How would you like to own a piece of smartphone history? On eBay (via DroidLife), a rare Motorola DROID prototype is available with bidding continuing until Wednesday, April 17th at 4:05 PM. What makes this prototype so historic is that the Motorola DROID became the first real iPhone killer and was Verizon‘s first big smartphone superstar a year after the BlackBerry Storm was a major failure.
The first phone to run Android 2.0, which featured free turn-by-turn directions on Google Maps, the DROID was a huge hit thanks to a strong advertising campaign from Verizon and Motorola. The DROID was my third smartphone after the original iPhone and the Storm, and it sent me traveling on the Android path for years. On the chin of this particular unit, Motorola stamped, “Confidential Motorola Restricted Property Not For Sale.”
You can bid on this prototype Motorola DROID until Wednesday afternoon
This prototype does not have a battery but it will power up if you happen to have one and can charge it up. The device features a 3.7-inch display, larger than the screen on the iPhone 3GS (which was the latest iPhone model out at the time), and featured a sharper 480 x 854 resolution. With a 54.35% screen-to-body ratio, bezels were large back in the day. A single-core Texas Instruments OMAP3430 powered the phone which featured a slide-out QWERTY with flat buttons that were not easy to type on. It would take Motorola until the DROID 4 to nail the physical keyboard.
A real piece of smartphone history can be yours
The popularity of the DROID helped give Android a nice push out of the nest on the way to becoming the world’s top smartphone platform. The seller has an opening bid price of $900 but so far, the prototype DROID has not received any bids. It is a legitimate piece of smartphone history, but it is an expensive conversation piece. For $900 you can buy yourself a pretty good Android phone like the Motorola Edge+ (2023) and still get change. It may not be as historic as the prototype DROID, but at least it will have all of the latest bells and whistles.