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Verizon Reveals iPhone 4 Challenger From Moto

June 23, 2010 | Dan Jones |

NEW YORK -- Verizon Wireless briefly brought out Google CEO Eric Schmidt here at its launch event for its iPhone 4 challenger, the new Motorola Inc. DroidX Android phone.

Verizon already had Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha, Adobe Systems Inc. head Shantanu Narayen, and Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering and leader of the Android project for the search giant, on hand to introduce the phone.

"People are thinking mobile first, they’re thinking about how to do apps on mobile first," Schmidt told the scrum of bloggers, journalists, and TV people, before dashing off again.

Certainly, Google is more focused on "mobile first" these days. "There are 160,000 Android Google-enabled devices sold everyday," Andy Rubin claimed just before the DroidX was revealed.

Click on the photo below to launch the slideshow:

Rated X

Verizon will offer the DroidX for $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate. The firm is offering the phone with a $29.99 unlimited data plan and an option to use the phone as a WiFi hotspot for up to five other devices. When used as a personal WiFi hotspot, the company is imposing a 2-gigabyte cap on the data consumption and will charge five cents per megabyte used over that limit.

AT&T Inc., of course, famously -- or infamously -- moved to a tiered billing system ahead of the iPhone 4 launch. (See Capping the Data Gusher.)

Verizon executive VP John Stratton was pushed during the Q&A about whether there is a cap on the unlimited smartphone plan. "You can start using it at the beginning of month and keep using it 'til the end of the month," he said. (See Verizon's Advantages: Unlimited Data & Android.)

The carrier is really directly taking on the iPhone 4 offering from AT&T with its upgrade plan. "Any customer that has a contract come up any time in 2010 can upgrade to this device as soon as it's available," Stratton said.

AT&T has done a similar thing with the iPhone 4: Any customer eligible for an upgrade in 2010 can get a new iPhone.

The iPhone 4 launches in the US tomorrow. The DroidX, which is a Verizon exclusive, will be available on July 15.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile


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