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All pricing shown is with a new 2-year contract, and some deals may be temporary.

AT&T

iPhone 3GS
The iPhone 3GS is the best overall smartphone you can buy. It's really that simple. Best user interface, best internet, best apps, best media support—the list goes on. Okay, not the best network, but nothing's perfect. $199

BlackBerry Bold 9700
I miss the original BlackBerry Bold's king-sized keyboard, but the Bold 9700 squeezes the best of the BlackBerry for CEOs into an impressively tight form factor—faux leather back included—making it very possibly the best BlackBerry you can buy. $10

Bonus: Nokia e71x
It's free, and an actually good smartphone—my favorite Nokia phone on the planet. Free

Verizon

Droid
It's a terminator. A huge, disgustingly high-res screen, Batman-worthy industrial design, and the full power of Android 2.0 make it the best phone on Verizon—and the fact that it's running on arguably the best network in the US make it the second best smartphone you can buy, period. $150

BlackBerry Tour
Sure, it's notorious for trackball problems and it's missing Wi-Fi, but this is the BlackBerry of choice for email warriors if they're not on AT&T or T-Mobile—and it sure as hell beats anything running Windows Mobile. $50

Bonus: Droid Eris
If you're desperate to save $100 over the Droid, the Droid Eris will run Android 2.0 soon enough, and is smoother, smaller, and friendlier, if a little blander. $100

Sprint

Palm Pre
The Pre offers one of the best user experiences of any smartphone with Palm's webOS, and it's probably the best phone on Sprint, hardware build issues and comparatively dinky App Catalog aside. $80

HTC Hero
The best Android phone not running Android 2.0, HTC's Sense UI makes the sometimes confusing Android interface more digestible and has a few nifty tricks of its own, like integrated social networking. $100

Bonus: There is none. The Pixi's close ($25), but the fact that you can get the Pre for nearly as cheap undercuts a lot of the value, as much as we like the design and form factor.

T-Mobile

Motorola Cliq
Motorola's other Android phone is gussied up with Blur, a custom interface that's bright and friendly, with widgets for keeping track of everything happening on your social network. It's our favorite Android phone on T-Mobile. $100

Unlocked iPhone
No, I'm not kidding. A jailbroken and unlocked iPhone, even without 3G powers, is the second best smartphone you can use on T-Mobile.

Bonus: BlackBerry Bold 9700
The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is the first BlackBerry with 3G on T-Mobile, which is reason enough, really, but it's good the reasons listed above, too. $130

One tour company in Shanghai has added the fallen building to their site list, a well-timed move that garnered 100 reservations on the first day the new tour was advertised. As you can see in this Fuji TV news report (fast forward to around 1:30), the tour is not so cheap at $220 a head. And not every local is thrilled to see their city represented in failed building projects.

Also, as Japan Probe points out, Fuji TV's graphical representation of the apartment falling is fairly wonderful. Keep your eyes on the upper right corner of the screen for that great moment in animation. [Japan Probe]

We're still annoyed with current-gen or even last-gen smartphones that are lacking WiFi (which leads to a general annoyance with Verizon), so we're glad to hear a major player is embracing it for the foreseeable future. Said the spokesman, "It is now a requirement for all our PDA equipment suppliers to include WiFi," which is a pretty firm commitment. What do you think, readers? Is WiFi a dealbreaker in a smartphone purchase? [Fierce Wireless via Engadget]

The process is the same as the one used in the Lego factory, but instead of Lego, these guys make things you touch pretty much all throughout your day. [RGS]

While yesterday had Verizon reps telling us that the Tour would only be available to new customers or Verizon customers at the end of their contracts, the site has since been updated:

Existing customers will be able to upgrade or purchase the BlackBerry Tour on this site very soon. Please check back with us tomorrow.

There we go, that makes a lot more sense. [Verizon via Boy Genius Report]

On the pre-order page, Verizon notes that, "Pre–orders not available for upgrade orders at this time." So if you're stuck with a years-old Curve 8330 or Pearl and want at least a current-gen BlackBerry, you'd better hope you've finished your contract. Even if you're eligible to upgrade to every other phone Verizon offers, you'll be blocked from nabbing the Tour. Oddly-named Verizon customer service agent "Markelvus" confirmed that the only Verizon customers allowed to pre-order the Tour are those whose contracts are completed.

Even stranger, Verizon customer service rep "Alexis" (who refused to provide me with her last name) stated that existing contract customers may not even be allowed to upgrade to the Tour when it's released. She said that such customers will be notified when upgrades are available, but that she does not know when that may be, and it could be well after the phone's July 13th release date.

