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Rumors have been circulating about the launch of the Droid 2 for a long time now. A lot of pictures of the device leaked onto the internet over the past few months, and every inside source to leak information indicated an August release date for Motorola’s new phone. As time went on, and August drew near, Verizon still hadn’t made a statement about the Droid 2’s launch. The only concrete information about it came out of Best Buy at the end of July. Internal documents leaked onto the internet indicated an August 12th release date, and at the beginning of August, many Best Buy stores began setting up dummy Droid 2’s that showed a $199.99 price tag when purchased with a two year contract.

Despite all of the information to come out of Best Buy, Verizon didn’t make an official statement about the Droid 2 until August 10th, at which time they announced that the phone would be available for presale on the 11th, and would hit store shelves on the 12th. Given the popularity of the original Droid, and that of the Droid X, it’s surprising to see Verizon wait until the last minute to make a statement about the Droid 2. Generally speaking, the launch of a popular phone is preceded by a major marketing push to promote it. The sudden Droid 2 launch leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Was there some sort of problem with the Droid 2? It’s possible that there was some flaw with the device that had Verizon concerned about whether or not they’d be able to meet their expected launch date. There’s no hard facts to support this scenario, but the fact that ?Android 2.2 for the Droid 1 has been having some problems supporting Flash could indicate some concerns over software performance on the Droid 2.

It’s also entirely possible that Verizon didn’t want to force competition between the Droid 2 and the Droid X. The Droid X has been wildly successful, and putting a heavy amount of hype on the Droid 2 could lead to some customer confusion about the two phones. It’s possible that Verizon just decided to quietly kill the Droid 1, and replace it with the Droid 2 in order to avoid hurting Droid X sales.
The Droid 2 is available now for $199.99 with a 2 year contract, or for $599.99 without a contract. Whatever Verizon’s reasons for the quiet launch, the Droid 2 is here, and it’s a worthy successor to the Droid.