First, there was only a teaser page. Then came an anti-Apple ad which amused the public while industry watchers dissected teasers to uncover device specs. Finally, a premature leak on Motorola’s site spoiled Verizon’s pre-launch hype build-up.

The next day Droid landed on the Boy Genius Report’s desk for the whole world wide web to see. Although the publication played with a pre-production unit that runs beta software, early impressions suggest that Droid is the best Android device yet and the closest thing to an iPhone killer, although it won’t eat the iPhone’s lunch:

The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat.

Hardware specs surely turn heads. Leaked specs from Motorola’s site taught us that Droid will sport a high-res (854×480), 3.7-inch TFT capacitive touch display, the full QWERTY slide-out keyboard, an out-of-the-box support for voice commands, a 5-megapixel camera that records video and stabilizes images, 4x zoom, a dual LED flash, and auto focus.

According to Boy Genius Report, Droid’s metal enclosure hides a 550MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3430 processor, a separate PowerVR GPU, and 256MB of RAM – essentially the same CPU/GPU/RAM combo as in Apple’s iPhone 3GS or Palm’s Pre. Droid supports Verizon’s CDMA Rev A. network, in addition to WiFi

and GPS. It also packs in an impressive range of sensors – accelerometer, digital magnetometer, and proximity sensor.

There’s also a 3.5mm headset jack and a microUSB port. The hardware specs make Android 2.0 sing on this phone, although the product won’t leave similarly spec’ed phones in the dust. The author praised the physical keyboard (”better than the T-Mobile G1’s keyboard”), calling (”the Droid sounds great as a phone”), and Android 2.0 (out-of-the-box Exchange compatibility, a new browser, unified email inbox, voice commands, vice search, the improved Google Maps, better media support).

They even played with Droid’s charging dock/multimedia station, pictured here, that turns the phone into an alarm clock/weather display/music player by using a magnet to control and launch the corresponding application

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And if you had any doubts about the Google-Verizon partnership promoting network openness, the publication claims that Verizon won’t put its branding on the phone or alter the user interface like it does on other smartphones. Finally, Google Voice on Droid and Verizon’s network works “flawlessly.” Boy Genius Report concluded that Droid’s technical advantages should worry the other guys, not Apple:

So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good.

Read more at Boy Genius Report.