At $99, HTC Droid Eris might be cheapest Android phone

(Credit: gdgt)

A lot of attention has been lavished on the Motorola Droid today--and rightfully so--but it's merely the "cornerstone" of Verizon's Droid family. HTC's Droid Eris is gonna be the cheap stepbrother, at 99 bucks.

Though it's been speculated that the Droid Eris will run Android 1.6 and sport a hard-to-get-excited-about 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, it would be the cheapest Android phone yet in the U.S. Verizon didn't mention it at all today, so we might be a touch skeptical of it making that rumored November 6 launch date, but we'll see.

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

[iroq321]

android + verizon's network + low price = can't lose.

[AppleSuxLeo]

If that price is real...it is an updated version of the well received HERO...they will sell millions , billions ?
That is a great HTC phone on Sprint.

[Dan7637]

well recieved hero- hahahaha

well that hero is a joke

[hailpurdue]

uh, you can get a G1 from Wal Mart for less than $100 today.

[polaris20]

The G1 hardware is a turd though. The Hero is at least very usable.

[lakersin4]

It is indeed coming out on the 6th. Spent some time at the verizon kiosk and the young lady there was very forthcoming about the eris and the droid, both of which she let me spend a lot of hands on time with. the eris feels and acts a lot more expensive that $99. it has a great feel and its well made, and seamlessly runs multiple apps. the interface is just like the pre. The droid was smaller than some articles made it seem, amd the internet was blazing fast. i compared it side by side with my samsung memoir and the Droid left it in the dust easily. the facebook app was very fast and responsive. the internet service is so much better than T-Mobile, and finally the droid touch screen interface is just as smooth and responsive and intuitive as the I Phone. My son has the I Phone and i noticed the memoir touchscreen was not as smooth or responsive, sometimes needing to be touched twice or three times, and when it didn't, it still wasn't this fast. same with the My touch, which my girlfriend has. I am reserving my Droid at Best Buy, selling my memoir to Gazelle, paying off my one year contract and that's that. Iknow the droid will be more expensive, but you get what you pay for. i suffer from dropped calls daily. at least 85-90% of my calls i have to call back cause of drops. calls over 2 minutes? 100% Seriously. I live on the west side of los angeles, and the coverage is the worst over here.

[abcyesn]

I'm Brian, had a LG Dare and was due the NE2 and got the HTC Droid Eris for free (lucky me). Getting delivered today and cant wait. I'm in the military, married, 3 kids(15yold girl, 4yold boy, &1yrold girl). Was going to get the Motorola Droid but read online that HTC plans on releasing an update for the Eris, and Hero that will upgrade to the Andriod 2.0 OS which would have been my only reason get get the Motorola. I hangout at http://www.Droid-Eris.com to share my tricks hope you will too.