Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Vitality with Muve Music 2:14 Cricket’s Muve Music service may still be largely unknown, but the release of the Samsung Vitality could help turn the tide in favor of the service, which offers unlimited access to music downloads, ringtones, and ringback tones in addition to Cricket’s rate for all-inclusive talk, …

I sometimes find myself in the middle of negotiations between teens and their parents about which phone to get. Invariably, the teens want the top-of-the-line smartphone, and who can blame them? What they eventually wind up with, however, is often further down the list. I’ve rounded up a range of teen-friendly phones that includes some Android smartphones with youthful (or …

Ever since Microsoft took the wraps off of Windows Phone 7.5 (code-named Mango), we’ve been wondering how phone-makers would update the first crop of phones to carry the new operating system. HTC gave us its answer with the announcements of the HTC Titan and HTC Radar, both available in Europe starting in October. Both handsets bring hardware improvements in the …

Now playing: Watch this: Dialed In #189: AT&T merger under fire 50:52 Jessica’s back from vacation just in time to catch a busy week of mobile news that includes nothing less than a merger under fire, a new batch of Windows phones, and a deja vu moment with a lost Apple’s prototype, that CNET learned about first. Plus, it turns …

U.S. Cellular customers looking for a prepaid account will now have two more phones to choose from: the Samsung Gem and the HTC Merge. The angular, black plastic Gem is a full touch-screen Android 2.2 Froyo handset. It has a 3.2-inch screen, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and it’ll cost $139.99. The heavier HTC Merge has metal accents, also runs Android 2.2, …

Editors’ note: Today’s post is the second in a two-part series. Yesterday’s blog post, “The birth of a cell phone,” explains the difficult dance between the carrier and phone maker that ends with a new cell phone in the carrier’s lineup (and hopefully applause all around). Today’s post takes a closer look at that relationship. None of the sources in …

How does a cell phone become a cell phone? More than just processors and plastic, most cell phones in the U.S. owe their existence to the behind-the-scenes collaboration, and sometimes conflict, of the carriers and manufacturers that create a concept and design long before a smartphone or flip phone emerges from the factory. How do phones wind up in a …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Character (U.S Cellular) 1:53 Let’s cut to the chase. U.S. Cellular’s Samsung Character is an affordable slide-out QWERTY messaging phone with the kind of traits that place it in the teenage camp. Running Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz Lite interface, its home screens are ruled by widgets, and its apps by texting and music. There is one …

With a roomful of journalists and a live Webcast audience as his witnesses, Verizon CEO Dan Mead officially launched the Verizon Application Innovation Center in downtown San Francisco today. “Innovation is at the very core of what Verizon does, and what we stand for,” Mead said. “LTE has become one of the signature factors driving innovation.” Known as the App …

MetroPCS is making good on its Android commitment by announcing today the Samsung Admire, a mid-tier Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone. The Admire comes equipped with a 3.5-inch HVGA touch screen, a 3.2-megapixel camera and camcorder, a Swype virtual keyboard option, and an 800Mhz processor. It also includes a microSD card slot that takes up to 32GB expandable memory. Those who …