Personal communications

Sprint announced today that it's now offering the rugged handset Sonim XP Strike for $129.99 after a two-year carrier agreement and mail-in rebate.

The XP Strike includes push-to-talk Direct Connect and has an extra-tough design to withstand even the harshest of elements.

Its Corning Gorilla glass screen is 1.8 millimeters thick, the phone itself meets military specifications for dust and shock resistance, and it's covered by a three-year warranty.

You can also submerge the device in 6.5 feet of water for up to 30 minutes and drop it on concrete from a height of 6.… Read more

Nvidia's mobile future might have been leaked yesterday on a Chinese forum site.

A user going by the name "Xenomorph" yesterday republished an image shared on China's Twitter equivalent Weibo, detailing what could be the mobile processor that Nvidia launches to replace the Tegra 3. And for now, it's being called "Wayne."

According to the image, Wayne, which might eventually be renamed Tegra 4, comes with Nvidia's 4-Plus-1 technology, meaning the chipset will have four regular cores and another low-power core designed to save battery life. That CPU is described as a &… Read more

Samsung today unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Grand smartphone, which runs the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean mobile operating system and sports a 5-inch WVGA display.

The smartphone also features a powerful dual-core 1.2GHz processor, along with 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera offering 1080p video recording and a 2-megapixel front camera.

It also includes 8GB of internal memory with a microSD memory expansion slot, Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS functionality, and the usual perks, such as an accelerometer, compass, and gyroscopic sensor.

The Galaxy Grand also connects to high-speed HSPA+ networks, but falls short of offering 4G … Read more

Not only was 2012 a great year for handset technology like bigger and crisper screens and amazing camera phone improvements, it also witnessed a number of top-notch smartphones that were excellent in and of themselves.

From a brawny battery that liberated users from worrying about their power reserves throughout the day, to a novel design that turned the go-to black rectangle aesthetic on its head, there were a number of handsets that wowed us and pushed the standards of smartphone excellence even higher.

But, what's a year without a few regrets? During our time reviewing exceptional handsets, we also … Read more

HTC decided against launching a Windows Phone 8 handset it had planned because of Microsoft's restrictions on display resolution, a new report claims.

HTC was ready to get working on a large-screen Windows Phone 8 device, but believed that Microsoft's limit on screen display resolutions of 1,280x720 and 1,280x768 would have made its handset look less appealing compared with Android alternatives, Bloomberg is reporting today, citing people with knowledge of HTC's thinking.

Google's Android platform has no such restrictions on display quality. In fact, the Droid DNA that HTC released recently comes with a … Read more

From bigger screens and better cameras to multicore processing and NFC, 2012 has been a momentous year for fancy new phone technology. But how practical is any of this cutting-edge gear? Read on as we dive into the gee-whizzery this year's smartphones brought to the table and whether they were huge flops or represent fabulous mobile innovations. … Read more

Google+ Vice President of Engineering Dave Besbris has unleashed a new slate of features for the social network's mobile users.

Android users got extra attention this time around, with the addition of improved notices when friends share updates, as well as the ability to edit profiles from phones. In addition, Google is now letting its Android users access Google+ Communities, a feature it unveiled earlier this month that allows people to create either public or private groups around interests.

However, Besbris spent the majority of his time focusing on photos. Android users will now be able to upload photos … Read more

The holiday season may be in full swing, but that hasn't stopped AT&T from keeping busy. The carrier announced today that it has expanded its 4G LTE data network to seven additional metropolitan areas.

Ma Bell's most advanced cellular network now covers Reno, Nevada; Richmond, Virginia; Allentown-Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Hattiesburg and Starkvillle, Mississippi; Moscow, Idaho; and Pullman, Washington. That's not a bad day's work. Still, while AT&T says it now blankets 3,000 cities more than its arch-rival Verizon with 4G, an area that includes over 160 million people. That claims AT&… Read more

It's a common affliction: you're using your smartphone to navigate in a city with a bunch of big buildings and your phone misplaces your location.

Often the problem often is that the GPS location system just doesn't work well where the satellite radio signals can be blocked or reflected. A company called Locata says it's got an answer.

Locata does what the GPS system does, but it replaces satellites in orbit with radio transmitters on the ground. The result is location services with high precision, better reliability, and indoor coverage, said Paul Benshoof, global business development … Read more