The Droid Charge appears to be having a mid-life crisis, or perhaps an end-of-life crisis. Verizon.com is proudly displaying “Free CHARGE by Samsung” on its homepage. Clicking on it takes you to the device page for the Droid Charge by Samsung, a phone that, at its best, was a high-level midrange device. This means a few different things.

What it means for you: If you want cheap Verizon 4G LTE, don’t waste your money on the ‘budget-priced’ LG Lucid—free beats the pants off $79.99. Second, the Charge is most likely about to hit the end of its proverbial road, as I’m not seeing any “limited time only” stickers on this deal. Considering that it once retailed for $299, free is a pretty hefty drop, unless Verizon is trying to eliminate stock.

So then what does this mean for Verizon regarding the name-change? Either somebody was asleep at the wheel and failed to tag the phone with the Droid brand label, or the Droid brand is being done away with—doubtful—or Verizon is finally admitting that the Charge was never worthy of the Droid label to begin with.

If you’ve never looked at the Charge before, don’t feel bad—there isn’t much to look at. The best part of this deal is Verizon’s Double My Data 4G LTE promotion. The Charge does have a decent 4.3-inch AMOLED Plus screen, but at 480 x 800 pixels, it’s not exactly full HD. The single-core processor clocks in at 1GHz, with only 2GB of internal memory. There is an 8MP 720p rear camera though, and the usual GPS, DLNA, mobile hotspot, and WiFi b/g/n are all included, so for free this isn’t a bad way to do LTE.

[Verizon via Droid Life]