Purported Motorola Droid prototype turns up on eBay
By Donald Melanson 
posted November 21st 2009 8:47PM
posted November 21st 2009 8:47PM
Wishing you could get a Motorola Droid and stand out from all your Android-toting friends at the same time? Then you might just want to consider bidding on this "limited edition" Droid prototype that just turned up on eBay, which has a reasonably good chance of being an actual Droid, and a slight chance of being an actual prototype. If the seller is to be believed, however, this particular Droid is one of only five produced, and is different from the standard issue Droid in a few respects -- including a chrome bezel instead of a black one, silver buttons instead of gold, and some "enhanced LED lighting" on the front buttons. It also apparently works just fine, and is ready to be activated. Willing to take the chance? Bidding starts at $485.
[Thanks, Kaptix]
[Thanks, Kaptix]
Um...is that stuff engraved in the bottom of the phone "Not for Resale..." It has a serial number on it. Can't Motorola track it via that number and than ban the ESN and fire whoever it was issued to (who apparently sold it). Wow, noobs.
Regarding the "Not For Sale" issue, I believe that applies to retail sale only. Since this is a private seller it should be ok (of course, you know, assuming the seller actually owns the phone or has rights/permission to sell it from whoever does).
This device's IMEI and other serial numbers were scanned and assigned to someone at Motorola. It's called M-Track internally at Motorola.
Motorola will buy this off eBay and fire the person who it last belong to unless that person reported it as missing or stolen.
Motorola won't go after the seller.
IT HAS MULTITOUCH!!!!
If it clearly states "NOT FOR SALE," can't Motorola sue this guy?
If that's the case Hershey better get on top of that kid coming to my house every year selling those candy bars to make money for his rec basketball team.
Why take the chance with Ebay when you can get the Droid prototype from any VZW store or Best Buy? Oh wait you're trying to tell me the Droid that is in stores is a finished product? It sure acts like a prototype to me...
Hah, only 5 made? I can vouch that this looks like the prototype a relative has, but guaranteed there are many more than 5 made. It would be wise not to buy this, unless you can't clearly read the NOT FOR SALE part on it.
people don't get that that phone could be the holy grail to rooting the cliq and droid
exactly, and thats why motorola have MTrac. All prototypes are registered against an engineer and actually phone-home when running on prototype hardware. Motorola dev hardware has HAB turned off so they can boot unsigned roms.
Of course this is CDMA so there isn't a SIM to identify, but i know that all of the GSM prototypes i worked with silently sent SMS messages to a server in the US. Depending on the settings they also send an SMS when they crash so the engineer can be told to connect the phone to an internal tool that uploads the crash dumps.
The serial number is engraved into the device. Verizon won't activate it. It does have a connector for a break out debug board with serial connection. It doesn't and can't have the production file system image on it, as it is likely a non-secure device.
I work for TI (we make the chip in it), and we had quite a few of these in the office while it was in development. Ours were very tightly controlled.
Someone is gonna get fired or sued.
Hope its not kirf but if it is it sure is a nice replica. I think i can make out what the sticker says: Convetional motorola restricted property NOT FOR SALE.
I guess the guy selling this has dyslexia.