TECHNO WORLD

SAMSUNG Y GALAXY

2012-07-30T15:41:00.001-07:00

THE DARK NIGHT

2012-07-30T15:36:00.001-07:00

GIFT CARD OF AMAZON.COM

2012-07-30T15:10:00.001-07:00

iPhone 4 / 4S Anti-Glare, Anti-Scratch, Anti-Fingerprint - Matte Finishing Screen Protector

2012-07-30T14:33:00.002-07:00

YOU CAN PURCHASE THIS SMART PHONE BY AMAZON.COM

Kindle Fire Wi-Fi, Full Color 7" Multi-Touch Display

2012-07-30T14:08:00.001-07:00

Apple iPad MD328LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, White) NEWEST MODEL

2012-07-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

Apple iPad MD328LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, White) NEWEST

Instagram soars to 80M users, 4B photos

2012-07-28T01:44:00.004-07:00

More than just an insta-success, Instagram announced Thursday that it has surpassed 80 million users who are sharing photos with friends via its iPhone and Android apps.

The nearly two-year-old photo-sharing and filtering service, the property of Facebook pending close of that deal, is also celebrating nearly 4 billion photos shared.

The milestones are quite remarkable and demonstrate that the mobile photo phenom can maintain its red-hot status as a Facebook property.

Instagram added more than 50 million users since it released an Android application in early April, which was also just days before Facebook revealed its intentions to snatch up the burgeoning service. The two major events have clearly contributed to the app’s continued success and growth.

“The combination of Android and network effects as more people use Instagram mean that we’re able to grow faster now more than ever,” Instagram creator Kevin Systrom told VentureBeat. Systrom also said that Instagram still has “some pretty fun things in the pipeline.”

The revelations also came just ahead of Instagram’s almost-owner’s second quarter earnings announcement. Facebook is expected to beat Wall Street’s estimates of $1.15 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $0.12. The social network is looking to rewrite its rather depressing financial narrative with a strong second quarter.

Apple buys fingerprint sensor company AuthenTec

2012-07-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

Expect integrated security to be a much more prominent feature in future iOS devices, Mac computers, and networking hardware. Apple today announced that it has bought AuthenTec, makers of a wide variety of security solutions, for around $356 million.

AuthenTec boasts that it has shipped over 100 million fingerprint sensors, which includes sensors in more than 15 million phones. Apple paid $8 a share for AuthenTec, a 58 percent premium over the company’s $5.07 stock price on Thursday.

AuthenTec also offers integrated security chips for smartphones, which can encrypt data and make mobile devices more enterprise-ready, as well as network security solutions.

While Apple’s most likely use of AuthenTec’s technology will be in the iPhone and iPad, there seems to be plenty of room throughout its product lines to beef up security. And as more Mac and iOS security vulnerabilities come to light, Apple will need a new way to maintain its security reputation.
“This is a blocking move by Apple in the tablets/notebooks space,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst and founder at J. Gold Associates. “AuthenTec’s major business is fingerprint sensors. Most all of the notebook vendors use their chips for log in/authentication. Looks like Apple wants to sew up that market. I see this less of a phone play, as there is virtually no fingerprint sign in on phones (it was tried in the past by HP and BB but the users didn’t like it). While AuthenTec does make other chips (like NFC) I see this as much less of an issue for the device manufacturers as there is ample supply from other vendors on this.”
“I don’t think any long term contract for AuthenTec products will be affected if the manufacturer already have them in place,” Gold added. “But clearly this will put Apple at the head of the queue for any new products or custom products, and also at the head of the queue for delivery if there is any issue with supply. With all the cash on hand, this is a pretty small purchase for Apple that assures some supply for them – nice insurance policy.”

GOOGLE INFO

2012-07-28T00:48:00.002-07:00

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. By 1996, they had built a search engine (initially called BackRub) that used links to determine the importance of a individual webpages.

Founded
1998
Founders
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Incorporation
September 4, 1998
Initial public offering (NASDAQ)
August 19, 2004
Headquarters
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View
CA 94043

Larry Page, our co-founder and CEO, once described the “perfect search engine” as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.” Since he spoke those words Google has grown to offer products beyond search, but the spirit of what he said remains. With all our technologies—from search to Chrome to Gmail—our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to find the information you need and get the things you need to do done.

This means making search smarter and faster, so it can understand that when you type [jaguar] you’re looking for the car, not photos of the animal. It means showing you when your friends like an ad or a search result, so that you know it might be valuable. It means making our products work intuitively, so that you can share documents with Gmail contacts without having to copy and paste, and open the same tabs on your Android phone that you have open on your Chrome browser on your desktop. Above all, it means making our products work better so that people can spend time on the stuff they’re good at—like enjoying time with family, camping in the wilderness, painting a picture or throwing a party. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.
We provide a variety of tools to help businesses of all kinds succeed on and off the web. These programs form the backbone of our own business; they’ve also enabled entrepreneurs and publishers around the world to grow theirs. Our advertising programs, which range from simple text ads to rich media ads, help businesses find customers, and help publishers make money off of their content. We also provide cloud computing tools for businesses that save money and help organizations be more productive.

We build products that we hope will make the web better—and therefore your experience on the web better. With products like Chrome and Android, we want to make it simpler and faster for people to do what they want to online. We’re also committed to the open web, so we’re involved in various projects to make it easier for developers to contribute to the online ecosystem and move the web forward. The web has evolved enormously since Google first appeared on the scene, but one thing that hasn't changed is our belief in the endless possibilities of the Internet itself.

Twitter blames on data center

2012-07-28T00:19:00.000-07:00

LONDON — Twitter blamed systems failures — not a crush of traffic around the Olympic games — for an outage on Thursday that saw people around the world experience problems accessing the micro blogging site for more than an hour.

The San Francisco-based company said the outage was caused by a “noteworthy” double failure in its data centers. When one system fails, a parallel one is meant to take over, but two systems coincidentally stopped working at around the same time, Twitter said.

“I wish I could say that today’s outage could be explained by the Olympics or even a cascading bug,” Mazen Rawashdeh, VP of engineering, said in a statement apologizing to users. “Instead, it was due to this infrastructural double-whammy.”

He apologized for giving its users “zilch” instead of the service, saying the company is “investing aggressively” in its systems to avoid a repeat situation.

Visitors to the site on Thursday were greeted with a half-formed message saying that “Twitter is currently down.” The fields where a reason for the outage and a deadline for restoring service were apparently meant to go were filled with computer code.

Sluggishness or outages were reported for more than an hour in countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some users were able to post updates through their phones or third-party applications.

Tweets about the Olympic torch, which is wending its way through central London, still poured in, albeit far more slowly than earlier in the day.

When the Olympics open in London on Friday there is expected be an even bigger spike in use of the micro-blogging site.

While the site was affected Thursday, many self-proclaimed “Twitter refugees” flooded Facebook with complaints about Twitter. As usual following outages,

“WhileTwitterWasDown” was one of the most-talked about topics on Twitter in the United States. Users cracked jokes about their regained productivity as a result of the downtime — or going outside to get some sunshine.

Twitter said in March that it has more than 140 million active users and that the service sees 340 million Tweets a day.

It was once notorious for its down times, but has since improved its performance. Still, the sheer popularity of the site — and its heavy use by up-to-the-second journalists — mean that even modest outages quickly become news. In June, Twitter experienced problems that lasted about two hours. The company blamed a technical glitch.

Social networking sites are expected o receive an unprecedented surge of activity by sports fans during the Olympics. At the recent UEFA European Football Championship final, users fired off more than 15,000 tweets per second, setting a sports-related record for the site.

Social media users were already complaining about an earlier outage that affected Google’s chatting services. The Mountain View, California-based company said Thursday morning that the majority of users were seeing error messages and unable to use its Google Talk service. The issues were resolved five hours later.

Androids v/s Apples

2012-07-28T00:11:00.002-07:00

It has been awhile since I spent some quality time in Android. While I was away, it appears we have both changed. First of all, Jelly Bean still feels less polished than the iOS devices that I spend the majority of my time with. But the gap has narrowed substantially. Significant technical shortcomings have mostly balanced out, and now the difference often is a matter of personal taste.

