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Verizon rumors: LTE, Android 3.0 tablets, a Droid Pro, and more

BGR's lined up a handful of very believable rumors for Big Red today -- and if you're an Android fan, you're going to want to pay very close attention (heck, even if you're not, you should probably take a look). First up, Motorola's said to have a full-touch Android 2.2 handset in the works with global roaming capability on GSM and presumably HSPA -- a first in the CDMA Android world -- that apparently looks a bit like a Motorola Q (without the keyboard, of course). Interestingly, we've recently been clued into a global roaming Moto from a trusted tipster of ours with the codename "Venus" that's slated to enter internal testing on the 27th of this month, so that lines up pretty nicely with this rumor -- but Venus could also be another global Android smartphone allegedly in the pipeline from Motorola, the Droid Pro. As its name suggests, BGR says the Droid Pro will be a monster, featuring a 1.3GHz core (faster than the 1GHz Droid X and Droid 2) and a 4-inch screen with a target street date in November -- just in time for the holidays. There are also apparently global Android handsets in store from Samsung and HTC; additionally, our tipster tells us that there will be a Motorola "Ciena" sans global roaming, a phone could possibly be that WX445 we saw not long ago. It's entering carrier acceptance testing on the 17th.

Follow the break for the rest of the lowdown!

[Thanks, HTC Kid]



Turning our attention to tablets, Samsung is said to be prepping a 7-inch device with a front-facing camera (something we're expecting to see on pretty much all high-end smartphones and tablets going forward). Motorola, meanwhile, is apparently working on a 10-inch model -- something we've heard before -- that will feature a processor of 1GHz or better paired with Android 3.0 Gingerbread. What's notable here is that BGR's source is saying that the inclusion of Android 3.0 could push the Moto launch out to February 2011, but inside sources of our own are reporting that tablet devices running Gingerbread are still figuring into Verizon's Q4 2010 plans, so we'll have to wait and see how that shakes out.

Moving on, Novatel -- creator of the original MiFi -- could be on the hook for a new LTE mobile hotspot (hopefully a CDMA hybrid, though we don't know) that will support as many as ten simultaneous users for launch in January or February of next year; the relatively close time frame might explain the alleged (but unconfirmed) cancellation of the Fivespot that we've been hearing about lately. Speaking of LTE, word has it that USB stick usage will be priced at $59.99 a month -- data cap unknown -- and that Big Red is presently targeting 75 percent "of the country" covered by April 2012, though we don't know if that's geographical or population coverage.

Quite a bit to take in, isn't it?