The OnePlus One: Great phone, bad PR strategy. Aloysius Low/CNET This year, like all years in recent memory, has seen its share of highs and lows in the mobile world. On the one hand, you have key players making strides, like Apple successfully joining the big-screen party with its new iPhones, and Google launching its …

We expect the large-screen phone trend to hold steady at CES. CNET Let us paint you a picture of the phone and tablet landscape at CES. A few weeks before the show, rumors leak everywhere and invitations to press conferences arrive in droves. Oftentimes, we know or can infer a great deal about the hot new handsets and slates we’re …

Struggling Sprint has a fresh plan up its sleeve to attract new customers in the roiling war waged over subscribers. The carrier is now vowing to slash monthly payments in half for customers who leave Verizon and AT&T for Sprint’s wireless service. Friday kicks off the Cut Your Bill in Half event, which will match new customers’ data from their …

The Kyocera DuraForce is an extra-rugged push-to-talk phone. Kyocera When the Kyocera DuraForce goes on sale November 26, US Cellular will be the second carrier to offer the rugged Android 4.4 handset, after AT&T. The 4G LTE smartphone exceeds the usual specifications for resistance to water and dust with a higher spec rating of IP68, and with a military spec …

Take note, the stylus on Samsung’s phablet didn’t always look this way. Josh Miller/CNET Fact: the original Samsung Galaxy Note almost didn’t carry its small S-Pen within a bored-out holster. Early designs envisioned a stylus as large as a ballpoint pen, and attachments like a magnet, or even nothing at all. This particular nugget of smartphone lore has come courtesy …

This story is part of Gift Guide, our year-round collection of the best gift ideas. These are some of the fastest phones around. James Martin/CNET Two things can make smartphones fast: the speed of their data transfer, and the pure performance power of their processor. The former varies from carrier to carrier, market to market, and even quite possibly from …

You’ll never guess which real-world objects inspired the curve. Sarah Tew/CNET The particular curve of Samsung’s Galaxy Note Edge is the only one of its kind in the world right now, and it didn’t get that way by accident. At Samsung headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, CNET had an exclusive interview with the company’s designers, who shared a number of …

Andrew Hoyle/CNET The Nokia Lumia 635 is quite a decent little low-cost 4G LTE handset, and now it’s coming to Cricket. AT&T’s newly relaunched prepaid carrier announced on Tuesday that it’ll sell the Lumia 635 for $100 on contract. It’s outfitted with a 4.5-inch display with the ClearBlack filter for increasing outdoor legibility. There’s also a basic 5-megapixel camera and …

The Nokia Lumia 830 goes on sale with a discounted Fitbit Flex for a limited time. Andrew Hoyle/CNET Starting November 7 (that’s this Friday, by the way), AT&T customers will be able to buy a Nokia Lumia 830 smartphone bundled with a free Fitbit Flex fitness band. Related stories Nokia Lumia 830 hands-on Microsoft Lumia device ‘coming soon’, but cheap …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 ups selfie style two ways 1:23 HTC’s recently-announced Desire Eye aims to astound with its 13-megapixel front-facing camera, and we agree, that sounds mighty impressive. Yet, Samsung is taking a different tack with a new “selfie” mode that connects up to the 16-megapixel shooter on the Galaxy Note 4 . It’s a …