Apple is comfortable giving you a device that unapologetically says, “No, you can’t do that,” and then tries to make you feel guilty for desiring that thing — whatever it is — in the first place. Then, perhaps, a future version of Apple hardware or software will offer it. The company did this with the App store, even allowing Facebook on 3G. Indeed, each new version has a handful of features that you knew you needed a year ago. You just had to wait.
Android works the other way. It says “yes” to everything, but rare is the app that shows the polish of the best-in-breed iOS app. Out of the box, my Android had two e-mail clients: one e-mail client and a Gmail client. But neither works as nicely as their iOS doppelganger. I get a back arrow on the bottom edge of my machine (a lovely consideration not available in iOS), but most apps provide a somewhat redundant step-back user interface element in the upper left corner. It’s inconsistent and clumsy. It seems crazy to me that, on the iPhone, I get a physical “home” button that does different things depending on the context, while on Android I get a virtual button that does the same thing even when that same thing means doing nothing at all.

In the last year, however, the apps have changed the most. And, in this case, I can definitely say it’s not you; it’s me. I’m not a big app buyer. My iPad has probably $30-$40 worth of random games, almost entirely purchased on a whim to entertain my kid. In some cases, a $3 app has resulted in dozens of hours of pleasure for him, for me, and best of all, for us together.

Almost every one of those games is also available on Google Play (the Android equivalent to the Apple App Store). But I already bought these games once, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to actually buy them again. The tablets and phones that I touch for hours every day cost hundreds of dollars, but I’m locked in not to the object, but to the proportionately insignificant investment in apps.

I see a couple of possibilities: Give cross-platform app users a free code to transfer from one platform to “all.” My iPhone apps were universalized so that they could be used on iPads. I’m not sure how much revenue would be lost by App makers in this process. Although, clearly, the biggest winner in this scenario would be Google.

The decision to migrate from one platform to another might not simply be a large volume of apps, or even the financial investment in them. Some apps just don’t have a counterpart. The iOS-only Google Reader front end Byline is one such case. The app is very nearly perfect. Universal and usable on all sizes of iOS device, it allows me to breeze through hundreds of RSS news items per day in a way that no other client I’ve tried can touch. It only lacks one thing: a better “share” function that includes Google+ and lets me broadcast to Twitter at the same time.

Byline costs $2.99, but I use it more than any other app on my phone. So far the best Android competitor I’ve found is gReader, but it simply isn’t as refined. This is likely just a matter of maturity. On iOS, there is a plethora of apps with consistent user interfaces. A developer has had more time to fine-tune their product, and there is a general body of work to serve as a benchmark.

Android simply feels inconsistent by comparison. Icons seem oddly sized. Labels are inconsistently applied. These subtle changes start at the core operating system and extend out to the app ecosystem. I expect, in a few years, we’ll see things reigned in a little more.

The question is, by that time, will I have accumulated another couple hundred bucks worth of iTunes App Store purchases, further locking me into their far more closed option? For now, I think I’ll be sticking with my iPad and iPhone. But I no longer can blindly make that recommendation to family members considering a purchase.

Why it’s not easy being Mark Zuckerberg

2012-07-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

By almost any measure, Facebook is one of the most successful technology companies of the past half a century or so. It has close to a billion active users, and more than half a billion of them access the giant social network daily — and in just eight years, the company has grown from a tiny startup into a virtual colossus with annual revenues of about $4 billion. Unfortunately for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, that kind of growth creates some fairly astronomical expectations for the future, and on Thursday the company got a quick lesson in what happens when you don’t meet those kinds of expectations, after it released its first quarterly earnings report as a public company.

As my GigaOM colleague Ki Mae reported, Facebook’s results met or exceeded analysts’ consensus estimates for the quarter in most areas: the company reported revenue of just over $1 billion — an increase of 32 percent from the same period in 2011 — and its adjusted earnings were $295 million, right on target with estimates (in strict financial terms, it reported a loss of $157 million, as a result of one-time expenses for stock awarded to employees). And it reported advertising revenue of almost $1 billion, up 28 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Its user base grew by 32 percent to 995 million.

For investors, meeting estimates wasn’t enough

For any other company, that kind of performance would have blown the doors off and the stock would have rocketed upwards — Amazon reported that its earnings dropped during the most recent quarter, and the stock actually went up. But Facebook’s stock, which is already down substantially from the IPO price of $38, slid by more than 11 percent after-hours to $24.

