Motorola Droid 3 (Milestone 3) set for launch in China: Can it beat iPhone 5?

Motorola Droid 3 aka Milestone 3 has now officially (and quietly) been launched in China and the slider smartphone sounds and looks sound enough to give the next generation iPhone (dubbed iPhone 5) a run for its money.

Droid 3 (called Milestone 3 in Europe and Asia) boasts of a 4-inch qHD touchscreen display (540x960 resolution), 5-row QWERTY keyboard, Gingerbread (Android 2.3) OS, dual core Tegra 2 processor, rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and digital zoom, front-facing camera for video chat, 1080p HD quality video recording capability, 16GB internal storage (32GB total), Adobe Flash 10 support, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth, preloaded Quick Office, the all-in-one app for word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and true multitasking capability.

The mobile powerhouse, which will begin selling through China Telecom in the mainland in the third quarter of 2011, is thinner and faster than its predecessors and will give the next generation iPhone (dubbed iPhone 5) a run for its money if and when it hits the US market.

iPhone 5, reports say, will be a smartphone on steroids compared to iPhone 4 as it will come with 8 MP camera, A5 processor, a 4-inch display, 1080p output, curved glass screen, a SIM-less design, 3-4 internal antennas for both GSM and CDMA networks and 4G connectivity. The new iOS 5, which is expected to power iPhone 5, is true multitask capable.

Can Droid 3 beat iPhone 5? Not really.

Though the QWERTY keyboard, Adobe Flash 10 support and 4-inch display are likely to swing things in Droid's favor, yet with only 512MB of RAM, Droid 3 is not future proof. Moreover, Droid 3 doesn't have 4G support, which could be a killer blow for Motorola. And, the biggest shock is that Droid 3 will not come with Ice Cream Sandwich OS, the much awaited mobile Android OS that combines the best of Gingerbread OS (for smartphones) and Honeycomb OS (for tablets). Trust Motorola to goof up somewhere!

In conclusion, Droid 3 could have been a bazooka but will probably end up being a pop-gun. And that's heart-breaking.