DROID Eris survives a weekend under 4″ of snow and repeated assaults by car — and it still works!
It’s always cool to see impossible feats of strength that our gadgets sometimes endure. For most of us, we worry about dropping our precious gadgets even a few inches onto any hard floor. For one “bb-gun” on DroidForums, his DROID Eris didn’t necessarily survive some nasty drop, but instead conquered not one, but two feast of strength.
Going into the weekend, bb-gun dropped his beloved DROID Eris onto the driveway into some light snow and was unable to find his electronic love. Then it snowed all weekend, further obscuring his device. Meanwhile, the poor sap routinely ran over his Eris during the weekend while it lay cold, deserted, and assumed dead in the driveway.
Victory did ensue however and after a few days in it’s icy chamber, bb-gun found his lost love. As you can see from the pictures below, while it took monumental beating it still managed to escape — and still work! Besides the cracked screen with water underneath, a soaked battery, and crushed case, the Eris lives on.
Can you top that?
Get your salt shakers folks. You’ll need them yet again as this is for now a “what if” type of question. It’s highly suspected that the Android 2.0.1 update will drop on December 11th just a few days from now. Verizon themselves mentioned that the Droid would receive such an update “before the holidays”. Now, also put into your internal RAM that Verizon has stated that the HTC Droid Eris will receive an upgrade to at least Android 2.0 in Q1 of 2010. Finally, back on November 9th 
In what can be called a small letdown, that Verizon/Droid/Eris BOGO offer 
If you were holding of on getting an Android device to see what was coming up late this year or just to save a few pennies, it looks like this weekend through monday (December 4-7th) will be your best chance yet. We can pretty much guarantee that the Passion is coming to Verizon late this year rockin’ a Snapdragon processor and….need I say more? Snapdragon dreams aside, the Droid and Eris aren’t bad phones by any means, each with plenty of life left in them. So what about this BOGO? It pertains to Verizon corporate stores (online availability as well) and is self explanatory: You buy one. You get one. Best part is, even those individuals who purchased Droids and Eris’ on launch day can go back to the same location they purchased them from as they still qualify for the BOGO. Sweetness! The only catch is that you’ll have to sign a new 2-year contract to get that second free Droid or Eris. 
The Droid may be the big daddy of Verizon’s lineup, but no everyone needs that much power. For those looking for a slightly simpler and more mid-range device, the HTC Eris looks to be your best bet. With a 5 megapixel camera (sans flash), good ‘ol WiFi tucked inside for good measure, and an eye raising, wallet friendly price of $99 means a whole lot more people area bout to jump on board this Android train. Can’t say I blame them. The Eris is actually a pretty compelling device. Look at all the Android devices currently on the market. Except for the Droid and maybe the hero, the Eris meets or exceeds all other devices which just goes to show how fast Android is progressing. Instead of owning outdated hardware 6-8 months down the road, you can look forward to irrelevance in a mere 2 months, falling from that “top spot” in no time flat. A disheartening way to look at things sure. Hey look at the bright side. It gives you a reason to splurge on gadgets more often so it can’t be all bad no? A couple more pics inside.
In-house screen grabs are always a nice, reassuring piece of evidence to an impending new device launch. With Verizon’s holiday flagship device, the Moto Droid, is not even released yet, a second Android/Droid Series device, the Eris is already being caught making it’s way through Verizon in-house training documents. A welcome sight indeed. The most plausible and talked about launch date for the Eris isn’t too far away, falling on November 10th, just a few days after the Moto Droid walks into the spotlight. In case you forgot or didn’t already know, the Eris will pack in a 320 x 480 capacitive display, 5 megapixel camera w/ auto-focus, trackball navigation, and microSD support to round out the more popular features. Do you think launching another rather tempting device so close to Droid will cannibalize sales? Or is the fact that one is a touchscreen w/ slider while the other is void of any real physical input will set them apart in their own respective circles?
Talk about fast! The Motorola Sholes (Droid) hasn’t even been announced *officially* and now we have this second Android device coming to Verizon. Word is that “Droid” is not simply the latest and greatest Android phone to come to Verizon. Droid is actually the series name meaning many more “Droid” handsets such as the Verizon Eris (Desire) will come through the pipeline. Speaking of the Eris, it’s being released on November 6th. No fancy announcement or hype building which is kind of odd seeing as how Verizon is beating the Sholes horse like there’s no tomorrow. Isn’t it funny that while not more than a month ago we wondering about one potential Android handset on Verizon and now we know about two for sure with plenty more in store. Verizon is becoming mighty tempting. How long can you resist?
