By Remember when we ran wild with some speculation regarding unused model numbers by HTC and Verizon? While this may not be the same device, it appears there was something on the blueprint for Big Red after all. AndroidSwag (through our good friend The Droid Guy’s outlet) caught wind of a QWERTY-enabled HTC handset that looks to be headed straight to Verizon. We’re not sure how the phone made its way into the wild, but that’s not important. What is important are the specs:
This will be a world phone for those of you missing dual technology support from the old Blackberry days. The device is equipped with CDMA radios for use with Verizon in the US and GSM radios for those occasions where you’ll need to leave the country. The device will sport a 4-inch display (no word on what type yet, but we’d venture to guess Super LCD), a spring-loaded slide-out QWERTY (somewhat of an homage to the G1) with buttons sitting on a read surface, and at least a 1.2GHz processor (no word on if this would be the dual-core Snapdragon we’ve been hearing about, though).
I know many of you are already about to burst with excitement. Many have cried out for a high-end device with a QWERTY keyboard that can match the layout and quality that many enjoyed on the first Android handset ever. While this isn’t the same five-row layout we loved on the G1, it’s very close and it has that same spacious look to it.
The device will come pre-installed with Android 2.2, as one might assume, and is scheduled to arrive Q1 of 2011. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this will be equipped with LTE radios to take advantage of Verizon’s new high-speed mobile data network that they’ll be bringing out later this year. What say you on this one, guys?
I guess you could say this is going to be an EPIC battle.
This is most likely going to be one of verizon’s flagship LTE phones
that said; FINALLY, A POWER PHONE WITH A KEYBOARD, I DON’T CARE IF IT’S BULKY
I say: Too bad Chrome won’t show a popup calender on date type forms.
FINALLY, A POWER PHONE WITH A KEYBOARD
Droid 2?
Me likeyyy
FINALLY, A POWER PHONE WITH A KEYBOARD
Epic 4G?
sweet, looks like an N1 with a keyboard, just look at the bottom of the phone
but that screen doesn’t look like 4 inches to me, looks like 3.7
FINALLY, A POWER PHONE WITH A KEYBOARD from a company that doesn’t screw it’s customers.
This phone?
Very nice. If it has LTE, this may be the perfect phone.
I need a new Android now, though, so I’m getting the D2 rather than wait for January.
Vision still looks like a better g1 replacement coming sooner tmo hspa+ better kb trackpad but this will be kinda like a sister to the vision if you ask me
HTC = fail
Physical keyboard = fail
I want a Droid X world phone. Oh well, hopefully there will be a good phone on LTE next summer that will be a world phone
This one does look like something special. We will see what it looks like come release. I’m not a fan of the color background on the keyboard. I have seen this phone compared to the Evo and it does have a 4 inch screen. Depending on if I like the blindtype on screen keyboard I may get another slide out phone. I hope it is a LTE phone and that it has a front facing camera and skype come release. We shall see.
@Charlie: If HTC is fail, the what is Motorola with their anti-customer behaviour (still no 2.2 announcement for Milestone). Physical keyboard = fail ? Sorry, but you are a troll. This is the 4th Android phone with physical keyboard (other are G1, Droid/Milestone, Droid 2) in middle of keyboard-less horde of Android phones, and you have problems with this one having it ? If you don’t like phones with physical keyboards, it’s your right – but only because of your dislike for them they are not fail.
So if it has gsm than it will work in europe…i wonder why these devices all ways come first in US.
Its good HTC has decided to provide a phone with a qwerty keyboard plus other power features. Is android set up to becoming the future standard?
HTC Droid Scorpion?
I wonder why people are saying this is a droid 2?! when clearly this is made by htc and moto makes the droids. besides the incredible.
HTC Scorpion? Please let this be the Scorpion.
That thing is damn ugly. What on earth are they thinking with that keyboard?
@Charlie: Say what you want about physical keyboards being “fail” but the most popular smartphones are still (for the time being) RIM Blackberrys, which all have physical keyboards. Obviously, there’s still a demand for them so you should come to your own conclusions rather than regurgitating Steve Jobs’ opinion.
