Facebook Home has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since it went live, according to its Google Play page, but users seem desperately unimpressed with the experience, with an average review of just two stars. Home is a launcher, a kind of super-app that effectively takes over your Android phone, making updates from your Facebook …

Apple stores recordings of everything you tell its robot butler Siri for two years, the Californian company has revealed. When you ask Siri something, it takes it a couple of seconds to reply. In that time, the digital assistant pings your vocal request to its vast data centre in North Carolina, which answers it and tells Siri what to say. …

Hold your horses on that Asus FonePad, or that Huawei G510 — there’s a new range of super-budget Android phones in town. The Archos 35 Carbon, 50 Platinum and 53 Platinum are dirt cheap and running pure Android. The Archos 35 Carbon is the cheapest of the cheap, at just £80 (pictured above). It’s very much a bargain-basement blower, with …

Nokia’s Lumia 920 is one of the heftiest phones around, but the Finnish phone fabricator is reportedly planning something even more massive — a big-screen phone-tablet hybrid to take on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. People “with knowledge of the company’s plans” told the Financial Times Nokia was working on a so-called ‘phablet’, similar in size to …

It’s a format war no one was paying any attention to, but the struggle to control and define wireless charging has burst dramatically to life. Today Samsung, HTC and LG joined the Power Matters Alliance, a grandly titled group of superheroes gadget makers devoted to charging up your phone without you having to plug it in. To be honest, I …

UK regulator the Office of Fair Trading is investigating whether in-app payments illegally tempt children to spend their parents’ money. After a series of high-profile incidents in which children have racked up bills of thousands of pounds on digital goods such as in-game currency and items, the OFT is looking into industry practices. While being careful to stress this investigation …

BlackBerry is so upset that an analyst said more Z10 phones were being returned to shops by customers than were being bought every day that it’s ordered an investigation. The report, by Detwiler Fenton’s Jeff Johnston, said: “We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now …

Asus’ ludicrously large and memorably monikered FonePad smart phone goes on sale later this month in the UK, for the amazingly affordable price of £179. The FonePad will land in the UK with a terrific thump on 26 April, Asus confirms, the same day as the rather more costly Samsung Galaxy S4. Pre-orders start this Friday. With a vast 7-inch …

Specs for Samsung’s upcoming goliath smart phones, the Galaxy Mega 5.8 and 6.3, have been dished out by SamMobile, unofficially revealing lower-quality screens than expected and unimpressive innards to boot. The Galaxy Mega 5.8’s 5.8-inch display will have an embarassingly low resolution of 960×540 pixels, clocking in at just 190 pixels per inch — only a marginal increase on the …

Mobile messaging megalodon WhatsApp has denied it’s in talks with Google over a rumoured $1bn acquisition. The company’s head of business development, Neeraj Arora — who used to work for Google — told AllThingsD the deal wasn’t happening, and declined to comment further. The rumour, which originated in a post on Digital Trends earlier this week, ruffled feathers among fans …