droidStory

Gizmodo got their hands on the long awaited pricing details for the Nexus One.

Sorry, no love from Google – they are not offering the phone at cost as some had speculated.

So, it’s $530 unlocked or $180 on a two year plan with T-Mobile. There seems to be only one plan for $79.99/month and lots of other small print to consider.

As previously rumored, January 5 is an important date for Android and the Google Phone.  The company has scheduled a press conference for next Tuesday.

With the launch of the first Android-powered device just over a year ago, we’ve seen how a powerful, open platform can spur mobile product innovation. And this is just the beginning of what’s possible.

TmoNews reports that T-Mobile “officially” confirms the Google phone on its intranet website.

Google with support from T-Mobile, is scheduled to launch a new Android device in early January.  The Google Android phone will be sold solely by Google via the web. Support for this device including troubleshooting and exchanges will be managed by Google and HTC. T-Mobile will offer service support, including billing, coverage, features and rate plans.

So it looks semi-official: Google will be selling and servicing its own phone.

Speculation around the arrival of another Droid in the Verizon lineup was refueled again over the last couple of days, by the discovery of a new website. The site simply displays the image (enhanced) below, although it is so faint that you may miss it on a bright LCD screen.

A whois lookup on the domain doesn’t reveal anything about the owner, other than that the domain was created in September.

The HTC Passion/Dragon is a much anticipated Android 2.x phone by HTC with very impressive features. Neither HTC or Verizon have commented on or even confirmed the existence of the device, but rumors about an imminent release keep reappearing.

Clever viral marketing plot or Internet prank? Only time will tell, but I have my doubts that Verizon is going to release another top-shelf Android phone before the end of this year, having just invested $100M into the Motorola Droid campaign.

Still on the sidelines of the Droid frenzy? Just one week after Verizon released Motorola Droid and HTC Eris, rumors of another Verizon Droid arriving in December are appearing on many fan blogs.

BGR reports that HTC and Verizon may be launching an Android 2.0 phone with impressive specs:

• 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen
• 800×480 resolution
• 1GHz processor
• 5-megapixel camera, and
• Android 2.0 OS

How do we know this is the Verizon Wireless HTC Dragon? We don’t know anything for sure at this point. But we do know that the clock widget comes from HTC’s Sense UI, so the handset is definitely HTC hardware. The high resolution fits in nicely with what we’d expect from a 4.3-inch display rocking 800×480 pixels.

This maybe worth the wait if the Moto Droid isn’t quite the fit for you.  I’m very excited about an Android 2.0 phone from HTC and would actually prefer a device without the physical keyboard. The larger screen and the Sense UI are a nice bonus. Stay tuned for more details coming soon.