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Word is that Verizon will launch not one Droid phone in early November, but two.  You know one, the Motorola Droid, the other looks to be the HTC Eris and is quite unlike the Motorola’s version.  The two will run Android but that is about all that keeps them similar.

OS

The Motorola phone features the hot-off-the-presses Android 2.0 and offers unfettered access to the Android operating system.  HTC, on the other hand, features Android 1.5 with the sense UI from HTC.  The sense UI acts as a skin to provide users a different feel than just Android.  The experience is intended to be simpler for common tasks; HTC is regarded as top dog in the skins world.  It is unclear if HTC will upgrade its sense UI to 2.0 and if so, will the HTC Eris be supported for this upgrade.

Form factor

The Motorola Droid features a slide out QWERTY keypad that is getting mixed reviews.  The trade off for being oh-so-slim is very short key action and the result seems to be a less than stellar typing experience.  As with anything, the more you use it, but better it feels.

The HTC Eris is a true touchscreen phone.  The soft keyboard has more in common with the iPhone than Motorola’s version.  This makes choosing a Droid phone very easy: how do you like your keyboards: hard or soft?

Processors

This is an oft debated aspect, but for what it worth the Motorola has a 585MHz processor while the Eris has a 528MHz

Price

Yesterday, Verizon and Motorola announced their phone would be $199 after appropriate contracts, rebates, spiffs, and insults were done.  The HTC Eris in contrast is rumored to be the working-man’s phone at just $99. 

Marketing

So far, Verizon’s only talked freely about the Motorola version.  Pricing the HTC touchscreen version at the iPhone price seems to suggest the Motorola version is more of an upgrade in buyers’ eyes.  Verizon knows phone folks are going to gravitate to the up-speced version, the Motorola Droid.  Word is the $99 Eris will be just fine for most folks looking to get some of that soft keyboard touchscreen love.

Read: [BoyGeniusReports] and [Phandroid]