Motorola unveils 3 phones under Droid range

                  Verizon Wireless, the biggest US mobile service provider, on Tuesday announced three new phones under its Droid smartphone brand from Google's Motorola and said that Motorola would be its exclusive Droid phone vendor going forward.

                The phones, the Droid Mini, Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx will go on sale for $99, $199 and $299 for customers who sign a two year contract and will be available in Verizon stores August 20, according to Verizon Wireless.

         The Droid brand helped to resuscitate a struggling Motorola at the time as Verizon Wireless supported the device with a massive marketing campaign.

The exclusivity agreement with Motorola could be a blow for phone makers including HTC, whose devices have also carried the Droid brand in the past as have devices from Korea's Samsung Electronics.

           Verizon Wireless vice president of marketing Jeff Dietel said that since Droid phones should only include its "elite" phones based on Google's Android software it wanted a manufacturer "that matched all the expectations" for unique hardware and services.

            Verizon said the full retail price would be $499 for the Mini, $599 for the Ultra and $699 for the Maxx.

        Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group.