Verizon Wireless stores will soon have more Droids hanging around than the Mos Eisley spaceport, with the latest of the Star Wars-themed devices hitting the shelves on Friday.

Motorola's Droid 4, the latest incarnation of the original Droid released in November 2009, will cost $199 with a two-year contract. Like its predecessors, the smartphone has a full QWERTY slide-out keyboard, but it now packs a dual-core, 1.2-gigahertz processor and is the latest device capable of surfing Verizon's high-speed, long-term evolution data network.

Droid Fatigue?

The Droid 4, introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is only a half-inch thick.

In addition to Motorola, Samsung and HTC also make Droid devices, which Verizon considers its top-shelf Android-based smartphones, offering a superior user interface.

And the nation's top carrier seems to have no reservations about expanding the lineup on a regular basis, as fast as its partners can make them.

Are they risking Droid fatigue? Not likely, says analyst Charles King of Pund-IT.

"The smartphone audience is large and diverse enough that it can absorb or tolerate more updates and new versions than many product categories, so long as they're properly targeted," King said.

The Droid 4, he said, is aimed at users who prefer slide-out keyboards, while other devices, such as HTC's Droid Incredible, are entirely touchscreen devices.

That doesn't mean, however, that too many similar devices and upgrades can't confuse the market.

"As the success of Apple's iPhone 4S demonstrates, there are huge potential benefits in delivering a new device with a true killer app -- in Apple's case, Siri," King said. "By comparison, simple OS upgrades or nominally improved features can appear a bit dowdy."

No Ice Cream Sandwich, Yet

The Droid 4 won't ship with the latest version of Android, 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, but with 2.3.5, Gingerbread, to be upgraded to Android 4 in the near future.

The touchscreen is a 4-inch qHD display with scratch and scrape-resistant glass, and its equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture and front-facing camera for video chat. Wi-Fi tethering is available for up to eight devices.

In an appeal to business users, Verizon notes that the Droid 4 can plug into a conference room's HDTV for presentations, and it can be combined with a Lapdock 500, with 14-inch screen and webcam to create a full-featured mobile office.

The integration between Motorola Mobility and Android is likely to increase if Google completes its acquisition of the manufacturer.

"The Droid has been a major success for Motorola, and I wouldn't expect Google to do anything to rock the boat," King said. "But over time, we'll likely see ever greater integration between MotoMobile handsets and Google products and services that should allow the devices to be more easily customized, for a variety of consumer and business audiences.

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