The good:
- The BlackBerry Bold 9900 has a polished design, a svelte form, a sharp touch-screen display, a wonderful QWERTY keyboard and an impressive performance.
- It comes with notable features such as a 1.2GHz processor, the new BlackBerry OS 7 and NFC support.
- Photo quality is amazing.

The bad:
- It has very limited app store.
- The call quality is slightly flawed.
- It’s high price tag can be a deterrent to many.

Price T-Mobile has priced the Bold 9900 at $299.99 after a $50 rebate and two-year agreement. You can purchase it from other phone retailers with prices starting from $199.99 up to $624.98.

Design
Research In Motion changed a bit the design of this form factor phone, eliminating the leatherette back for a carbon fiber panel and the shiny chrome strip for an iPhone 4-aping stainless steel band. The edges of the back have a soft touch matt black plastic finish and every detail seems to just fit perfectly. A sleek and svelte premium handset features a larger display (a 2.8-inch, 640 x 480 display with sharper and more vibrant colors) and roomier keyboard, an AC adapter, a USB cable and a belt holster. On the right edge, you can find the volume buttons, a play/pause button and a camera button, while on the left side there’s the microUSB socket and the headphone jack.

Features
In terms of features, this handset bears a striking resemblance to the 9930, but it still has a few important differences. The Bold 9900 for T-Mobile supports T-Mobile’s “4G” network, includes a few preinstalled T-Mobile applications, but it lacks the dual-mode GSM/CDMA chipset of the Bold 9930. Under its hood, you will find a modest 1230mAh battery, a microSD card to boost the phone’s 8GB of inbuilt storage with up to 32GB more and the newest BlackBerryOS 7.0, which brings several updates. These updates include the Liquid Graphics technology for better graphics and responsiveness of the touch screen, a faster Web browser with HTML 5 video support, voice-activated universal search, augmented-reality apps and NFC support.
The handset has a few T-Mobile preinstalled apps, such as the T-Mobile Mall and its own Web2go Web browser.
The BlackBerry Bold 9990 has an average battery life, an estimated talk time of 6.6 hours and up to 12.8 days of standby time.

Performance
Call quality is good, but not flawless, voice quality can sometimes be a little bit distorted, speakerphone calls are quite good with the usual echo effect, but the data speeds are faster due to the 1.2GHz processor that makes the navigation smoother and quicker.

Conclusion
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is one of the best form factor smartphone you can find on the market. With all its goods and bads, you either love it or hate it, but for most smartphone fans, this handset will remain on their wish list for a long time, as its high price can surely make you to step back and go for a cheaper top smartphone.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 Trailer

Camera
The LG Optimus 4X HD packs a 8-megapixel camera and a variety of features. The user has access to autofocus, touch focus, a 15x digital zoom, geotagging, a flash, face tracking, a timer, HDR imaging, panoramic shooting and continuous shooting. It has seven image sizes (ranging from 1,536×864p to 3,264×2,448p), five scene modes (normal, portrait, landscape, sports, and night), five white balances (auto, incandescent, sunny, fluorescent, and cloudy), an exposure meter of -2 to +2, four color effects (none, mono, sepia, and negative) and four ISO options (100, 200, 400, and auto). If this didn’t impress you, the camera also comes with a time machine mode, enabling the user to take pictures a few moments before pressing the camera.
The cameras can also record, the user being able to choose from six video sizes, ranging from full HD 1080p to QCIF. But what’s even more interesting is that the snapper can distort your face while the video records thanks to a mode that is usually seen only on tablets or it can even change your background.
Moreover, there’s a front-facing camera with the same options but with only three sizes (ranging from 640×480p to 1,280×960p) and two scene modes (normal, and night). Unfortunately, this front-facing camera has fewer options for video recording but it keeps the “silly faces” and background modules.

