At one point in time, the “DROID” tag was saved for phones that were thought to be the biggest and most bad ass phones on the planet. The tag slowly started to lose its effectiveness with the DROID 2, but officially hit rock bottom when Verizon and Samsung decided that the Charge was worthy of carrying the title. We argued in our DROID Charge review that it had no business under the DROID brand as it was released with a single-core processor and low level specs at a time when dual-core phones were about to rule the “all machines.” Other than its beautiful 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen, the Charge failed to impress just about anyone.

As of today, Verizon has apparently seen the light, offering it up for free (originally $299 at launch) and dropping the DROID brand from it. The phone is now known as the “Charge by Samsung” and has been pulled from droiddoes.com. Actually, on its product page, they have yet to remove the term “DROID,” but that will likely happen any day. That is if it lasts that long. Normally when we see a top tier phone drop to “free,” it’s on the verge of disappearing for good.

On a related note, droiddoes.com only includes Motorola phones now. DROID brand about to die or will it become a Moto-only thing going forward? Does anyone care?

Cheers to austin, Keyvan, and everyone who sent this in!

Verizon told us yesterday that other phones besides the LG Revolution would receive their new Remote Diagnostics tool. We sort of expected it to be a bit as they tested the new service on the Revolution first, but it appears now as if the DROID Charge should receive the tool in the coming weeks through a new OTA update. The update is build FP1 and includes an “updated UI” along with a ton of other bug fixes and tweaks to enhance the experience. 

Are you a DROID Charge owner? Then today is your lucky day. The Gingerbread update that we brought word on last week, is now available to the masses. Simply head into Settings>About phone and check to make sure that it is available. There are a bunch of fixes and enhancements tied to this update – you can find the full changelog here.

And that puts all of Verizon’s LTE devices on Android 2.3. +1

Cheers Randall!

Verizon just pinged us to confirm that the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) update for the DROID Charge will become available on November 29. Full change log can be found here.

Cheers ___!

With Gingerbread source for the DROID Charge getting released this morning, it was only a matter of time before the official changelog was posted. We told you we would keep an eye on it, and sure enough, it’s live right now.

If you are new to Android 2.3, just know that this will improve the performance of your device immensely.  You won’t find a ton of new features, but the overall stability and speed increases will be instantly noticeable. If you have been frustrated over the last couple of months, get ready to love your phone again.

The update is 119MB in size and will leave your phone at build EP4. No word on when it will be released, but rumors floating about are suggesting that November 29 is the day.

Full changelog after the break.  

The DROID Charge and Samsung Fascinate are essentially Verizon’s last two phones that should be running Gingerbread (Android 2.3) yet for whatever reason, are not. It’s no secret at this point that Sammie is one of the worst when it comes to updating their phones, but there may be light at the end of this tunnel. Source for the Charge’s GB update has been posted as build EP4D, which is a pretty good sign that we could see it roll out any day.

We have looked in all of the usual places for support docs and came up empty. A rumor floating around VZW’s forum suggests that the update may roll out as early as November 29 though. We’ll continue to monitor it all.

And if you were interested in grabbing the source, hit up this link and search for “SCH-I510.”

Cheers Kip!

Another unofficial Gingerbread build has leaked for the Samsung DROID Charge and after 4 days of testing, @P3Droid says there seems to be no issues with it. Win. For all you brave souls who own a DROID Charge and want to taste some Gingerbread, follow the link down below and give it a go. There is a chance that this is the final build, but we won’t know for sure until Verizon makes it official. Don’t forget to make backups and read all the directions.

Via: MyDroidWorld