With Earth Day just around the corner, Sprint and Samsung are teaming up to offer the eco-friendly Samsung Restore on Virgin Mobile USA, a Sprint-owned prepaid brand. The Restore first made its debut on Sprint last June. The messaging phone features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 2-megapixel camera and camcorder, Bluetooth, e-mail and texting support, …

Take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Prevail and you may agree, it’s one classy-looking smartphone. A silky-smooth 3.5-inch touch screen is rimmed with metallic gray, and the phone’s sides and back are robed in soft-touch material. However, this is no premium Android phone, and that’s OK. The handset runs a respectable Android 2.2 Froyo operating system (sans TouchWiz), has …

At long last, Google’s “doodles” are making their way to the Google Search for iPhone app. The topical, witty, and often whimsical takes on Google’s logo appear globally and in selected countries to honor holidays and other historically important dates. There isn’t much official news from Google yet. CNET requested more information from Google after we noticed an update to …

Does it have Samsung’s signature high-polish glossy body? Of course! But the Samsung Gem, an Android 2.2 Froyo smartphone for U.S. Cellular, also has some style all its own. With its swooping lines and repeated pentagonal, superhero-esque accent, it doesn’t look like just any other Android phone. Related links • Read our T-Mobile G2 review • Alltel also has the …

Now playing: Watch this: Dialed In # 169: Bonnie phones it in 51:41 Wouldn’t you know it, when our two high-tech methods for patching Bonnie in from New York failed, she had to turn to an old-fashioned desk phone to co-host Dialed In. Way to show your team spirit, Bonnie. Meanwhile, Kent breaks down the unusual, dual-screened Kyocera Echo, Bonnie …

Android users on Sprint’s network won’t have to pay for Angry Birds Rio and other Android Market purchases on their Visa cards much longer. Today, Google announced a partnership with Sprint that lets you add your Android app buys to your monthly voice and data bill. Carrier billing, as it’s called, opens Android to one more payment method, in addition …

RIM/BlackBerry RIM’s official Twitter for BlackBerry app will be getting a visual refresh and some new features with version 1.1. For starters, the app will push “@” mentions to your username and will autocomplete hashtag options (#). The app will also tag locations after you enable the feature in the Options, then tap the icon of a compass for tweets …

Sprint will discontinue its Common Cents prepaid plan, CNET learned today, and will instead transition existing customers into the PayLo plan run by Virgin Mobile, a different Sprint prepaid brand. Related links • Sprint and Wal-Mart offer cheap prepaid plan • Sprint expands Common Cents service Sprint and Wal-Mart launched Common Cents as an in-store brand last May to compete …

We’ve been talking about mobile payments gaining U.S. traction for years, but it’s been during only the past few weeks that there’s been a stampede of activity signaling that the fight for dominion over mobile payments is about to begin. What makes the topic such a tangle is the fact that the term “mobile payments” can mean anything from NFC …

At first glance, the Samsung Factor is a sturdy and attractive little flip phone that looks like nearly every other appealing Samsung flip phone to predate it. While it’s true that the specs are deliberately modest–an e-mail app and browser are its only software trills–the Factor does a few things right. Call quality was good enough in our tests to …