By now I am sure you have seen media reports that AT&T and Deutsche Telekom (DT) have mutually decided to terminate their agreement for AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA. This announcement effectively ends the acquisition process launched March 20.

What does this mean for T-Mobile USA customers? Our focus is unchanged: make the latest mobile products and services affordable for everyone.

And there are many reasons to choose T-Mobile as your wireless provider:

• Great Value. We’re offering our best plan ever – 2 lines for $49.99 each that includes voice, text and data (including 2GB at full-speed) on each line with a new 2-year agreement. We also now offer aMonthly4G no annual contract plan that gives you unlimited talk, text, and web (including 100MB at full-speed) for $50.  

• Compelling Products.  We offer a great line-up of 4G smartphones. We continue to rapidly expand our selection of amazing and affordable 4G smartphones, tablets and other devices that make mobile internet service easy and affordable. This holiday, we have cutting edge smartphones including the 42 Mbps-capable HTC Amaze™ 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S™ II. In January, we will begin selling the Lumia 710, the first Windows Phone from Nokia for as low as $49.99 after mail-in rebate with a 2-year agreement on a qualifying plan

• America’s Largest 4G Network – now faster than ever. Whether you need driving instructions that are fast enough to keep up with your car, or want to stream a full-length movie uninterrupted, our 4G network delivers. We have expanded our 4G coverage to more than 200 million people in 208 markets and doubled speeds for nearly 180 million Americans in 163 markets.

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T-Mobile introduces its first “4G” BlackBerry, the Bold 9900. While the hardware and software is the same as the Verizon-branded 9930, the 9900 has a few notable differences. With its great keyboard, touch screen, and BlackBerry 7 operating system, the seeker of a 4G smartphone has something to be excited about.

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 is RIM’s high-end smartphone focused on those who take email seriously. It bears a strong resemblance to its predecessors, but still manages to carve out its own identity in the monoblock QWERTY space. It exudes class and professionalism.

The 9900 has a solid weight to it and feels comfortable in the hand. RIM has managed to trim a few millimeters here and there and the smaller footprint makes a big difference. (Previous Bold designs were gigantic.) The front surface is made from high-quality plastics rimmed by a band of brushed metal. The back surface features soft-touch paint, which surrounds the glossy battery cover. The construction of the device is top-notch. RIM has always been able to churn out high-quality hardware, and the Bold 9900 is no different.

The 9900 features a 2.8-inch display. The typical set of BlackBerry controls are below it, which include Send, BlackBerry, Back, and End buttons. These buttons are all flat and flush with the surface. They have good travel and feedback. An optical trackpad separates this quad of buttons. RIM uses the best optical trackpads in the business. The 9900′s is responsive, adjustable, and is great for fine-tuning actions on the display.

The 9900′s keyboard is flat-out incredible. It is easily the best physical keyboard I’ve ever used. RIM nailed the combination of size, shape, and action for each key, making it effortless to use for composing messages. Current BlackBerry owners might upgrade to the 9900 for the keyboard alone.

I truly wish that RIM would add a dedicated period button and a dedicated “@” button to its keyboard designs. On the 9900, each requires at least one extra key press to use. These characters have become essential for interacting with the web. Sure, there’s the space-space trick, but that doesn’t help when filling out web forms. Instead, the 9900 includes a dedicated “$” key. Really, RIM? Really?!? In what universe do people use the dollar symbol more often than the period? Also, what about a comma key?

The 3.5mm headset jack and microUSB port are built into the left edge of the 9900. I prefer the headset jack to be on the top of my phone, but the left side is where RIM traditionally places it.

The volume controls are on the right edge, close to the top. They are separate buttons, rather than a toggle. These buttons are small, but are angled slightly so that they are still easy to find and tell apart. The travel and feedback is good. A mute button is nestled between the volume keys. It is harder to find and use. There is also a user-adjustable application key on the right edge. Out of the box it opens the camera by default, though it can be set to open whatever the user wants. It has good travel and feedback.

RIM has done away with the traditional screen lock and ringer silence buttons on the top of the Bold 9900. Instead, there is a single screen lock button in the center. It does double duty. It will silence the ringer when there’s an incoming call, as well as lock the display and wake it from sleep.

The battery cover pops off with a little leverage from your thumb. The microSD card slot is located under the cover, and sadly requires that you remove the battery to access it.

Screen

The 9900′s display measures 2.8 inches across the diagonal and packs in 640 x 480 pixels. Add in what RIM refers to as “Liquid Graphics” and what you have is the best display I’ve seen on a BlackBerry. On-screen elements such as icons and graphics look fantastic. Web sites are pleasing to the eye, and photos/video look very good. Perhaps the most impressive feat is the 9900′s performance outdoors. I was easily able to use the 9900 when under direct sunlight. Emails popped off the screen, and even the camera worked well. Such good performance outside has become a rare quality in phones.