She said, and I quote, "There is not a clear explanation on why existing customers are not able to order this device now. I am not sure when you are able to order it."

Those mid-contract upgrades cost Verizon money, so on kind of a cold, reptilian level, we understand the reason for the rule. But there's also a little thing called "not screwing your customers," and Verizon seems to have a tough time grasping that one. The Tour will be the most desirable phone in Verizon's lineup upon its release (and while we like the Tour okay, it's definitely not in the same league as the Pre, iPhone, or Hero), and yet they're keeping their contracted customers from ordering only this one device.

Sorry, Verizon customers. We feel your pain, we really do. We're getting tired of applauding Verizon's network while bashing absolutely everything else they do. At what point is staying with the Big Red no longer worth the hassle?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Bono, schmobono. I still prefer LED Pac Man running over Addy's tits. And LED Pac Man over her breasts won't damage anyone's eyes, unlike lasers. In fact, my theory is that her LED'ed breasts may even cure the blind. UnLED'ed too.

Update: Moritz Waldemeyer wrote to us to tell us that the lasers were harmless, perfectly "safe class 2M lasers that have been defocused for additional safety." OK, Moritz, but would they cure the blind like LED'ed breasts? I didn't think so. [Waldemyer via Dezeen]

True to BlackBerry style, you get a full QWERTY along with a sharp 480x360 screen, Bluetooth, 256MB of storage and an MicroSD/SDHC expansion slot. As you'll see in the press release linked below, it's not just a phone but a "premium phone" with voice dialing and noise cancellation. It'll support your yapping for 5 hours per charge.

The most interesting component for the non-business consumer will surely be the Storm-reminiscent 3.2MP IS camera with autofocus, GPS-enabled geotagging and video support.

Sprint and Verizon will both offer the Tour this summer. The price looks to be around $200 with rebates. [Blackberry]

It should be noted that no Artist Lessons come free with iLife '09. So if you want Sting to teach you the way of the guitar (and I mean, who doesn't?), you'll need to purchase his lesson through the GarageBand Store. That's not actually synonymous with the iTunes Store, as it works completely through GarageBand (which redirects you to the web). iTunes never actually enters the picture.

The downloads are sizable. Sting is 600MB, which shouldn't be so surprising as multiple angles of high resolution video appear in two stitched-together 16x9 frames (32x9). (Unfortunately, there's no angle for Sting's butt.)

And my favorite part about the GarageBand store might be that it's not "Roxanne" that you are downloading. It's "Sting" that you are downloading. I've got you now, Sting!
The basic Artist Lesson comes in three parts: Learn Song, Play Song and Story. With Sting, you get two versions of Roxanne to learn (beginner and advanced levels). Through Learn Song, Sting gives you a brief rundown of each chord. Play Song is just a straight play-through of the song itself. And then the Story is just Sting talking about his inspiration behind the music, as if Sting could ever just talk.
In terms of actual time spent, that's:

Learn Song
Beginner Lesson: 8 minutes
Advanced Lesson: 4 1/2 minutes

Play Song
Beginner Song: 3 minutes
Advanced Song: 3 minutes

Story
The Story: 5 minutes

Glancing at this lesson outline, you see that it's not super long. The whole thing is about 24 minutes in all—if you go through basic and advanced levels. But what Apple did to expand this content is within GarageBand's new Learn to Play interface. Some very well-thought options really stretch the lesson's value beyond Sting's charm.

Whether you want to look at realtime frets on a virtual guitar or just follow along with various notations (simple chords, chord grid, and TAB), you can really get in there and match the lesson to your training preferences.

Then you can do some other neat things to expand the content through integrated Practice Tools, including changing the playback speed so you can take your time with the chords (this option ditches Sting's melodious vocals), work with a metronome, loop passages like the refrain or record your audio straight to the timeline to play back and remind you that, no, you are not Sting.
So is it worth $5? It depends on your perspective. A song runs $1 on iTunes (which most of us consider decent) while a 2-hour movie is $10+. Technically, this is just 24 minutes of content. But given its clean presentation and the real replay value, at your own pace, alongside a celebrity to make it all a little sexier, I'm going with yes.

I was pretty certain the Artist Lessons were just a cheap and trendy Apple gimmick when announced at the Macworld. But there's some real love in GarageBand's Learn to Play interface that is well-suited for celebrities to show up and teach you to jam. Apple hasn't committed to just how many Artist Lessons they will release moving forward, but if they can develop a reasonably sized library of musicians/music, I could see the platform growing into something very, very interesting.

