The greatly anticipated Motorola Droid X has officially launched today on the Verizon network – and it seems the timing couldn't be better for both the manufacturer and the carrier. With so much controversy revolving around iPhone's reception problems and talk of a possible recall, some current or potential AT&T customers may instead turn to this high-end Android smartphone.
The device sports a huge 4.3-inch touch display, a fast 1GHz OMAP processor, 8-megapixel camera with 720p video recording, HDMI output, GPS navigation with full turn-by-turn directions, FM radio, 24GB of storage capacity out of the box (8GB on-board plus a 16GB microSD card), and Swype support which lets you "type" faster by sliding a finger from letter to letter.
The Droid X ships with Android 2.1, the second most recent version of Google's mobile platform. But, like many Android phones, it comes with a modified version of the operating system that's exclusive to the manufacturer. There has been some talk that Motorola is using a chip called 'eFuse' to verify that your Droid X is running approved software at bootup or else it could be deactivated.
While the chip is indeed under the hood, there's no evidence that it will be used to brick your handset should you want to root your phone and load Android 2.2 "Froyo" before a Motorola-sanctioned version is out. In fact, the same 'eFuse' chip can reportedly be found on a number of previous Motorola handsets. In any case, the Droid X is available now for $199 after rebate with a two-year contract, and it seems plenty of units will be available to avoid any shortages.