Pictures of what purportedly is the upcoming Motorola Tao, also known as Sholes, have appeared online and this would Motorola’s second Android handset if the information is indeed correct.

The bad news, at least for anyone living outside of the US, is that the handset will be sold by Verizon and it uses EV-DO rather than the more wide used WCDMA (3G) technology. It’s said to have a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 256MB of ROM and  possibly 16GB of built in storage memory as well as a 3.7-inch touch screen display with 854×480 resolution.

If these specs are indeed correct, then this would be one of the fastest Android phones to date with the largest and highest resolution display. It also features a 5 Megapixel camera with auto focus and a flash that looks like the real deal rather than the LED lights many phones use. Finally it has a GPS receiver, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, a micro SD card slot, a 3.5mm audio jack, USB connectivity and of course a slide-out keyboard.

The only picture of the keyboard is a tiny one that doesn’t show a lot of detail, but it has a right-side d-pad, similar to that of the Nokia N97. We’re not sold on this keyboard design, but the Tao is said to be a mere 13.7mm thick, which makes it one of the thinnest handsets with a slide out keyboard. It also measures 115.8mm tall and 60mm wide and weighs in at 169g.

The battery is rated at 1,390mAh and is said to be good for 420 minutes talk time or 450h standby time. It also seems like the design has changed slightly since the picture with the keyboard was taken, as the front now has four soft keys rather than three.

You can find some more details by scouring this 70 page plus forum thread. Interestingly it also seems like Google is using the Tao as a demo device for the new Android market in the video below.