It appears the Droid will get the most recent Android release software very soon, and the features added are both good, and slightly fragmentary as well. We'll run down the highlights and our thoughts below.

The top features: we like multitouch for the browser (especially Maps 3.4), Google Goggles, and brand new news and weather widgets that ratchet up the slickness factor for an OS not known for that sort of thing. Nexus One already has some of these type of features, so it isn't groundbreaking, but welcome anyhow.

No animated/live backgrounds are included, which is a little disappointing overall. The same rather static screen and pop=up "shelf" remain in the offering; we were hoping for a little more "glitz" but hey, you can't have everything.

The fragmentation part? It seems like every version of Android - even between phones - offers different features and degrees of implementation. Perhaps a bad side effect of an open source OS we suppose, but it would be nice if phone makers would get together and standardize things just a little bit.

In the latest update to this story, Motorola's official Facebook page states that "happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid will start to roll out this week." So the wait is almost over, folks, so be on the lookout for the OTA upgrade soon.

Related posts: