HTC and Verizon have confirmed the rumours that the second "Droid" handset alongside the Motorola Droid will be called the Droid Eris and be created by HTC. 

The new handset will offer a virtually identical feature set to the Sprint HTC Hero and feature a 3.2-inch multi-touch touchscreen display, 512MB ROM, 288MB RAM and a Qualcomm MSM 7600, 528MHz chip. 

Running Android 1.5 rather than the newly announced 2.0 OS, users will get the Sense UI to guide them through the phones features. 

Differences to the HTC Hero on Sprint will be a smaller battery (1300mAh over 1500mAh) a slightly more rounded design and a matte black rather than silver finish. It will also come with a proximity sensor which turns the touchscreen off when next to your head - something the European and Sprint version doesn't have. It's also thinner (only just).

In the hand it was quick to respond to our requests, and the multi-touch certainly helps it win out over the Droid by Motorola's 2.0 OS, however it's worth mentioning that with no GSM support this will only work in America.

Priced at $99 (the same as the iPhone) Verizon is being very aggressive on this one it seems. The new handset will be available from 6 November in the US.

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