You may recall our post about the Droid X2 announcement from the other day. I was somewhat perplexed at the fact that the Droid X [tracking page] and Droid X2 [tracking page] were nearly identical on the outside, except for the fact that the dedicated camera button had been removed. I was wondering why exactly they did this so guess what I did? I asked. Crazy, I know.

Here’s what Motorola had to say about the matter:

Design decision was based on consumer and carrier feedback. Also, when combining the display shutter button and continuous autofocus, it allowed us to deliver much faster camera performance; the DROID X2’s shot-to-shot performance is 44% faster than DROID X.

As I mentioned in the prior post, it looks like Motorola was trying to avoid any major design changes from the Droid X. ‘Consumer feedback’ was likely complaints like mine in our Droid X review that called the camera button out as being wobbly and feeling scarcely attached to the phone. If they were making more significant design changes, I think we would have seen an improved camera button, but it would seem as though removing it was the easier route in this case.

Fortunately users are actually gaining some performance from the removal of the button so it’s not a lose-lose scenario. Increasing the speed in which you can take photos by nearly 50% is nothing to scoff at. And we also now know that the Droid X2 has continuous autofocus, that’s a plus!

So this is interesting. Motorola and Verizon officially announce the Motorola Droid X2 which seems to be a very well speced phone, but the external design appears to be identical to the original Droid X [tracking page][review] except they apparently decided to remove the dedicated camera button. Is that weird to anyone else?

Sure, I complained about the quality of the buttons in my review of the device saying “the volume rocker and lock/power buttons are top-notch in their firmness and clickability, however, the longish camera button could be used as a mini-seesaw and the four front buttons aren’t much to write home about either,” but I was asking for it to be improved, not removed!

The only reason I can think of that would have led to the removal is if Motorola was seeing a high breakage rate on the button – because they didn’t redesign the phone, the button was removed to fix the issue instead of improved. They may have also needed a tiny bit of space inside the phone that would have been saved with the removal of the button, but that seems less likely.

I’m also very surprised to find the Droid X2 lacking a front-facing camera as we don’t often see top-end phones launching without one these days (I blame the lack of redesign).

Anyway, the Droid X2 is here and should be available for purchase online from Verizon by the time you read this. The phone will not surprisingly run you $199 on-contract. The X2 will hit stores a bit later than its online availability; be on the lookout on May 26th for the device in your local Verizon store.

Now what you’re probably really interested in is the specs. The X2 is nearly identical to the Droid X in appearance, but the internals have been beefed up, big time. As usual, these are all official — check it:

• Android 2.2 (with a promised 2.3 update down the road)
• Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU/GPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4.3” “qHD” capacitive touchscreen display @ 960×540 (Gorilla Glass with glare reducing coating)
• 3G EV-DO
• 8MP rear camera with dual-LED flash (captures up to 1280×720 video)
• Micro HDMI-out with 1080p-capable display mirroring
• 8GB of memory onboard, 8GB MicroSD card pre-loaded

Those a the major details, but we’ve got a full page in our database dedicated to tracking detailed specs, links, and more on the Droid X2. Be sure to check it out for additional details. Oh and don’t forget to see the Droid X2 gallery. It wouldn’t hurt to look at our original Droid X gallery as well considering the circumstances….

Looks like there will be an updated version of Motorla’s Android skin included on the X2. On the original Droid X It was one of the first things I found a replacement for from the Android Market, so I really hope they make the widgets more space conscious this time around.