Features
The LG Optimus 4X HD has so many wonderful features that it’s tough to write about them in a specific order. What’s important is that it runs on the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, and packs all the Google goodies the user may want, such as Maps with Navigation, Places, Talk, and YouTube, Gmail, Search, Plus, Latitude, Play Store and Messenger.
It runs on 1.5GHz quad-core processor and Nvidia Tegra 3, which is unprecedented for a smartphone, Near-Field Communication chip, or NFC, that enables the smartphone to wirelessly communicate with other NFC-enabled devices. It dubs Android Beam, allowing the user to wirelessly transfer browser pages and contacts between devices by simply touching the 4X HD’s back with another device that has Beam too.
The handset has three Tag+ stickers for Office, Sleep, and Car mode that let the user enjoy the NFC feature, three preloaded games - ShadowGun, Samurai II: Vengeance, and Dark Kingdom, basic task-management features including texting, e-mail, a memo pad, Bluetooth, a Web browser, a calendar, a clock with alarm settings, a calculator, and a voice recorder.
Wi-Fi hot-spot and gesture support are also amongst features, followed by LG’s newest user interface, the Optimus UI 3.0 and plenty of apps, including RemoteCall, SmartShare, SmartWorld etc.

Bottom line
It has an incredibly zippy quad-core processor, NFC capabilities, Android 4.0 and a stunning HD-IPS LCD display, so the LG Optimus 4X HD is a top smartphone that will make everyone who doesn’t own it jealous of those who proudly display it.

LG Optimus 4X HD Video

Size and weight
The Galaxy Beam measures 123 x 59.8 x 14.9 mm and weighs 156g.

Display
This smartphone has a 3.7 inches multitouch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors, 480 x 800 pixels and about 252 ppi pixel density. It is made of scratch-resistant glass; it has projector UI and handwriting recognition.

Projector
The man who is behind this handset must be a genius as this projector is much more than a convenient smartphone for business travelers. Several applications including projecting images, hosting an impromptu movie night or beaming branding materials onto walls make this projector unique.
In addition, the bright projection bulb beams out 15 lumens, over passing any other previous attempts at projector phones that topped out at 10 lumens. The Texas Instruments-made DLP (digital light projector) can display images up to 50 inches wide at a 640×360-pixel resolution, while something called ambience mode can be set to play an image and song of your choice for minutes or hours. Everything is adjustable, the screen time-out, the brightness, the screen orientation, the flashlight, and so on.

Camera
Galaxy Beam’s 5-megapixel rear-facing camera allows the user to take some pretty good photos even in abundant light. The phone comes with an LED flash, so outdoors photos are better than indoor shots. You can set everything, from white balance, ISO, metering, to resolution. You can even set the camera to shoot portraits or landscapes, to shoot at night or to turn photos into negatives, grayscale, or sepia. There’s no continuous focus on the Galaxy Beam’s camera and you cannot access as many video settings, but you can still video record at 720p HD. You can film shorter videos or you can turn the camera on yourself for video taken out of the front-facing camera.

Features
The smartphone has 8GB of internal memory but it is 32GB expandable through a microSD card slot.
The battery life is very impressive, due to a 2,000mAh ticker, which provides 3 hours of solid beaming. The LED bulb in the projector itself has a life span of about 20,000 hours.
It runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread and packs the basics - a clock, a calendar, a calculator, and a music player, an FM radio, the standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, mapping, search, and communication features for text, e-mail, and multimedia messaging, Google’s services including voice Navigation, Places, and YouTube.
The handset also has Swype as a virtual keyboard option and several apps such as AllShare for sharing content across DLNA devices, Kies Air for sharing content wirelessly between the computer and phone, ChatOn, a photo editor, Mini Diary, Polaris Office and Samsung hubs.

The bottom line
Though it doesn’t run on the latest version of Android, is thicker and heavier than many of today’s smartphones, has a weak software and its camera would need an update, the Samsung Galaxy Beam is a worthy standalone device. That’s because it comes at a fair price and it offers a bright projector that pushes boundaries.

Samsung Galaxy Beam Video

Build
With a minimalist design, the Panasonic Eluga is very slim, 7.8mm and its featherweight is of 103g, which makes this smartphone with a 4.3-inch screen that goes very close to the edge of the phone, one of the high-end phones to be released this year. It has silver Android buttons with white lights alongside, a very narrow speaker grill at the top of the body, the power and volume buttons are on the edge of the back of the body, while the 8-megapixel camera lens dominates the matt black reverse.

Screen
The phone has a decent 4.3-inch QHD screen with a 960 x 540-pixel resolution and 256 pixels per inch display, which makes it fall behind Sony Xperia S that allows 342 pixels per inch.

