If you thought Verizon Wireless was going rest easy with the Motorola Droid launching Friday, you've got another thing coming. Today, Verizon Wireless announced that the HTC Eris -- a.k.a, Hero -- which hits stores November 6, too, for $99.

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Verizon HTC Eris

HTC first announced the Hero device nearly six months ago. That GSM variant isn't available in the U.S., though. Sprint offered up a CDMA version last month, and now it is Verizon's turn.

Verizon and HTC announced the Droid Eris today, which is a monoblock style touch phone that runs HTC's Sense user interface. For my money, the Verizon version of the Hero far outclasses the Sprint one. It's thinner, looks better, and has touch capacitive controls rather than physical buttons for some of the navigation features. It looks sharp and offers all the same features that the other versions of the Hero offer.

That means 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 megapixel camera, video recording, the Android operating system and of course access to the Android Market.

Perhaps the most enticing aspect of the Eris is the price. Verizon is selling it for $99 (after $100 mail-in rebate) with a new two-year agreement. The Droid is selling for $200. The Eris undercuts the Droid by half on pricing.

What do you lose? Well, the Eris runs Android 1.6, and the Droid runs Android 2.0. So all the added features from Android 2.0 in the Droid won't be present in the Eris. However, HTC has said that it is working to bring Android 2.0 to its Hero line of devices, which includes the Eris. HTC hasn't offered a time frame on when this is happening.

The Eris also lacks a physical keyboard, which is something the Droid has. Last, the Eris has a 320 x 480 resolution screen, which doesn't match up to the 480 x 854 resolution screen that the Droid has.

Still, for $99, you're getting a very powerful Android device on a solid wireless network.