Motorola Droids, Samsung Galaxy Rival iPhone 4Motorola Droids, Samsung Galaxy Rival iPhone 4

A flurry of advanced Android handsets are prepared to rain down on consumers in the coming weeks, starting with the Motorola Droid X / Droid 2 this week and the Samsung Galaxy S next week. Can Apple's new iPhone, which goes on sale June 24, hold them off?

Motorola is prepared to unleash two new Droid handsets in the near future. We know that the Droid X is being introduced by Motorola and Verizon Wireless on June 23. The Droid 2 -- a true sequel to the original Droid -- is also on deck. Based on the data sheets for these devices, they should make for worthy competitors to the iPhone.

The Droid 2 appears to be nearly identical to the original Droid, with a few minor changes to the hardware. Most notably, it lacks the original's directional pad on the keyboard, giving the keyboard itself a little bit more breathing room. It still carries an iPhone-matching 5-megapixel camera and a 3.7-inch display, but there are some major improvements under the hood. The most significant is a major boost in processing power. The Droid 2 ramps up from a 550Mhz processor to a 1GHz TI OMAP3630 processor and 512MB of RAM. That should give it quite a kick in the pants when it comes to performance.

As for the Droid X, we know little, but Verizon has confirmed that it has an 8 megapixel camera, can record video at 720p HD, and has an HDMI out port. The HDMI port alone sets it apart from the iPhone 4, and the 8 megapixel bests the iPhone 4 by 3 megapixels. Are the iPhone 4's other camera-specific improvements enough to negate the Droid X's megapixel advantage?

The other advantage these two devices offer come in the form of Verizon Wireless' network, versus the iPhone's AT&T network.

Samsung isn't sitting out of the high-end smartphone battle. Samsung is hosting a Galaxy-focused event on June 29. It is expected to launch several new Galaxy Android handsets at that event. One of them is potentially the Galaxy S Pro. This device boasts an ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor, Super AMOLED display, 512MB of RAM, 8.2GB of internal storage, a 5 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera, and Android 2.1 with TouchWiz 3.

The killer feature, however, is that the Galaxy S Pro will have WiMax. Yup, 4G. That means it should be Sprint's second 4G WiMax device, joining the HTC EVO 4G.

The real winner here isn't any of the handsets, but the consumer, who is being rewarded with a rich selection of capable devices from a wide range of hardware makers and wireless network operators.