Let’s hope this comes to the UK.
To be fairly honest, we’re getting left behind in terms of good Android Phones now! =O
And F.Augusztin….you forgot the X10 Mini Pro! =P
@Charlie – you failed miserably. Your Droid X with its encrypted bootloader is a piece of junk.
ever think that verizon is laying the groundwork for GSM like cingular did a few years ago?
remember vodafone owns 45% of verizon outright.
this is a nice phone which i like but i cant stand the maroon it seems demaculating although i bet when this phone comes out u’ll be able to buy a keyboard skin. i have evo and im returning it to buy the epic. Love epics keyboard, screen, and cpu/gpu, design i like my evos more but the only thing that makes me regret the whole exchange is (excluding 2.2 already out on evo) is the kickstand hell i never use it but its beautiful and i will miss it. (lastly i get good signal from all companies where i live xcept att but personally like sprint for being cheaper than verizon and the exchanging ur phone every year is awsome.T mobile was best customer service but to bad because thier devices dont do it for me.
i love the fact that it’s a world phone.
if this thing has a front-facing camera, i will be all over it. maybe even if it doesn’t.
I think I’m looking at my future phone
Yess for verizon I think I’m looking at my future phone
Most likely the HTC Scorpion which will be renamed something… I hope that the keyboard will be revamped, maybe more like the Touch Pro 2.
If this turned out to be a google experience phone I will definitely consider getting it. However, chances are HTC will insist on throwing some sense or other crap on top. It’s not that I think the sense UI is all bad….it’s just….waiting for those OS updates…no thanks! I may still be waiting for 2.2 on my DROID but I can gaurantee I am going to get it before those that went with the Eris on DROID launch day…poor suckers! In fact…I could manually update now but I am not in that big of a rush…I can wait until they work out some more of the bugs. Aside from not having flash my DROID works great just the way it is! I would really like to know what the future of “google experience” is going to be. I got the warm fuzzies for Motorola when they came out with the DROID but have become really disappointed that it looks like they are going to be encrypting their bootloaders from now on. What a shame!
I have the Droid X and my wife has the Incredible. I find the Incredible screen to small and the Droid X to big. I think a 4″ screen would be the perfect size if you ask me. I opted for the X because the DI was to small. Don’t care for for the slide out KB on this one. I prefer a touch screen. This is what happens with technology, the next best thing is right around the corner and if you wait you will never buy anything.
holy shit….. an HTC android phone with a good slide out keyboard, AND ITS FOR VERIZON? this is my fucking dream come true
this phone is probably going to be used under the Droid name, being that everytime we see an android phone for verizon it always turns out to be a Droid, excluding the lg ally and the motorola devour
yay a world phone and keyboard for verizon. Now it’s not so certain if I’ll get the epic and switch to sprint
htc is the best ever!!
> So if it has gsm than it will work in europe…i wonder why these devices all ways come first in US.
A GSM-only Europhone can always roam on AT&T or T-Mobile in the US (though data might be problematic unless it supports 850/1900 or 1700/2100 UMTS). A CDMA-only Sprint or Verizon phone is a disconnected paperweight in Europe.
Also, I believe there ARE at least a few dual-SIM phones from Shenzhen that do GSM/UMTS and CDMA2000 (what Sprint & Verizon use). If you’re purely roaming in the US, you might even be able to use them to roam on Sprint or Verizon. The question is, are you masochistic enough to try?
That’s not rhetorical. Head over to xda-developers.com, and read the threads about getting AOSP builds to work properly with Sprint and Verizon text messages, MMS, voicemail, and the rest. Now consider that you’re going to be doing the same thing yourself, on a phone nobody in the US has ever heard of. If your goal is anything more ambitious than “make simple voice calls”, you’ll probably want to just buy a GSM/UMTS phone and make sure it supports American UMTS frequencies.
