HTC Droid Eris Getting Android OS 2.1 Upgrade Now

Verizon Wireless has begun sending out a long-awaited Android OS upgrade for the HTC Droid Eris. This moves the smartphone up to the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, and brings a number of enhancements.

The carrier made the announcement that the Android OS 2.1 upgrade was going out to customers late yesterday on its VZWSupport Twitter feed. 

It will be sent by Verizon OTA (over the air) directly to Droid Eris units over the next two weeks. Customers will be notified when the upgrade has arrived and is ready to be installed. At this point, there is no way to manually install the upgrade.

New in Android OS 2.1
The latest version of Google's mobile OS sports many new features, including much greater support for speech-to-text, allowing users to enter text into an application with only their voice.

In addition, "pinch-to-zoom" multi-touch has been added to the web browser, photo viewer and maps applications, and OS 2.1 offers enhanced weather and news widgets.

An Overview of the HTC Droid Eris
Verizon re-named this device when it modified its looks, but it's really a version of the HTC Hero. As such, it has a tablet shape with a 3.2-inch, HVGA, capacitive Touchscreen and no hardware keyboard.

The Droid Eris is able to connect to Verizon's EV-DO mobile broadband service, and also offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

It runs Google's Android OS, and the standard user interface has been enhanced with HTC Sense. The standard suite of Google applications is included, and users of this smartphone have access to the 50,000+ apps currently on the Android Market, the on-device software store.

The Droid Eris is able to get e-mail and synchronize user data with Google service, as well as Microsoft Exchange.

Other features include a 5-megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headset jack, microSD card slot, and a GPS receiver.

Source: Verizon