me. Not only that but if you look in the comments this person got that rating by being a good buyer not a good seller they only sold 1 item, a MyTouch 3G. To me its a scam.

By: adsfd

adsfd — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:09:41 +0000

verizon probably blacklisted the ESN. Seriously, its 200 bucks, even cheaper other places. why would someone waste their money on this.

By: Sambosis

Sambosis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:09:07 +0000

LOL, check the seller’s recent purchases and you’ll see that he just bought this off of ebay by a guy claiming to be selling all 5. Looks like he paid $349.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250532592207#ht_2093wt_1165