The way I see it, the demographic of buyers for the Kyocera DuraCore is rather slim. Rugged, it absolutely is, but it’s also rather plain. It has a thick, sturdy build, a good, grippy surface, and is the third phone to ride on Sprint’s new Direct Connect network. However, if you’re looking for a durable …

The Samsung Transform Ultra is about as close as you can get to a pure Android experience on a slide-out QWERTY keyboard phone. It runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, of course, over which its most notable overlay is Sprint ID. If you use it, Sprint ID will let you download preconfigured packages of apps and wallpaper, for example, that fit a …

Verizon is doing two things: ballooning its collection of superpremium smartphones, and shrinking its feature phone and flip phone offerings. That leaves the carrier channeling budget-keepers toward middle-of-the-road smartphones, like the Samsung Illusion. For $79.99, you get Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and a 1GHz single-core processor, plus all of Google’s services and Verizon’s V Cast apps. It’s a …

Now playing: Watch this: Android Beam for Ice Cream Sandwich 2:43 At first blush, Android Beam sounded like it could go the route of face unlocking–one of those fun, breezy gimmicks in the new Ice Cream Sandwich operating system that would last for a party trick or two, but ultimately die down. With only one review unit in-house, there was …

This year has been the year of the superphone, but LG seems to have missed the memo the first time around, offering some solid Android handsets, but very little to cut into Samsung, HTC, and Motorola’s Android dominance. With the premium LG Nitro HD phone for AT&T, the handset-maker hopes to close out the year with a bang. The Nitro …

AT&T is carving out a niche for itself as a friend to Windows Phone. In the last month, it’s released the mammoth, terrific HTC Titan, the low-cost-but-high-value Samsung Focus Flash, and the sleek, premium Samsung Focus S–in my opinion the most appealing all-around Windows Phone to date. There’s good reason this Windows Phone 7.5 handset scores high marks. It’s got …

Now playing: Watch this: Dialed In #201: Too polite for a fanboy brawl 51:35 With a thirst for intellectual skirmish and good-natured trash-talking, I rounded up two special guest hosts for this week’s Dialed In: Antuan Goodwin, Android enthusiast and co-host of CNET’s Android Atlas podcast; and Roger Cheng, a CNET News mobile reporter and newly-minted iPhone 4S fanboy. Oh …

It really is such a shame. Apart from the youthful “Facebook” phone known as the HTC Status, AT&T doesn’t often branch out into smartphones with unusual designs. Then comes the Samsung DoubleTime with its bubbly white body, its two screens, and its comfy keyboard. And guess what? The major roadblock holding it back is its operating-system version–Android 2.2 Froyo instead …

With a rush of amazing Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, this is a great time to buy a new phone for you or for someone else. There are excellent phones flooding the market (here are our top five favorite smartphones), but unless you plan on switching your next handset before your contract is up, you’ll want to consider a …

Smartphones with great cameras are mushrooming up all over the market, delighting phone owners everywhere. Who doesn’t want a fantastic smartphone camera that could replace a point-and-shoot? Easier said than done. Megapixel math is incomplete if you’re not accounting for variables like light sensors, auto-focus, flash, and the camera’s own rendering software. Plus, photos are more likely to look terrific …