SAN FRANCISCO - Motorola today announced the Droid Pro, the first serious Android smartphone with a Blackberry-like, candybar-with-keyboard form factor.

The Droid Pro, which will come out on Verizon Wireless during the first week of November, is a top-of-the-line device designed for business users, packing world-phone support, a 1-Ghz processor, and lots of enterprise-friendly features.

"The Droid Pro's features offer speed, convenience, and greater productivity for business," Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said.

The phone runs Android 2.2 with various enhancements to support social networking (on one hand) and business services (on the other). Microsoft Exchange support, for example, has been enhanced with support for group free/busy status, out-of-office messages, rescheduling meetings, and more security policies.

As a "with Google" phone, the Droid Pro uses Google rather than Bing as its search engine. Verizon Wireless has been criticized for mandating the Bing search engine on some of its other phones, including the Samsung Fascinate smartphone.

I got some hands-on time with the Droid Pro and I was impressed. The phone feels a bit long, but it's still comfortable in one hand. I've been hearing other pundits call it ugly, but I think that's going way too farsure, it has a bit of a John Kerry-esque long face, but it's perfectly within the realm of decent. The sculpted keys are very easy to tell apart by touch. (RIM uses a similar technique on the BlackBerry Bold).

The phone responded very quickly. The phone's major disappointment, though, is the 320-by-480 screen. While the 3.1-inch screen doesn't look low-res at first glance, it just has less real estate than 854-by-480 phones like the Motorola Droid 2.

The phone runs on Verizon's EVDO Rev A 3G network here in the U.S. and at HSDPA 10.2 speeds abroad. That means it will download data at high speeds all over the world, although Verizon will surely make you pay heavily for the privilege.

Other Droid Pro specs include 2GB memory and a 2GB pre-loaded MicroSD memory card, a 5-megapixel camera, 720-by-480 video recording, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. The phone works as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five devices.

The Motorola Droid Pro was only one of seven new Motorola Android phones shown at CTIA this evening. The lineup also included the new ; the ; the Citrus for Verizon Wireless and the Spice, which will initially be sold in Latin America.