By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK, July 23(Reuters) - Verizon Wireless, the biggestU.S. mobile service provider, on Tuesday announced three newphones under its Droid smartphone brand from Google Inc's Motorola and said that Motorola would be its exclusiveDroid phone vendor going forward.
The phones, the Droid Mini, Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx willgo on sale for $99, $199 and $299 for customers who sign a twoyear contract and will be available in Verizon stores August 20,according to Verizon Wireless.
The latest Droid line-up marks the first phone range thatMotorola has designed since it was bought by Google in 2012. Itwill be followed in little over a week by the Aug. 1 unveilingof the Moto X, a hotly anticipated smartphone from Motorola.
Verizon Wireless and Motorola launched the first phonesunder the Droid brand for phones based on Google Androidsoftware in 2009, at a time when rival AT&T Inc still hadexclusive rights to sell the Apple Inc iPhone.
The Droid brand helped to resuscitate a struggling Motorolaat the time as Verizon Wireless supported the device with amassive marketing campaign.
The exclusivity agreement with Motorola could be a blow forphone makers including HTC Corp, whose devices havealso carried the Droid brand in the past as have devices fromKorea's Samsung Electronics.
Verizon Wireless Vice President of Marketing Jeff Dietelsaid that since Droid phones should only include its "elite"phones based on Google's Android software it wanted amanufacturer "that matched all the expectations" for uniquehardware and services.
Dietel said that his company would still carry Androidphones from vendors besides Motorola.
Rick Osterloh, Motorola's senior vice president of productmanagement, declined to comment on how the upcoming Moto X phonewill differ from Droid phones and who will sell that device.
The lowest price Droid phone the Mini is a compact devicewith a 4.3 inch display. Motorola boasted that its mid-pricedphone in the range, the Ultra, is the skinniest smartphone thatcan run on high-speed Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks.
It claimed that its Maxx phone has the best battery life ofany LTE phone on the market. It can be used for as long as 48hours without being charged, compared with a previous version ofthe device which boasted 32 hours of battery life.
Verizon said the full retail price would be $499 for theMini, $599 for the Ultra and $699 for the Maxx.
Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.
Vodafone (VOD)