Signal

The 9900 runs on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network. Signal performance was excellent. The signal indicator consistently showed a strong signal, and the 9900 maintained a tight connection to T-Mobile’s network. While it did slip down to EDGE a few times (mostly when indoors), the 9900 never lost T-Mobile’s network entirely. The 9900 didn’t miss any calls, didn’t drop any calls, and was always able to surf the web swiftly.

Sound

The 9900 performed better in the voice quality department than its Verizon-branded cousin. As with the 9930, earpiece volume of the 9900 was very good, which means calls in areas with lots of background noise are easy to hear. Quality was good overall, though every so often I noticed a slight hiss in the background. The speakerphone performed very well. Set to maximum volume, it wasn’t quite loud enough for me, but the clarity and quality of the calls made up for the volume deficiency a bit. Ringers and alert tones can be set to piss-off-the-neighbors volumes, so you’ll always know when you’ve got a call or message headed you way. The vibrate alert was plenty strong.

Battery

The Bold 9900′s battery didn’t perform quite as well as that of the 9930. Where the 9930 lived through nearly two days of use, the 9900 lasted more like a day and a half. Intense web browsing and social networking really had an impact on battery life. You’ll be fine if you forget to charge the 9900 at night, but only for a few hours.

The front face has a highly polished display that feels great to touch and use. Departing a bit from the Android norm, Samsung has placed just three capacitive buttons below the display for access to the Menu, Back, and Search functions. These three keys work well and were sensitive enough that I never had any trouble with them.

The Home key has been pulled out of the typical lineup and given its own space as a stand-alone physical button at the bottom of the front face. The button is squircle in shape. You might be fooled at first into thinking it is an optical trackpad. It isn’t. It’s simply a button. Travel and feedback are satisfactory, though having a physical home key (as opposed to capacitive) is great for quickly getting the phone back to the home screen.

The volume toggle is located on the left edge of the Gravity Smart. It is easily found with your thumb and has great travel and feedback. The two ends of the toggle have excellent differentiation so you know which is which. On the right side, Samsung placed the power/lock key. This is a typical place for Samsung to put this button, though I’ve noted in the past that I prefer the power button to be on the top of the phone. The Gravity Smart’s power/lock key has perfect travel and feedback. Above it, there’s a hatch covering the microUSB port. The 3.5mm headset jack is right where I like it, up on top.

One fault I’ve found with the Gravity Smart hardware is that it is a bit slippery. This gets in the way when it comes time to slide it open for typing messages. It can be hard to get a solid-enough grip to actually push the sliding portion up. The Gravity Smart popped out of my grasp more than once. There’s minimal spring assistance helping open the Gravity Smart. At least the mechanism doesn’t feel cheap or weak.

The Gravity Smart feels very well balanced when open and held in two hands. I am not a fan of sideways sliders (I often find the keyboard to be too wide), but the Gravity Smart’s keyboard felt good to use after a short acclimation period. The keys are well spaced and offer very good travel and feedback, though they lack good definition with respect to shape. The Gravity Smart makes the right choice with its keys, offering dedicated period, comma, question mark, and @ keys. There is also a dedicated key for emoticons, as well as shortcut keys to launch the browser, messaging, group texting, and search functions.

The microSD card is placed under the battery cover, but not under the battery itself. Feel free to swap cards while the Gravity Smart is still running!

Sony Ericsson today announced two new feature phones that have touch screens and Xperia-like user interfaces. Shared features of the Mix Walkman and txt pro include 3-inch, scratch-resistant displays; quad-band GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth, FM, and Wi-Fi radios; 3.2 megapixel cameras with video capture; and support for 32GB memory cards.

• Mix Walkman: The Mix is a music-focused handset that features a karaoke function that mutes the vocal track in songs, and also has a dedicated “Zappin” key that, when pressed, lets users preview the chorus of the next track. It has colored bands so users can customize the look of the Mix.
• txt pro: This sideways slider has a QWERTY keyboard and a number of messaging features. It includes easy access to the user’s top five contacts and their Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Both handsets are scheduled to be available in select markets starting in the third quarter.

At an event in New York City today, Motorla announced the Triumph, an Android phone for Virgin Mobile. The phone sports a very square shape and unusually high-end features for Virgin. Those features include a 1 GHz processor, large 4.1-inch display, 5-megapixel auto-focus camera, front-facing camera, HDMI TV output, and EVDO Rev. A 3G data. On the software side, it runs Android 2.2 and comes with a Virgin Mobile social networking music app. It will be available “this summer”, according to Sprint, or this month, according to Motorola.