The biggest problem, as a number of analysts noted in the wake of the earnings report, is that despite the drop since the initial offering, Facebook’s shares are still priced for perfection — trading at a multiple of revenues that assumes dramatic growth for the foreseeable future. It may seem perverse, but with that kind of expectation built into your stock, the only way to keep it from falling when you report your results is to significantly exceed estimates, something other high-growth companies such as Apple have become good at doing.Many analysts and shareholders probably weren’t even paying attention to the year-over-year numbers — they were looking at the quarter-over-quarter numbers, and some of those looked underwhelming for a stock that is valued so highly: revenue of $1.18 billion, for example, wasn’t much higher than the $1.06 billion that Facebook brought in for the first quarter. And even the year-over-year numbers weren’t all that impressive to many, since they showed that Facebook’s growth rate continues to slow.

It’s also worth noting that Facebook advised analysts during the run-up to its initial public offering that they needed to revise their expectations downwards (something that caused a certain amount of controversy, since that advice was given only to brokerage firms and not to the general public) so in a sense it’s not really surprising that the company managed to meet those revised estimates.

To make matters worse, Facebook reiterated during its earnings call on Thursday some of the bad news that it provided to analysts during the IPO roadshow, including a less-than-positive forecast about its ability to monetize its growing mobile audience.

During his brief comments before the main part of the earnings call began, Zuckerberg said that mobile was one of the key areas that the company needed to focus on. But in the financial part of the call, CFO David Ebersman admitted that the volume of ads that Facebook served in the quarter actually declined in the most recent quarter by 2 percent, because more users accessed the site via a mobile device and the company’s ad program for mobile isn’t fully built out yet.

The bottom line for Mark Zuckerberg is that the stock market has no interest in what you did yesterday, or last year, or how quickly your company grew from a four-man startup in a Harvard dorm room into a globe-spanning colossus. All it cares about is how fast you are growing right now — and even more important, how fast you will be growing in a year or two. If the numbers that you provide don’t exceed those rosy expectations, then you are in a tight spot, and that is where Facebook finds itself today.

Facebook stock sinks, so who’s buying? Investors with time to wait

2012-07-27T23:51:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK — Investors are dumping Facebook’s stock, spooked by slowing revenue growth, the lack of a financial outlook and plans to spend more money in the coming months.

Only if they are thinking in the short term. Investors can expect Facebook’s stock to be volatile for a few years. But analysts say those willing to wait will likely be rewarded — someday.

“I view it as a tomorrow stock,” says Christian Bertelsen, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Global Financial Private Capital.

“The whole thing on Facebook is, look, if your time horizon is hourly, weekly or even monthly, this is not the stock for you,” he adds. “You need to take a much longer-term view on it.”

That’s about three or four years, he says.

Founded in CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room in 2004, Facebook was a product of the PC era. Now, in the age of mobile computing, a growing number of people are accessing Facebook through their iPhones, Android gadgets and tablet computers. Yet Facebook is only now starting to figure out how to make money from its mobile audience.

“The company is going through an almost painful transition from desktop to mobile,” Baird analyst Colin Sebastian says.

He calls Facebook “a speculative investment,” but one with plenty of potential.

“With almost one billion users, Facebook is amassing the most comprehensive user profile database in existence,” Sebastian says. This, he adds, offers a “significant opportunity” to reap a big chunk of the global advertising market, which is currently at $500 billion a year.

“Amazon comes to mind immediately,” Bertelsen says.

After that company went public in 1997, at the time mainly just an online bookstore, critics were quick to cry dot-com bust, call its business a broken, and so on. Today, it is the world’s biggest online retailer, selling everything from DVDs to vacuum cleaners to Web storage.

“Now they are the retailer to the world,” he adds.

