The Tour without a camera has the exact same electronics, there is no cheap (and I mean cheap) lens installed, and when these non-camera models were manufactured (no longer manufactured), it was overall as expensive to produce as those with a camera. Just leaving out the cheap camera lens meant nothing but aggravation to the manufacturing process. The wiring was included in both the non-camera and the camera model.
The Tour/Bold prices were marketing decisions. If you are talking the 9000 and 9700 Bolds those were only GSM products. The Tour (9630) was only CDMA with GSM capabilities (including a SIM card), and the newer 9650 is just a Tour, renamed the Bold with more memory/different processor and a different type of trackball; otherwise, it is a Tour. The price differences between the original Tour and the ORIGINAL Bolds (not the 9650) were probably more marketing pricing decisions to keep the same type of phones the same prices between different suppliers. It does not mean they cost the same to manufacture. And it does not mean that if BB and Verizon had marketed two different Tours, one with CDMA only and one with CDMA/GSM the prices would have been the same.
However, will Moto install the dual chips into both models and just leave out the SIM cards? If so, then the price will be almost the same.
All I'm trying to say, since I do not know everything like others do, is that if the dual mode droid costs more to the consumer, then dropping the less expensive droid 2 will be foolish. If they include the same electronics inside the two models and only leave out some programming and the SIM cards, then the price might be almost the same, and cheaper to make only one version.
For my personal application, I do not want to pay more for a GSM capable model on a Verizon network. If and when I go out of the country, I currently have a Tour, supplied by Uncle Sam, which will have the GSM capability required. Of course, with my job a trip overseas is about a million to one, so the GSM part of the Tour will never be used.
But let's face it. No one on here knows for sure what the pricing structure will be (even if they like to think they do), no one knows what internals will be included (even though they think they do), and no one knows for sure if the Droid 2 will even be dropped (like the article implies).
I just posted an article. I'm just a FLEO; not an electronics expert, and I do not sleep in Holiday Inns.
Enough said from me; I'm moving on to more pertinent information for my own personal use since I would never have purchased a Droid 2. I just thought the article was interesting.
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