Verizon has shocked customers looking to buy the Motorola Droid Mini by releasing it sooner than anticipated, as the device that was scheduled to be shipped on Aug. 29 is actually being shipped Thursday, Aug. 22. The news comes from Phone Arena, which is reporting that Verizon Wireless customers found out about the development through an email from the service provider.
The Droid Mini's homepage does not mention the change in shipping date, but the phone's page does have an option to have the handset delivered to customers by Friday for a fee, or by Monday for free. Clearly, this would be ahead of Aug. 29, so it looks as though Verizon is serious about shipping out the device ahead of schedule. It is also being reported that the smartphone is in some Verizon stores, with a price tag of $99.99 on a two year subscription plan.
Motorola revealed the Droid Mini with two other phones in the Droid lineup, the Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx. The Droid Mini has a 4.3 inch 720p LCD display, just 0.4 inches smaller than the display found on the Motorola Moto X, which has a release date of Friday on AT&T. The Droid Mini has a 10-megapixel main camera, with an additional 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The device does not have a microSD card slot, so those looking to expand the 16 GB of memory of the device are out of luck. Inside of the device is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, running at 1.73-GHz with Adreno 320 graphics. The Droid Mini comes in black and red initially, and the body of the device is made from Kevlar, so it should be able to stand up to some rough handling.
Verizon has yet to comment on the news and explain why the Motorola Droid Mini is going to ship out a week early. Perhaps the company wanted to get the device out early to be ready to focus on the Moto X and other devices that are heading to customers this fall. In addition, Verizon customers will soon be able to buy the LG Exalt and the LG Enact on Friday. Both these smartphones are mid-tier phones, with a lower price than the Motorola Droid Mini, so perhaps Verizon wanted to release the Mini to try to get potential customers to upgrade to the more expensive phone.
Keep it here for all the Verizon, Droid, and Droid Mini news as it happens.
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