The dual-screen Sony Tablet P. James Martin/CNET Starting March 4th, AT&T customers can pick up Sony’s dual-screen Tablet P for $399 with a two year contract. As a 4G device, customers will have a choice of two monthly plans to choose from, starting at $35/mo for 3GB of data, up to $50/mo for 5GB. If …

Smart phones will be as cheap as feature phones next year, reckons Google chairman Eric Schmidt. The former CEO of Google, who’s currently taking a turn in the chairman’s chair, made the prediction after giving a speech at Mobile World Congress that was heavy on sci-fi predictions for the not-too-distant tech-fuelled future. Holographic robot-doubles anyone? Schmidt also made a veiled …

When Nokia announced the 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone at MWC 2012, CNET’s associate editor Lynn La said “it is a phone that has so many megapixels, its megapixels have megapixels.” That, it turns out, was a pretty accurate statement. But, before I get into what that all means, judging by comments I’ve read there seems to be some confusion about …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1 and 7.0) 1:05 BARCELONA, Spain–Samsung’s tablet spotlight is on the flashy Galaxy Note 10.1 this Mobile World Congress, but after putting down the stylus, I picked up both new versions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. If you’ve ever seen the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7 Plus, you’ll …

BARCELONA–Airtel has 250 million customers in India and Africa, but very few of them can afford smartphones, and Chief Executive Sunil Bharti Mittal said that’s holding the countries back. In developing countries, lower-end feature phones today are being used for banking and buying as well as for communications, but smartphones could offer much more, Mittal said at the Mobile World …

BARCELONA–Think your wireless network provider is hard-nosed today? Just wait. Although executives for these operators are tired of being seen as the bad guy, they’re also willing to take stern measures to defend their businesses, several said today at the Mobile World Congress show here. That means that Internet companies, governments, and mobile phone customers must pay up. “We’ve become …

LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja has stepped down as the company’s chief executive officer. The decision, announced this morning, does not shed much light as to exactly why Ahuja resigned, but reports have already circulating suggesting it has to do something with the Federal Communication Commission’s move to block the launch of its 4G network. In November, Ahuja spoke at the …

It seems Verizon hopes to lure current feature phone shoppers considering real smartphones into buying the $100 Samsung Brightside. Honestly, who else would eye a device like this that runs proprietary software and not a legit operating system such as Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or even Blackberry. Expected to hit Verizon store shelves on March 1, Samsung does promise that …

I recently wrote something up on the Camalen Hexa, a unique flip case for iPhone 4/4S that allowed you to prop your phone up in a horizontal or vertical position. Now I’ve come across another new, interesting case that I think is worth a paragraph or two of blog space. This one’s the Creativo from Sena, and it’s a leather …

BARCELONA, Spain–The first and second days of Mobile World Congress certainly flew by in a whirlwind of smartphone product announcements. While the torrent of press conferences and gadget news abated a bit, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt notably took the stage at MWC. Schmidt rallied the Android troops touting the exponential growth of the mobile OS while calling for less …

BARCELONA, Spain–You would think Michael Abbott, who runs a joint venture aimed at deploying mobile-payment services across the nation, would want to take a shot at Google and the early stumbles it’s had with its rival digital wallet. You’d be wrong. “I applaud Google for addressing the problem quickly,” Abbott said in an interview with CNET today. “It’s best for …

Huawei is hitting Mobile World Congress in full force — not only has it unveiled the Ascend D Quad, which it claims is the world’s fastest phone, it’s also pulled back the curtain on the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD. It’s the world’s first quad-core 10-inch tablet, combining what many say is the optimum screen size with some of the nippiest …

There are countless ways to scan the news on an iPhone, and even a handful of ways to listen to it. But newly updated Snackr effectively does both, reading aloud the latest headlines and news summaries from a variety of sources–including some personal ones. In other words, it’s like a news “snack”–get it? The app provides five minutes’ worth of …

Panasonic only revealed last week it was launching its smart phones in the UK, and now there’s a second handset coming our way. And this one’s higher-specced than the first. The Panasonic Eluga Power comes with Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android. And it’s huge too, with its 5-inch LCD screen verging on Samsung Galaxy Note territory. So …

Now playing: Watch this: Asus Padfone 1:57 BARCELONA, Spain–Asus struck a high note when it introduced the one-of-a-kind Transformer Prime last year, but that device was only the beginning. Today at Mobile World Congress, Asus finally released its long-awaited Padfone. Though the device first made an appearance last May in a promotional video, sightings of the actual device have been …