featuritis

Verizon unveils $35 prepaid mobile phone plan

Verizon has kicked off a new prepaid plan to lure in feature phone buyers.

Launched yesterday, the new no-contract plan costs $35 a month and offers 500 anytime minutes of talk as well as unlimited text and Internet. Tipping over the 500 monthly minutes will ring up an extra 25 cents per minute.

The deal is geared strictly toward feature phones, so smartphone owners need not apply.

Verizon offers four feature phones along with the plan -- the LG Cosmos 2, the Samsung Gusto 2, the Samsung Intensity 3, and the LG Extravert. All four phones are heavily discounted when … Read more

Galaxy S4: Cool features, awful launch

CNET Update didn't expect Samsung to be sexist:

Samsung finally unveiled its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. But this was no ordinary press conference. The Galaxy S4 presentation was a campy Broadway-styled spectacle that was painful to watch with sexist caricatures of women.

Despite the distasteful event, the Galaxy S4 will surely be a big seller and top rival to the iPhone. Today's video offers a quick explanation of the smartphone's new features, such as being able to navigate by waving a hand over the screen. (Many of these features will also come to Galaxy S3 users.) … Read more

How Samsung might actually get featuritis under control

Editor's note: This article was originally published January 9 during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It was updated March 15 with information about the Galaxy S4.

Samsung has a serious case of featuritis, but it's trying to get better.

The Korean electronics giant has long been known for its push to include more and more features in its products, whether it's new capabilities like NFC in smartphones or software like smart TV apps. Samsung uses such features as a way to differentiate its new gadgets from those of rivals and from its older products, and … Read more

'Brave' nets Pixar its seventh best animated feature Oscar

Although it didn't earn the critical acclaim of "Toy Story 3," "Up," or "Ratatouille," Pixar's 2012 film "Brave" joined those three hits, as well as three other Pixar predecessors, in winning the Oscar for best animated feature.

Beating out fellow nominees "Wreck-it Ralph," "Frankenweenie," "ParaNorman," and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," "Brave" became the seventh Pixar film to nab the Oscar since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences began awarding the honor in 2002. No other studio has … Read more

Feature phones still outshine smartphones in key countries

Smartphones may be hot in the U.S. and U.K, but feature phones dominate in such countries as India and Russia, according to the folks at Nielsen.

Released today, Nielsen's "2013 Mobile Consumer Report" found that smartphone owners make up the majority of mobile phone users in nations such as the U.S., the U.K., South Korea, and China.

But in other countries, the networks required to support smartphones are still limited to large urban areas. As a result, the standard feature phone remains the top choice in regions such as India, Brazil, and Russia. … Read more

Why a smartphone may not be the best choice for everyone

Smartphones are hitting the mainstream market. And that means old and young want a piece of the action. But at more than $1,000 per year for service, a smartphone may not be the best choice for every consumer.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help a reader decide if he should get his parents smartphones or if he should spare them the hefty monthly service fees and get them new basic feature phones. I also help another reader decide if there is a less-expensive alternative to Verizon that will allow him to keep his unlimited data plan.

Feature … Read more

Twitter goes global by putting its service on feature phones

Twitter has been pushing into the international market by making its service available on feature phones, according to Bloomberg.

The move comes as users in the U.S. are topping off and the microblogging service has to expand its boundaries in search of new members.

One of the ways Twitter is gaining new users is by partnering with wireless carriers in different countries that let people tweet on feature phones for free or for the cost of a text message. For example, the social network is now working with Turkish carrier Turkcell, according to Bloomberg. The partnership lets users tweet … Read more

Smartphone shipments to hit 1 billion this year, says report

The smartphone industry will ship more than 1 billion units before the year is over, according to a preview of a Deloitte report due out next week.

And that number could actually come closer to 2 billion, at least based on Deloitte's definition of a smartphone. Most analysts and industry watchers consider a smartphone a device that runs a specific operating system, such as iOS or Android. But Deloitte has expanded that definition to consider phones "smart" if they have touch screens, use full keyboards, and run apps, regardless of what OS they run internally.

"In … Read more

Men in Black 3: Movie Touch brings pop-up everything to your iPad

You know how most movies appear letterboxed on your iPad? Those black bars are kind of a waste of space.

So what if you slid the movie upward and filled the empty bottom area with, you know, stuff? Things like actors' filmographies, still images and art from the movie, little bits of trivia, sharing and social-media options, and so on?

That's the idea behind Men in Black 3: Movie Touch, a free iPad app designed to enhance the experience of watching -- wait for it -- "Men in Black 3."

Although the app is free, it limits … Read more