If you haven’t seen the commercial, then you should.  Happy, cheery, Apple-esque music with a list of all the things that the iPhone isn’t followed by a cut to a dark graphic that simply says Droid Does.  It’s enough to make the iPhone fanboys cringe and the iPhone haters sit-up and take notice. 

No, Droid isn’t some huge leap forward in design by those bodacious boffins at Forrest Gumps favorite fruit company.  It’s none other than the latest in the line of Andriod based smart phones.  What makes Droid different is that it may actually have a chance, however miniscule, to wrest a little market share away from the great white monolith that is the iPhone.

First off, Droid is a significant leap forward for the Google Andriod based phones in that it actually has some muscle under the hood.  It’s sporting a Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor which runs at a respectable 600 mHz.  The cheeky chip integrates graphics and other goodies onto a single chip giving the Droid the ability to run multiple apps simultaneously.  Secondly, it’s exclusively a Verizon product.  Some would say this is a wonderful thing due to Verizon’s 3G network and reliability… that remains to be seen.  Regardless of whether you love or hate Verizon, it’s time that a serious competitor for the iPhone/AT&T goliath emerged. 

The lucky few who have been able to preview the Droid have had quite a few nice things to say about it.  The guys over at boygeniusreport.com have a really good hands-on review that’s worth the read.  The bottom line is that this phone is a good step forward for the Android line and offers some nice improvements to the inherent limitations of the iPhone.  The Droid has a long road ahead of it, however, as the iPhone already has significant momentum in the market coupled with a well established AppStore and iTunes integration.  We’ll find out in November.