Motorola Droid going global as Motorola Milestone in 3 countries

Motorola said the GSM variant of the Motorola Droid 2.0 will soon be available in Germany, Italy and Argentina. The Illinois based telecoms company did not disclose the launch date or which other countries the Motorola Milestone will make its debut.

In Germany, Motorola Milestone will be available via Vodafone, O2 and mobile phone retailer The Phone House. It will be launched on November 9 and retail for 404 Euro ($596).

This smartphone ships with many of the same features as its U.S. counterpart, including a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen, a slide-out full-QWERTY keyboard, a 5.0 megapixel camera, and WiFi connectivity. The phone includes a 3.5mm audio port, a 1400mAh battery for 6.4 hours talk time and 14 days standby time.

Other features include the Webkit HTML5 mobile browser, a versatile multimedia player, MOTONAV turn-by-turn navigation, USB support, Motorola Media Link, application downloads through Android Market, and Google services such as Google Search, Google Mail, GTalk and Google Marketplace.

Analysts are optimistic of the effect the Droid and Milestone will have on Motorola's stock price. Citigroup analysts on Monday raised their rating on Motorola stock to "buy" from "hold," calling the Droid, which runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, "compelling."

Motorola Droid will begin selling in the US on November 6 on the Verizon network.

Click here to read a summary of reviews of the Motorola DROID, the Verizon version of the Milestone.

Click here for full spec sheet of Motorola Milestone.