For a limited time, the Motorola DROID 3 is sliced to $49 with a new line

The Motorola DROID 3 might just have become the biggest bargain at Verizon. After cutting the price of the handset to $99, the carrier just gave the solidly built handset another $50 haircut with a new line. The deal runs until February 5th. With a dual-core 1GHz processor driving the phone, and the 4 inch qHD display, the DROID 3 still has some pretty delectable specs. The slide out QWERTY keyboard is still one of the best available. Of course, some of the specs are not up to more recent high-end models, such as the 512MB of RAM. Still, the device has an 8MP camera that delivers 1080p video, and a VGA front-facing camera.

The Motorola DROID 3 originally launched this past July at a price of $199.99. Unfortunately for its owners, it is not an LTE model and if you believe Verizon, will be one of its last flagship devices to not offer 4G connectivity. Verizon is looking to get rid of the model to make room for the recently announced Motorola DROID 4, which is LTE enabled.

Verizon to update Motorola DROID 2 Global and Motorola DROID Pro with tasty Gingerbread

Owners of the Motorola DROID Pro and the Motorola DROID 2 Global will be happy to know that the carrier is updating both phones with the Gingerbread version of the Android operating system. The update has been sent out OTA and bsides updating the OS, it will also fix some bugs and add some new features..

Among the improvements on the DROID 2 Global and the Motorola DROID Pro will be the addition of a Download Manager app to allow you to manage your downloads form emails and apps. Under "Manage Applications" you now can see which apps are running and the storage and memory used by each app. On the keyboard, numbers and symbols can be typed without having to switch over to the numeric keyboard mode thanks to the use of shortcuts. While typing, you can select a word by pressing on the hold button and a second press will copy the selected word.

The update also brings a new UI and color scheme to both devices and you can create your own custom App groups besides the three options available by default: All Apps, Recent and Downloaded. Lastly, the Contacts, Static Phone and Apps Launcher icons have been replaced within a customizable dock. Three swappable icons and the App Launcher icon are attached to the dock at the bottom of all home screen.

The downloads will take 20 to 45 minutes, depending on network conditions. Installation will require an additional 5 to 10 minutes. The size of the update is 14MB.

Motorola Droid 3: the Phone That Got Style

Though it wasn’t the first phone to run Android, the Motorola Droid is the handset that put Google’s mobile operating system on the map. Two iterations later we sit with the Motorola DROID 3 the latest take on the QWERTY slider with some of the biggest changes to the line we have seen to date.

The Motorola Droid 3 upgrades the hardware of its predecessors in nearly every way, and does it in a form factor that feels fresh while retaining the classic Droid look. A dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4 chipset runs the show here, offering superb speed and responsiveness.

The extra size and weight allowed Motorola to fit the phone with a 4-inch, qHD (540 x 960 pixel) touchscreen display and a wonderful 5-row QWERTY keyboard. From my perspective, this is the best QWERTY keyboard found on an Android smartphone today.

The power button and 3.5mm headphone jack are up top, and the volume control is on the right hand edge, above where one might hope to find a camera shutter button.

The 8 megapixel camera with LED flash is located on the back and an empty microSD memory card slot can be found under the rear cover.

The DROID 3 has 16GB of internal storage, so it's not a problem that the memory card slot is unoccupied and it's nice to know that you can bump up the phone's storage to 48GB by inserting a 32GB card.