Galaxy Nexus BY SAMSUNG

2012-07-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

When Google introduced the Galaxy Nexus into the Play Store at just $349 -- with a full warranty, mind you -- the smartphone immediately became the no-brainer decision in the unlocked scene. Unlike most handsets, the Galaxy Nexus includes a pentaband HSPA+ 21Mbps radio that supports both AT&T and T-Mobile, along with a wide number of Canadian and European carriers. For this reason, the Galaxy Nexus is an ideal solution for globetrotters. Even better, it also holds special distinction as the only smartphone to currently offer Android 4.1 (otherwise known as Jelly Bean). While the Galaxy Nexus is no longer on the cutting edge of smartphones, it remains a perennial favorite around these parts due to its stock Android OS and hacker-friendly approach. For those looking to cut costs, carriers such as Simple Mobile and T-Mobile offer financial incentives to those who bring their own handsets, with unlimited plans that start at just $40 per month.

Galaxy S Aviator BY SAMSUNG

2012-07-26T19:34:00.002-07:00

Not only is the Galaxy S III the best phone on US Cellular, it's the only choice for those who demand both cutting-edge performance and LTE connectivity. As Samsung has proven rather stringent in its dealings with carriers -- allowing little to no modification -- we feel comfortable recommending the phone without hesitation, despite the fact that we've yet to review US Cellular's variant. Meanwhile, the carrier's only other LTE smartphone, the Galaxy S Aviator ($130 - $200), is a clone of the Droid Charge from Verizon Wireless. Although the Aviator remains a fine handset in many respects, its unjustifiably high price makes it a relatively poor choice.

Connect 4G by LG

2012-07-26T19:32:00.003-07:00

At first blush, you might mistake the Connect 4G as another re-badged version of the Optimus Black, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Instead, it's most similar to the Viper 4G LTE on Sprint, and just the same, you'll find an excellent IPS NOVA display that's paired with a dual-core processor and LTE connectivity. We haven't subjected the Connect 4G to a full review, but it certainly impressed us during our hands-on time with the device. Better yet, the phone easily bests its more expensive sibling, the LG Esteem ($379). Although MetroPCS recently debuted the Activa 4G ($199 before $50 mail-in rebate) as its least expensive LTE smartphone, it's also a weakling that most users are likely to outgrow rather quickly.

Galaxy S II by samsang

2012-07-26T19:31:00.001-07:00

The Samsung Galaxy S III is said to arrive at C Spire Wireless later this year, but for the moment, its older, less powerful sibling -- the Galaxy S II -- is where it's at. Customers who want the very latest and greatest should undoubtedly wait for the new arrival, but it's difficult to know exactly when that'll be. Meanwhile, at just $100, the Galaxy S II is quite compelling in its own right. Most similar to the Epic 4G Touch ($100) on Sprint, the phone offers the same beautiful display, quality camera and excellent performance that we've known and loved for the past year. It's also worth mentioning that C Spire is also a tempting destination for Apple fans, as the carrier generally offers its iPhone 4S for a full $50 less than the competition.

iPhone 4S BY apple

2012-07-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

How does an unlimited smartphone plan for just $55 per month strike you? Throw in contract-free wireless service and you're sold -- right? That's the selling point of Cricket, which requires that customers purchase their phones outright in exchange for a lower monthly rate. In the past, the carrier has struggled to offer top-tier smartphones to its customers, but all of that changed with the introduction of the iPhone 4S. Now, the only question that remains is whether you're willing to pony up for it. While the $500 price tag may seem difficult to swallow, the latest iPhone exists in a league of its own at the prepaid carrier. For those unable to afford the iPhone 4S, we recommend the Huawei Mercury ($200).

HTC One S

2012-07-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Cincinnati Bell has the unique luxury of acquiring hand-me-downs from T-Mobile, and as luck should have it, the HTC One S is the carrier's best inheritance yet. While the phone doesn't reach the high echelons of its larger sibling, it offers the same excellent performance and camera within a smaller enclosure that some will find preferable. It's worth pointing out, however, that Cincinnati Bell currently charges the same price for the One S as AT&T charges for the One X, and unlike T-Mobile, you're unlikely to find any substantial promotions with the regional carrier. All in all, the HTC One S at Cincinnati Bell is an excellent smartphone but a poor value proposition.