Also, remember… Sprint and Verizon have basically no experience dealing with roaming users from countries without CDMA (Canada, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, New Zealand, etc). I pity *anyone* who has to explain to three levels of tech support at Sprint that phones capable of CDMA2000 and UMTS exist in other countries. If you’re a phone expert and can tell THEM what they need to do to make your phone work, you might be lucky and succeed. If you need THEM to help YOU, it’s probably a lost cause.
if I really wanted a phone produced by a Shenzhen slave labor camp…I’d get an iPhone
Im all for it if I can get the keyboard in a different color. Just do red accents like the Incredible. And then make the keys larger and use some of that space.
clashRAINN “It’s not that I think the sense UI is all bad….it’s just….waiting for those OS updates…no thanks!”
–
OK so who got froyo first…HTC evo with Sense or Droid with stock Android?
DROID INTERNATIONAL.
{{-_-}}
My opinion? Motorola > HTC when it comes to build quality. Unfortunately Motorola wants to be a jack ass and lock up all their devices from now on. So Im forced to look to HTC :(
That said, this phone looks ugly as hell (with the keyboard out anyways)! Good thing I dont hold looks very dearly when it comes to phones. Ill wait to see the specs then decide. Definitely wait to see if there are any other phones in store this year/early next year.
Well this is coooooolish for the keyboard lovers…kinda miss that old keyboard the g1 brought-pretty cool-ish-but anyhey The Big V is really kicking ass with these android phones-they are making everyone want them-more so then any other Cellphone comp-wow
Heres to hoping for a future 5inch phone-there are those of us with big enough hands….y0
@ MensahWatts
Dell Streak has a 5-Inch screen
Aw crap! January? Too late. Samsung will likely get my money if I can get a GSM Epic.
so many phones all the time ):
so what’s the big deal with moto locking the bootloader? does this just mean you hacker can’t import custom os’s or something? im pretty lost in this area and want to know before i get the x or incredible.
Just found this forum & learned a lot from you guys but I am so not tech savy & what does it mean to root ur phone. & when you say encrypted bootloader does that mean the phone is locked to other carriers? Sorry to slow up your forum but there are some baby android users and some of your info is way over our heads but we are willing to learn :)
@cody and @ichant gtfo noobises just GOOGLE it you dome-asses
anyway the keyboard probably won’t be red, htc usually changes the colors of phones before they’re released like the white evo. (even though you can now buy it in white) But still, they have a history of this. And i hope to god that this isn’t the final design.
I’ll still get this phone though for sure.
so i was planning to get a Droid X to replace my droid 1, but now i seen this and it looks amazing and now im not sure if i should skip the Droid X and wait for this to come out instead?
@ichant
encrypted bootloaders mean that you cannot load custom roms onto the phone unless they are signed by motorola and it will send your phone into recovery mode and will stay like that until you get the motorola software to flash your phone back to stock. All in all it just makes it that much harder to root your phone with more risk of it becoming sort of “bricked”
@Yellowfrizbee
My opinion.. my first HTC phone, myTouch.. excellent build quality.. the other HTC phones that I have looked at since then, on display and Best Buy.. also seem solid.. and we don’t even get the unibody version of the Legend here.. that thing must be a rock.. I know that HTC existed before their Android explosion, maybe there was some crappy phones in the past.. I don’t really know.. all I know is that what I have seen from them with their Android phones.. Perhaps there is something you prefer about the designs of Moto over HTC, and that’s your perogative, I just don’t see the build quality as being inferior.
I have been sulking ever since I found that the Epric was ONLY CDMA and I could not travel with it. My depression has been lifted by this news.
Is the another Quad band Qwerty keboard with a great screen and processor???
@ msgnyc…its more then five…I believe its seven inches …that maybe to big…and yeah…and that’s on ATT only…
Ari free actually the nexus one got it first which is Vanilla OS.
@Dennis, no disrespect. I personally actually prefer the looks and design of the HTC phones much better than the Motos. I was speaking about all the defects with the HTC phones ive seen. Incredible had a defective screen (https://phandroid.com/2010/05/18/does-the-droid-incredible-suffer-from-a-potential-grounding-flaw-causing-touchscreen-issues/), Nexus One had all kinds of issues you can find on the internet, Evo 4G suffering from a similar screen issue. etc.
Although, to be fair, Im pretty sure the Droid X is having some problems too atm. Correct me if im wrong there. So I guess it can go either way depending on opinion.