A pair of newly leaked renders arrived online this week, providing a clear look at the next LG smartphone, aimed for both Sprint and subsidiary Virgin Mobile. Despite its name — the LG Optimus Elite — early details suggest that the smartphone is anything but fancy. The rumored specifications suggest a 3.2-inch HVGA display, a …

Market research firm Nielsen today announced that half of all mobile phone subscribers in the United States now own a smartphone. According to data compiled through February 2012, smartphones have grown to account for 49.7 percent of all mobile phones, up considerably from 36 percent just one year ago. What’s more, in the last three months alone, two-thirds all handsets …

A newly uncovered patent design from HTC indicates that the “quietly brilliant” hardware maker could be secretly working on a personal media player. Initially discovered and detailed by Patent Bolt, the filing reveals that the company applied for the patent in 2011, and the device appears to have a design that falls in line with HTC’s recent smartphone offerings. The …

We’re still waiting for AT&T to announce a release date and price for its HTC One X, but already some lucky users have put the device to the test. Early benchmarks for the handset have arrived online and all indications are that this one is a winner. Indeed, if you’re worried that the dual-core Snapdragon S4 wouldn’t stand up to …

Thanks to a number of leaks, the preliminary details and images for three unannounced Motorola smartphones have arrived online. Likely to end up in international markets, the three models bear the familiar form factor that is seen in handsets like the Atrix 2 and Droid Razr. Up first, we have a device that looks strikingly similar to the recently leaked …

Verizon’s next Android smartphone, the LG Lucid (formerly the Cayman) is the latest handset that we can get a sneak peek of over the Intertubes. Though it’s not expected until the middle of April, Droid Life, predicts that the Verizon smartphone will be a midrange Android 2.3 Gingerbread-powered unit. Details include a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 8GB internal storage, a 1700mAh …

HTC today confirmed that an Android 4.0 update is now available for AT&T’s HTC Vivid smartphone. As one of the first handsets in the United States to see an Ice Cream Sandwich update after launch, the Vivid also benefits from HTC’s Sense 3.6 user interface and Beats Audio enhancement. Additional details include added Bluetooth options, general UI improvements, face unlock, …

New benchmark figures hitting the Internet this week suggest that AT&T is set to offer a high-end Android smartphone from Pantech. Bearing the model number of P8010, the handset should pack a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and a 960×540-pixel resolution display. The Nenamark benchmarks tell us that the smartphone was tested on AT&T’s network and that it …

Verizon Wireless could be close to introducing its first shared data plans–that is, if a new screen grab passed to PhoneArena proves to be authentic. Expected to arrive at some point around the middle of the year, Verizon would presumably give customers the option to share a pool of data much in the way that families can share voice minutes …

Samsung’s promised Galaxy S III got more attention late last week when another alleged photo of the smartphone whipped Android fanboys into a frenzy Initially posted on Reddit, the photo of the handset appears to be real enough and matches up with a few previous rumors. Looking at the widget on the bottom of the home screen we see mention …