The Motorola DROID Pro has been rumored for quite some time now. However, the two main rumors were that it was going to be just a glorified DROID 2 with global roaming capabilities, or a 1.3GHz 4-inch world phone. It appears as though both of those rumors are false. Instead, as the Pro name insinuates, Motorola seems to be targeting working professionals who want something other than a BlackBerry. It sports a full QWERTY keyboard as well as a touchscreen, all in a candy-bar form factor. The 1GHz 3.1-inch smartphone will be running Android 2.2 Froyo and have global roaming support for more than 220 countries, thanks to the dual-mode CDMA/GSM chip. It sports a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with dual LED flash as well as DVD-quality video. The Motorola DROID Pro will be available the first week of November.

The Motorola Citrus is more of a low-budget sibling in Motorola’s latest Verizon Wireless Android offerings. The device has a full touchscreen display. Sadly, it will be released with Android 2.1, yet another classic example of Android fragmentation. Other attributes of the Motorola Citrus include:

• Curved design
• BACKTRACK – a touch panel on the back of the device for navigation and scrolling
• A housing made of 25% recycled plastic

That’s all the news currently released about the two new phones. But stay tuned for updates, especially regarding the DROID Pro.

Via Engadget

Verizon Wireless Announces Motorola DROID Pro and Citrus is a post by Carter Sprunger from Notebooks.com.

Google Nexus Reviews:

To kick things off, here is a look at Engadget’s first impressions; from there we’ll dive into full on reviews of the Google Nexus One

Engadget: “Now, of course everyone seems to have one question about the device — is this the be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone eviscerator? In two words: not really. The thing that’s struck us most (so far) about the Nexus One thus far is the fact that it’s really not very different than the Droid in any substantial way. Yes, we’d say the design and feel of the phone is better (much better, in fact), and it’s definitely noticeably faster than Motorola’s offering, but it’s not so much faster that we felt like the doors were being blown off.” – Joshua Topolsky

TechCrunch: “I’ve been using the Nexus One with TMobile since mid-December as my primary mobile phone. This is the best Android powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways. In this rapidly evolving market there is sure to be something better just around the corner. But if you are looking to buy a high end smartphone right now, this is the phone for you. The Nexus One is the Android signature device.” – Micheal Arrington

All Things D: “The Nexus One finally has the right combination of hardware and software to give Android a champion that might attract more people away from their iconic iPhones and BlackBerrys. It has a larger screen than Apple’s phone, and is a bit thinner, narrower and lighter—if a tad longer. And it boasts a better camera and longer talk time between battery charges.

Also, because it will be available on the large, well-regarded Verizon 3G network, the Nexus One could tempt American iPhone users, tired of problems with AT&T (T), to switch.” – Walter Mossberg

WIRED: “Probably the best feature in the Nexus One is the ubiquitous voice recognition. Just about every time a text field appears — in search, in maps and even in e-mail — you can press a microphone key on the virtual keyboard and just say what you want to put in the field. If you take it easy and enunciate your words as if speaking to a fairly dense child, a reasonably accurate transcription of your words will appear on the screen. There are the usual cosmic misunderstandings, but expanding voice recognition is a welcome step toward our eventual liberation from Lilliputian physical keyboards and unforgiving soft keyboards.” – Steven Levy

New York Times: “Finally, the Nexus just doesn’t attain the iPhone’s fit and finish. The buttons under the screen (Back, Menu, Home, Search) are balky, often ignoring your finger-presses completely. One of the animated wallpapers freezes the phone with a message that says: Sorry! The application Android Live Wallpapers has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” (Note to Google: I did. The same thing happened.)” … “But maybe it doesn’t matter if the Nexus One isn’t nirvana. Google says it’s only the first Google phone of many, with one store to sell them all.” – David Pogue

GigaOm: “Usability & Extensibility: Looks, they say, aren’t everything. And they’re right. If anyone has ambitions to beat the iPhone, then they need to bring their A-game, emphasizing ease-of-use and seamlessness when it comes to the user experience and from a software standpoint, simplicity. Here the Google Phone misses the mark.” – Om Malik

NexusOneBlog: “The display screen on this phone is simply incredible. There has yet to be any device out on the market to date that looks as crisp and clear as the Nexus One. The difference is like taking a look at a 30” television and trying to compare it with a brand new 46” Sony LCD. The Nexus One boasts a 3.7” (diagonal) widescreen, WVGA AMOLED screen, delivering at 720×480. Picture quality is very impressive. … Responsiveness to touch on the screen is definitely on par with the iPhone. There are no delays when touching apps and moving from screen to screen.” – N1

Engadget: “Industry politics aside, though, the Nexus One is at its core just another Android smartphone. It’s a particularly good one, don’t get us wrong — certainly up there with the best of its breed — but it’s not in any way the Earth-shattering, paradigm-skewing device the media and community cheerleaders have built it up to be. It’s a good Android phone, but not the last word — in fact, if we had to choose between this phone or the Droid right now, we would lean towards the latter.” – Joshua Topolsky

Even if the Google Nexus One isn’t the superphone Google is claiming it will be it certainly cements the company’s support for the Android platform, which some tech analysts were concerned about given the upcoming Google Chrome OS. As an Android user, I can’t wait to see the software refinements of Android 2.1 come to the Droid and the additional apps that will come as the Google Nexus One attracts more users to the Android OS.

Google Nexus One Review Roundup is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.