Will Droid X benefit from iPhone 4 havoc?

Droid X, the latest Droid phone from Motorola, is due out on Thursday. For Verizon, the timing is propitious.

On Thursday, Verizon will begin selling the long-awaited – and highly-lauded – Droid X, the newest phone in Motorola's popular Droid line. The Droid X is a powerhouse: It runs Google's Android 2.1 operating system, and ships with an 8 megapixel camera and a huge HD display. David Pogue of the New York Times has even gone so far as to call the Droid X a "speed rocket... It’s impossible to overstate how satisfying it is to use a snappy, responsive gadget."

But let's face it, folks: The Droid X is also launching at the perfect time. As we reported yesterday, HTC, the Taiwanese company that produces the Sprint EVO 4G, has struggled to keep up with consumer demand. Meanwhile, another Droid X competitor, the iPhone 4, has been hit with major reception and "death grip" related complaints. There's even talk of an iPhone 4 recall. (Although we're not totally sold.)

Verizon knows where it stands. It has flooded the market with Droid X promos and purchased at least one full-page advertisement in the New York Times, slamming the iPhone 4. The Droid X, the ad reads, in a clear wink to iPhone 4 death grip, "comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group, told Computerworld this week that Verizon is aiming the adverts for the Droid X at "a younger audience, a bit edgier, even a bit rebellious...clearly not the BlackBerry crowd." This was the case, of course, even for the original Motorola Droid, which was positioned by Verizon as "stealth tech" – a sleek, heavy-duty challenger to the Apple iPhone 4.

Still, if havoc continues to swirl around the iPhone 4, the Droid X won't just have appeal for the younger users. It'll have appeal for everyone.