Rumorville: Will the $99 HTC Droid Eris be Verizon's "Hero" on Friday?

Word has it that the Motorola Droid won't be the only Android phone debuting on Verizon Wireless this week.

Engadget got its hands on some leaked documents claiming that the HTC Droid Eris—a re-branded version of the Android-powered HTC Hero, which is already available on Sprint—will launch Nov. 6, the same day as the hyped Motorola Droid (see my Droid hands-on right here).

The Hero, if you'll recall, is one of the sexiest-looking Android handsets on the market, with a slim 0.5-inch profile, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a five-megapixel camera (same as on the Droid), a 3.5mm headset jack, and HTC's new "Sense" user interface (good for one-touch access to your messages, contacts, music, and photos, along with live news, weather, and Twitter widgets, plus Facebook support for the address book).

The Hero lacks the Droid's slide-out QWERTY keypad, but it's also much lighter as a result—just 4.5 ounces, compared to about six ounces for the Droid.

Anyway, the leaked documents over at Engadget claim that the Hero—er, the Droid Eris—will arrive Friday on Verizon for $99 with a two-year contract and a $100 mail-in (ugh) rebate, compared to the $180 two-year contract price on Sprint.

The Droid Eris—assuming the rumors are true, of course—looks like a nice alternative for those who want an Android-based smartphone on Verizon without the added bulk of the Droid's slide-out QWERTY keypad (which is only so-so anyway, if you ask me) ... but there's a catch.

The Moto Droid runs on version 2.0 of Google's Android platform, which adds a series of interface and browser enhancements, along with layer support for Google Maps (which lets you quickly spot the nearest restaurants, ATMs, gas stations, etc.), native support for Facebook and corporate Exchange e-mail accounts, and—best of all—Google's free turn-by-turn GPS navigation app.

Nice, right? However, most believe that the Droid Eris will arrive on Verizon running on Android 1.5 ... which, among other things, means no free Google Navigation app.

That's a bummer, but HTC has already announced that it's working on an Android 2.0 update for the Hero, which (one would think) would work for the (rumored) Droid Eris as well. No word on when the Hero's Android 2.0 update will be fully baked.

Related:
Leaked docs show HTC's DROID Eris launching on November 6th for $99, running Android 1.5 [Engadget]