EVO Design 4G

2012-07-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

The EVO Design 4G had a difficult time making a name for itself at Sprint, but it easily distinguishes itself as Boost Mobile's premiere smartphone. Not only is the EVO Design 4G the carrier's only WiMAX handset, it's also the only one to offer Ice Cream Sandwich. Likewise, its higher-res qHD display is heads and shoulders above the competition. If the high price of the EVO Design 4G stands as a deterrent, you'll also do well for yourself with the LG Marquee ($250) or ZTE Warp ($180), although we can't recommend descending any further down the food chain.

LG Lucid

2012-07-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

We need to qualify our recommendation of the LG Lucid as it's one of the few handsets we've yet to review. While we can't speak to its quality, the Lucid features many of elements that we look for in a smartphone, and it appears to be the clear-cut choice for Verizon Wireless. To begin with, it's the only option that offers both LTE connectivity and a price that doesn't exceed our $80 limit. Beyond that, the Lucid features a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and an IPS display at 800 x 480 resolution. LG has already committed to Android 4.0 for the Lucid, which is a good thing -- as is, the phone ships with Android 2.3.

Droid 4 by MOTOROLA

2012-07-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

If you insist on having a QWERTY keyboard in your smartphone, then you're in luck. Of the two handsets on the market that we're willing to recommend, one of them just so happens to be on Verizon -- it's the Droid 4. The phone hits many high marks, thanks to its speedy performance, LTE connectivity and impressive battery life. Perhaps most importantly, its keyboard is absolutely fabulous. Our only noteworthy gripe with the Droid 4 is its relatively lackluster display. In this regard, we prefer the Captivate Glide ($50) on AT&T for its higher-quality (albeit, lower-res) screen, along with its even faster performance and longer battery life. Neither option is completely without sacrifice, but if you're content to stick with Verizon, it's a safe bet, indeed.

Galaxy S III Developer Edition

2012-07-26T19:17:00.001-07:00

Like AT&T, Verizon Wireless is currently awash in excellent smartphones, though with a more diverse lineup, you're more likely to find a phone that caters to your specific needs. The Galaxy S III is easily our stand-out favorite of the bunch, which retains (almost) everything we love about Samsung's premiere smartphone, including its excellent camera, fantastic performance and solid battery life. Unfortunately, it also features an encrypted bootloader, which means that if you're even remotely interested in custom ROMs, you should avoid the Galaxy S III from Verizon. It's worth mentioning that Samsung will sell the Galaxy S III Developer Edition to circumvent the carrier, but its $600 off-contract price will deter many.

If the Galaxy S III isn't for you, the Droid RAZR Maxx remains an excellent candidate for those who insist on maximum battery life above all other considerations, and the Galaxy Nexus is a solid go-to smartphone for those who prefer a stock Android experience. We're also quite happy with the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, which is your best bet if you want a compact smartphone. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend the iPhone 4S on Verizon Wireless due to its EV-DO limitations.

Samsung Galaxy S 4G

2012-07-26T19:15:00.001-07:00

We were previously staunch supporters of the Nokia Lumia 710 as the most well-rounded budget offering on T-Mobile, but the fact that the handset won't run the next generation of Windows Phone apps can't be ignored. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G is sure to appeal to those searching for a solid smartphone yet aren't able to splurge on a more expensive offering. That said, the phone is rather outdated by current standards. If you're willing to be patient, your best bet is to hold out for a promotion from T-Mobile that features either the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G or the HTC One S at a price that's in line with your budget. Alternatively, if you're willing to switch carriers, both the Pantech Burst ($1) on AT&T and the LG Lucid ($50) on Verizon each represent relatively modern smartphones at prices that are delightfully modest.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 4G

2012-07-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

Suffice it to say, but those wanting a quality QWERTY smartphone on T-Mobile are currently facing a grim situation. Our previous pick, the myTouch 4G Slide, is no longer part of the carrier's lineup, and while the myTouch Q ($100 before $50 mail-in rebate) is set to debut on August 8th, its keyboard is lousy. All of this amounts to the BlackBerry Bold 9900 4G being our de facto selection. Archaic software aside, the handset is impressively built and feels premium in many respects. What's more, it remains an excellent choice for those who place productivity at the top of their list. Unfortunately, the Bold 9900's high price is nothing short of an insult, and we think that most users will be better served by the Droid 4 ($200) on Verizon or the Captivate Glide ($50) on AT&T.