0:02: Main menu is contained in a drawer that slides from the bottom of the screen
0:08: Multiple home screens can be flipped with touch gestures, a la the iPhone
0:20: Icons can be dragged from the main menu to build customized home screens. Dragging to the menu drawer trashes the home screen shortcut
0:38: Dialer screen, followed by the call behavior. Calls can continue in the background, and all functions that don't require data transfer can work concurrently (This is currently a software regulation, as 3g networks should theoretically allow for simultaneous voice and data usage).
0:53: Ongoing calls and other notifications can be accessed by dragging the taskbar down.
1:20: Browser displays Gizmodo. Rendering is quite good, page navigation is a fairly intuitive rehash of current touch-control schemes. It's not terrible good at guessing column widths during double-tap zooming, but seems very usable. Preview magnification feature is useful for smaller screens or text-heavy pages.
2:22: "Tabbed" browsing feature lays out a grid of pages, with previews
2:45: Google Maps app. As you can see, this is among the more polished apps, and will feel familiar to anyone who has used Google Maps on the desktop or mobile devices.
3:30: Google Maps Street View.
4:00: Home screen include widgets (Google Search, a clock and a picture frame are the only ones for now) that can be dragged around the home screen(s).
4:23: The music apps relies on a panel of icons (a recurring theme in Android)
4:30: Message composition is unremarkable, but there is no sign of an on-screen keyboard at the moment. This could be a customization catered the the first round of Android phones, at least one of which will have a slide-out keyboard.
5:12: The camera naturally doesn't work in the emulator, but there are currently very few options in its menus.
5:50: Wallpaper switching. This is one of the few areas where Android excels aesthetically. Wallpaper scrolls as home screens are switched, but at a slower rate that the icons. This creates a convincing illusion of depth.
6:11: The home screen can also be modified via the system menu, where you can choose to add applications, widgets and shortcuts, as well as change the wallpaper.

It's hard to pass judgment on Android in the condition it's in. What's there is impressive, but there are so many glaring omissions, at least from a consumer standpoint. There is a fantastic system for managing ongoing calls and system messages (via the pull-down taskbar) but no apps to take advantage of it. Email and IM would suit such a configuration beautifully, but neither is included in this release. And seriously, where is the calendar? The organizer? A video app? Youtube support?

Sure, these things could be left to the developer community, but Google already has messaging, email, video and calendar services, so it's reasonable to expect that they be included by default in Android. Before a public release, Android should at least possess a feature set comparable to your average candy bar phone, courtesy of Google, so that the eager open-source development community can devote their effort to creating new, innovative apps and modifications for the OS.

Objections aside, the progress is promising. In terms of usability, Android is much easier to navigate and customize than virtually all other mobile solutions. With a few more apps, Android will be a clear choice over Windows Mobile, skinned or not. You can download the SDK and play with the emulator yourself, if you want. Just a word of warning, though — explaining to your family or significant other that you're testing an emulated prerelease of an upcoming mobile OS is about as hard as it sounds. [Google Android, Android on Giz]

Update: Here are the new features.

– Jason Chen

Guided Tour [Apple]

The PS3's online network is free, save for purchasing games and various other things, so you don't have to set up billing when you sign up. Also, take a look at the screen name we signed up with. You may recognize it. – Jason Chen

PlayStation 3 Coverage [Gizmodo]

The only things you can change are rumble and volume, and you're going to want to turn down the volume on the Wiimote speaker. Hearing a loud giggle come through your Wiimote at 2am is kinda creepy.

Other cool stuff: play history, so you can see how long your kids have been playing, or if your roommate fiddled around with Link while you were away. Plus there's note posting, which is a bulletin board for your family. All simple, but pretty neat. – Jason Chen

Further Reading: Complete Wii System Settings Tour [Gizmodo]

There aren't a whole lot of system settings—Nintendo's made everything pretty much plug and play—but you can change sound options, video aspect ratio, internet connection settings, and visit your saved games. The most time complicated option would be the internet settings, that is if you don't use DHCP and auto-setup your connection. The Wii's not nearly as complicated as the PS3, and you can see that reflected in its system settings. – Jason Chen

Nothing contrary to what you'd expect out of disc playback—it's just the same old DVD functions when you boil it down—but one cool feature is that the Blu-ray Title Menu is accessible while a movie is playing. Very convenient that you don't have to quit the movie to change language options. This is more of a Blu-ray feature than a PS3 feature, but it's nice that it's there.

All in all, Blu-ray playback was pretty great over HDMI (component should be fine too, but we don't have any component cables). There were no skips and everything played back perfectly. For all the trouble that Blu-ray has caused Sony, they actually managed to get playback pretty much on target. – Jason Chen