Phones

Samsung has unveiled two new smartphones that push the envelope of screen size in the smartphone space.

Dubbed Mega, the two devices Samsung showed off today come with the customer's choice of a 5.8-inch screen or a 6.3-inch option. Both devices come with Android 4.2 (Jelly Ben) and a dual-core processor. The higher-end 6.3-inch option comes with a 1.7GHz processor, while the 5.8-inch version has a 1.4GHz chip. Both handsets have 8-megapixel rear-facing cameras and 1.9-megapixel front-facing cameras.

Samsung's Mega 6.3 handset will deliver 8GB or 16GB of internal … Read more

As part of a massive consumer push to bring awareness to its brand (involving the Jonas Brothers, no less), Huawei announced this week that it will release a marquee smartphone in the U.S. this summer.

The company isn't sharing its exact time frame or the nature of the hardware in question, but I'd put my money on one of its most aggressive Android designs, either the gigantic 6.1-inch Huawei Ascend Mate, or the Ascend D2, with an enormous 4,050mAh battery -- both of which debuted in January at CES.

Also a contender for the flagship … Read more

HTC this week released the source code for the HTC One, which makes it easier for developers to create new custom ROMs and apps that work specifically with the phone.

Keeping with tradition, the HTC Dev team added its new flagship device to a growing list of kernel source code, binaries, and updates. While smartphone owners don't immediately benefit when HTC releases source code this way, developers and modders find the tools quite valuable.

Those who like to root their Android phones will appreciate the custom ROMs that utilize some or all of HTC's custom touches. We might … Read more

Why wear a smartwatch? You might have said the same thing about carrying a smartphone before those got smart enough to be truly useful. Smartwatches are a sort of mini tech trend of the moment, but here's the brutal truth: we wouldn't recommend that our friends buy any of these, unless they're early-adopter watch fetishists. The smartwatches of today have a muddy mix of good, bad, and flat-out ugly features. At best, they're quirky and stylish. At worst, they're hobbled with short battery life or don't work at all.

None of the smartwatches we'… Read more

Loyal BlackBerry keyboard addicts may not have long to wait. Reportedly, a leaked memo from Canadian carrier Rogers pins the launch date for BlackBerry's Q10 phone as April 30. … Read more

Samsung could soon introduce a pair of large-screen Galaxy Mega smartphones, if recent chatter proves to be accurate.

Rumors surfacing this past week indicate that Samsung may be readying both a 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch Galaxy handset as part of a new line of phones. Early details for the so-called "Galaxy Mega" series point to a midrange Android experience. Both devices are reported to run Android Jelly Bean with Samsung's own TouchWiz Nature interface.

The Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 (GT-i9152) is expected to feature a 5.8-inch qHD (960×540-pixel) LCD display as well … Read more

The Nokia Lumia 920 is now the best-selling handset running Microsoft's Windows Phone software. At least that's what specialty Windows Phone application advertising firm AdDuplex says.

Indeed according to AdDuplex, and reported by Windows Phone Central, the Lumia 920 enjoys 14 percent of the entire Windows Phone market. That may not sound like much, but Nokia will be glad to learn its Lumia 800 also grabbed a 14 percent slice of the pie. And right behind that sits older Lumia devices such as the 710 (13 percent), Lumia 610 (11 percent), 820 (8 percent), and 620 (7 percent). … Read more

The late launch of the HTC One smartphone put a damper on HTC's first-quarter profits.

For the quarter ending in March, net profit plummeted to 85 million Taiwanese dollars ($2.85 million), a fall from 10.9 billion Taiwanese dollars ($363 million) a year ago and the company's lowest quarterly profit since 2004. Results also disappointed analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who on average were expecting a net profit of 467.5 million Taiwanese dollars ($15.5 million).

Shipments for the new HTC One phone have been delayed due to a limited supply of cameras. Last month, HTC … Read more

Facebook is looking to get cozy with the home and lock screens of your Android device. The just-announced Facebook Home is a suite of apps that replaces your normal home and lock screens with social-media content. It puts Facebook in your face every time you power up your phone.

Users will get notifications from friends, plus photos, status updates, and link shares. It pretty much serves up all your Facebook information without you having to ask for it or open up a separate app.

Users will be able download Facebook Home from Google Play, like a regular app. It does require a special confirmation to install, since it makes such radical changes to the existing look of your screens.… Read more