Features
The Eluga Power will hit the market packing Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and a 8 megapixel camera with no flash. It will not have the same zip as some other Ice Cream Sandwich phones when scrolling through home screens, but the camera will open fast. The snapper features 8x zoom that works well, but this is under the standards of the 12 megapixel Sony Xperia S camera and flash.
It will also have 8GB of internal storage, which is a little disappointing regarding the fact that its competitors, such as the Sony Xperia S offer 32GB as standard. However, there’s a MicroSD card input of up to 32GB.

Probably one of the most impressive features is that Eluga is dustproof and waterproof despite its non-rugged surface. For example, if you put the phone in 30 cm of water for 20 minutes you’ll notice the phone works just fine, so if you’re a regular surfer or a beach fan, you can use this phone while submerged with no worry.

Performance
The Panasonic Eluga packs a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4, 1GB of RAM, NFC technology and 8MP camera with full HD (1080p) video recording. At first, it was said to support only quadband GSM and 2100/900MHz UMTS connectivity, but now FCC documents reveal additional 3G support for the 850MHz spectrum. Furthermore, the phone charges superfast, around 50% of the battery in 30mins and 80% in 57 minutes, though the battery is pretty small (1150 mAh) in comparison to Xperia S’s battery (1750 mAh).

Price and availability
The smartphone is already available in UK for the price tag of £399 but it will soon hit the US shore with a price tag of about $790.

Verdict
Panasonic Eluga Power is a smartphone that looks great, screams business and feels good in the hand, but that may turn out to be a bad investment for those used only to high-end smartphones, as the overall user experience is poor. After all, this phone is not flawless; the manufacturer still has a long way to go until it can make perfect Android devices.

Panasonic Eluga Power Video

Look
One X looks like no other HTC phones. It’s not thick, curvy or heavy. It’s thin (8.9mm thick) and looks stunning probably because the manufacturer gave up the metal and used polycarbonate plastic for the shell, just like Nokia did with its N9 and Lumia 800. The edges are curved thanks to the glossy scratch-resistant ‘Gorilla Glass’ 4.7-inch touchscreen display with a sharp 1280 by 720 pixel resolution. On top of the phone, you can find a 3.5 mm audio port and an iPhone-like micro SIM tray slot, while the micro USB is placed on the left and the volume key on the right.

Main features
The new phone from HTC runs on Google’s latest Android 4.0 software, aha Ice Cream Sandwich and it runs on AT&T’s 4G LTE service for faster downloads and music and video streaming. Moreover, on top of Android, HTC One X offers a customized UI, in fact the latest version of Sense UI: Sense 4.0.
The main, and why not the best feature of this phone, is its 8.0 megapixel camera. HTC One X is in fact as an imaging centric smartphone with one of the biggest apertures (f/2.0) seen on camera phones. It comes with a backside illuminated sensor and a dedicated processor ImageChip, a burst mode that takes 20 shots in one go, 720p videos and a second VGA lens for chat and Dropbox integration (meaning that photos or videos can be set to automatically be uploaded to the cloud).
In addition, Qualcomm’s new dual-core 1.5 Ghz Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor that outguns its quad-core Tegra 3 rival powers the phone.

HTC One X will hit the US AT&T stores with plenty of pre-loaded apps like Mirror, TineIn Radio, Weather, SoundHound, PDF Viewer and Polaris Office, as well as the Teeter game and its services Watch and Hub.

Release
AT&T revealed two months ago that HTC One X will be available for purchase beginning with March, but the American network reconsidered the date and officially announced the new phone will hit the shelves on May 6th.

Price
AT&T didn’t revealed the price of the phone, but if you have no patience until next month to find out whether you can afford it, you can order the HTC One X online, on certain websites that offer this smartphone unlocked, meaning you can use it with any SIM card, for a price ranging between $320 and $700.

HTC One X Video

Looks
The materials are not the top materials used for Android or iPhones but this doesn’t mean they are cheap. It has a rubbery grip on the back for good hold, it’s stylish thanks to its 3.7-inch screen with a decent resolution of 800×480, which is sufficiently for most people but not for those used with using top phones.

Operating System
Nokia Lumia 710 runs the Windows 7.5 (aka Mango) operating system, which competes with the two giants on the US market. It’s totally different than the OS used by iPhones and Android phones but it is equally of high quality. For instance, one difference is that the apps don’t appear on the screen as icons, but as a list, which doesn’t affect running them. Unfortunately, you don’t have access to so many apps in the Windows Marketplace as you would have in the Android Market. Overall, Lumia’s OS is a matter of preference.

