Verizon's HTC Droid Eris (UPDATED, PHOTOS): $99 Android Phone HANDS ON

Verizon Wireless has officially announced the forthcoming HTC Droid Eris, which, at $99, may be the cheapest Android around.

Wondering what the fuss is all about? Whether it's worth the 99 bucks?

Gizmodo suggests the Droid Eris -- Motorola Droid's "cheap stepbrother" -- won't be running the latest Android 2.0 interface, but is still a good bargain buy:

Though it's been speculated that the Droid Eris will run Android 1.6 and sport a hard-to-get-excited-about 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, it would be the cheapest Android phone yet in the US.

EnGadget thinks Verizon, which has kept relatively mum about the HTC Droid Eris, is "mismanaging" the phone's release and speculates that the phone may be obsolete soon given that it hasn't got the latest 2.0 interface:

We'll see how this all plays out -- HTC certainly has Android 2.0 phones of its own in the works, so the Eris might not be long for this world.

Get up close and personal with the device at BoyGeniusReport, which has photos of the HTC Droid Eris getting unboxed (Phandroid does too).

Get photos, reviews, and video of Verizon's other new Android, the Motorola Droid, on HuffPost here.

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Comments

[StrongEagle]

I really like my iPhone, and I am glad that someone is putting price pressure on Apple, and hopefully service pressure on AT&T to provide more functionality at lower prices.

[brettrobbins]

No thanks. I'm going the extra hundred bucks for the coolest cell phone yet. DROID please.

[hopefull2008]

Pretty shameful that even the reviewers would advertise the cost of this to be 99 dollars. It is the same as if you advertised the cost of a car lease as merely the down payment.

[David-QnA]

Does anybody know the percentage of Americans who have a cell phone vs. those who don't?

And the percentage of those with cell phones who have data plans vs. those that have just voice plans?

[David-QnA]

While I love the idea of having on-demand access to the Web wherever I am, I'm still not able to justify the expense of having a smartphone and the accompanying data plan. It's just too darn expensive.