No less than six months after its first global announcement, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note Android smartphone in Australia last night, sharing that the handset will be ranged by Optus, Vodafone and Telstra, and will also be available for an outright purchase price of AU$899. (Credit: Samsung) Optus and Vodafone customers can purchase Samsung’s Galaxy …

AT&T has offered a settlement to the iPhone user who took the wireless giant to small claims court over its throttling practices for unlimited data users. Last week AT&T sent a letter to Matthew Spaccarelli, a 39 year-old truck driver from Simi Valley, Calif., who sued AT&T and won his small claims case against the company last month. In the …

Time for a ray of sunshine from Sony. The Sony Xperia Sola is a new Android smart phone with clever NFC tags — and you don’t even need to touch it. The Sola is the first phone to show off a new Sony feature called floating touch. Floating touch lets you surf the web without touching the screen — simply …

Sony’s new Xperia NXT series of Android smartphones are distinctively styled but haven’t exactly bowled me over with cutting-edge components or software. The latest handset to join the company’s offerings also lacks quad-core processing and Android Ice Cream Sandwich but does promise a few wild mobile skills not found on other devices. The Sony Xperia Sola, just announced today, may …

Telstra today has begun pushing an update to owners of the HTC Velocity 4G, upgrading the firmware on the device to Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) operating system. (Credit: CBSi) The update also refreshes the version of HTC Sense user interface (UI) installed on the handset, from 3.5 to 3.6, and brings a number of changes to the layout of …

Do you know where your Samsung Galaxy S II is? When did you last see your iPhone 4S? If you’ve lost your smartphone, you’d better resign yourself to never seeing it again, as new research reveals that barely half of smartphones get returned. For its Smartphone Honey Stick Project, security firm Symantec decided to see what happens to lost phones …

Ofcom has given the thumbs-up to 4G in Britain by the end of the year. The telecoms regulator says it’s leaning towards greenlighting the next generation of mobile Internet from Orange and T-Mobile. The two networks, collectively known as Everything Everywhere, have submitted an application to Ofcom to use a chunk of their existing airwaves for 4G, which lets you …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Galaxy S2 gets ICS update 3:15 The Samsung Galaxy S2 gets Ice Cream Sandwich and new HTC and Sony phones are revealed in our video round-up of this week’s phone news, plus I reveal how we rate the Sony Xperia S — and Angry Birds goes to space. Hit play on the video above to …

Google has released the registration details for its annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco on June 27 to 29. Not only is the company charging attendees a higher registration fee for the three-day event ($900), but also developers will be required to make payments online using Google Wallet. For many this is a small price to pay for …

HTC has crafted limited edition version of the upcoming HTC One X that adds a pair of Beats headphones. Spied by PocketNow and dubbed the HTC One X Deluxe Limited Edition (snappy), this smart phone bonanza-box contains the quad-core smart phone, alongside the Beats by Dr Dre Solo cans, which cost about £120 to buy. It doesn’t look like there’s any …

Apple That feature add, unfortunately, hasn’t yet been received with the highest regard. Apple’s voice recognition assistant has caught on fairly well here in the U.S. (though a lawsuit claiming Siri isn’t what Apple says it is was just filed), but in Japan one video shows Siri struggling on some more-advanced Japanese requests. The side-by-side comparison below features an iPhone …

We thought we’d see it at Mobile World Congress, but it seems Sony was holding this one back for later. It’s called the Sony Xperia Pepper, with its product code MT27i. So, Xperia Pepper then. We heard mention of the Pepper at the end of January, but now the official picture has leaked, and we’ve got a load of specs …

HTC is reportedly teeing up a budget smart phone codenamed the HTC Golf, rumoured to arrive running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and sporting a 3.5-inch display. PocketNow reports that it’s secured information on this chipper (geddit?) little blower, as well as a test photo from the camera. The specs are rumoured to be rather modest, hinting that this phone …

China may hold back on moving into 4G LTE even as the U.S. carriers race ahead to roll out next-generation networks. The Chinese government is looking to hold back on granting the licenses required for its own carriers to deploy 4G LTE, according to a report from PC World, which cited local state-owned TV. The government said it may wait …

When U.S. Cellular picked up the Samsung Galaxy S II, it gave me a chance to lay some fresh eyes on a familiar device long after it ceased being the de facto best Android Gingerbread phone around. I’m happy to report that it’s still a terrific phone, and one with components that can stand against most of the next wave …