Web browsing
Being a Microsoft system, the phone uses Internet Explorer and Bing for searches but the web browsing speed is very fast. The phones comes with 4G network compatibility so the speed of downloads via T-Mobile’s 4G is extremely fast, crashing down other competitors from this point of view.
Other features

Nokis Lumia 710 comes with Bluetooth, GPS, the usual calendar tools, alarm and calculator, voice commands, you can watch live TV (only if you pay for the T-Mobile TV option), battery span is decent. You can also use Microsoft Outlook, Xbox Live and Hotmail and edit Microsoft Word and Excel docs.

Pros
- Works with your corporate e-mail exchange server;
- Good management of calendar events;
- It features predictive text input;
- People Hub;
- Netflix, which allows you to watch films on your Lumia 710 if you have a Netflix account, though this app drains the battery more than any other apps;

Cons
- It doesn’t support Flash videos;
- The storage capacity is low, of only 8GB;
- Average snapper of 5 megapixels to shoot 720p HD videos;
- No camera for video chat

Price
* $39.99 for online purchase with a 2-year contract
* $349.99 without contract.

Nokia Lumia 710 Video

Design
At a first glance, one may wonder if LG Optimus Vu is a smartphone or a tablet. In fact is a little bit of both because it can be used either as a phone or as a tablet. As LG spokespersons declared to the press, this new smartphone “offers a unique combination of tablet-like viewing with smartphone portability.” It’s much wider than any other mobile on the market more massive than Samsung Galaxy Note. It has a 5-inch display with 4:3 aspect ratio which makes cruising around websites and reading eBooks an amazing experience that cannot be offered by any other smartphone in the world. Vu is only 8.5mm deep and 90.4mm wide but it’s not a phone that can fit into your pocket. The casing is not extraordinary but it’s thin and light and everything looks brighter and colorful on its 5.0-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1,024×768 pixels and which works with a capacitive stylus (not as advanced as Samsung Galaxy Note’s “S-Pen” stylus).

Hardware
The Optimus Vu contains a 1.5GHz dual core CPU, a gigabyte of RAM, a microSD card slot for extra storage and 32GB of on-board storage, which seem to justify the high price. The new smartphone also comes with an 8-megapixel snapper and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.

Software
For now, the Vu runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but LG promised an update as soon as possible so when the smartphone hits the US shores would run on Android version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The phone will also include several LG exclusive features such as “QuickClip hotkey” at the top of the device that brings up a menu to capture screenshots, draw on them or share through multiple sources.

Price and availability
LG Optimus Vu is available for purchase in LG’s homeland only and for the price of 999,900 won (900 US dollars). However, American retailers such as AT&T and Verizon are negotiating contracts for the phone to hit the US stores as soon as possible at a more reasonable price.

Likes
- The large 2080mAh battery
- LTE (4G)
- The camera
- The wide screen

Dislikes
- Android 2.3
- The capacitive stylus
- The high price

LG Optimus Vu Video

Furthermore, BlackBerry Cool posted an article recently, reading that the BlackBerry 9800 would be in fact the whipped cream of the event, especially because the BlackBerry OS 6 logo can be seen on the invites sent out to media. Besides, everyone expects the device to come packed with the mobile phone maker’s new BlackBerry 6 operating system, regardless of its final name, whether it will be called BlackBerry 9800 Slider or BlackBerry Torch, as some rumor addicts spread the word. The way the organizers are preparing the event and the way things are supposed to be, reminds us a lot of the last year’s release of BlackBerry Bold 9700.
In addition, a video appeared on YouTube showing the device in action. If you see tis video, you surely agree the phone looks impressive. The 9800 is expected to have a 3.2-inch touchscreen boasting a 360×480 resolution. The handset should arrive sporting the popular BlackBerry QWERTY, though in a sliding form factor this time and the camera is expected to have auto-focus and flash, with five megapixels being suggested. Wi-Fi, GPS, EDGE, and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP should also be available on the upcoming handset.
However, it seems that the device will not be launched only in the United States. According to BBLeaks, users of Vodafone UK may soon also be able to get their hands on it as well. But this will probably happen later in fall, in September or October. The source of the rumor also points out Telefonica, Orange, T-Mobile UK and O2 are currently testing as well.
But after all, nothing is certain for the time being. Only August 3 should make things clear for everyone.