There have been rumblings for weeks, what with Verizon's clever and satirical commercials hinting at its launch. And now Motorola's Droid, the company's second Android phone and the first ever to come with the 2.0 version of the open source operating system, has been officially revealed.

The phone, which will be available to Verizon Wireless customers on November 6 for US$199 on a two-year term (after a $100 rebate), appears to be going after the iPhone more than it is competing with fellow Android phones (of which there are few.) The aforementioned commercials feature the word "iDont" followed by statements scrolling down the screen like "have a real keyboard" and "take pictures in the dark."

Indeed, unlike the iPhone, Motorola's Droid has a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard in addition to touch operation via its 3.7" screen (854 pixels wide), along with a 5 MP digital camera with dual LED flash, autofocus, image stabilization, and video recording capability. It also affords access to functions like the beta version of Google Maps Navigation with turn-by-turn walking and driving directions, and the capability to accept voice commands.

Touted, as one of the thinnest, QWERTY keyboard Android phones, the device comes with WiFi, a full HTML Web browser, widgets via the Android Market, the ability to toggle among up to six apps at a time, and, of course, all the standard Google applications, like search, maps, YouTube, and Gmail. The phone will also sync contacts from Facebook to its own address book, and uses a live widget that allows you to update your status and view your friends' latest status updates. Verizon will also include a 16 GB memory card with the phone.

There's no word on when or if the Droid will land on Canadian soil. Stay tuned.

You can see a live demo of the device at www.droiddoes.com.

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