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Motorola Mobility said that some of its leading Droid smartphones will get the bump to Google’s Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” operating system later this year.
A Motorola spokesperson confirmed the Droid X, Droid Pro, Droid 2 and Droid 2 Global handsets would get the latest build in a company support forum, as noted by Computer World.
Motorola support staffer “Moto Calvin” confirmed the Gingerbread upgrades were coming to those phones in a thread about Exchange ActiveSync, where he wrote:
“The Gingerbread (GB) software update will include improved Exchange Activesync functionality. The following Motorola Droid devices will be updated to GB: Droid X, Droid Pro, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global.”
Moto Calvin noted in this follow-up thread that the Droid X update is currently scheduled to be released before the end of the second quarter or sooner. That would target the release for sometime in June.
Moto Calvin added that updates for the Droid 2, Droid 2 Global and Droid Pro are currently scheduled to be released before the end of the third quarter or sooner, noting that the estimates are dependent on Verizon approving the OTA (over-the-air) updates.
The list of devices in Moto Calvin’s original thread was later deleted by the forum’s manager, suggesting that the info may have been inaccurate.
eWEEK emailed Motorola for confirmation but has not received a response as of this writing.
Among many perks, Gingerbread sports a speedier user experience and improved virtual keyboard and copy-and-paste functionality.
The build, which appeared first on the Samsung Nexus S last December and most recently on the Samsung Nexus S 4G from Sprint this month, is most famous for its NFC (near field communications) support.
However, NFC, which enables mobile payments and other tag reading, requires a special chip controller. Only phones that launch with native Gingerbread support will include NFC, so the Droid X, Droid 2, Droid Pro and Droid 2 Global won’t feature NFC capabilities.
Gingerbread was allegedly going to arrive on the new Motorola Droid X2 but that device launched last week with Android 2.2 “Froyo,” which is what the other Motorola Droids still use.