Should Apple rethink iPad 2 distribution system?

How long will it be before customers are replaced by scalpers? Sarah Tew/CNET I remember, last year, waiting on line one morning for an iPhone 4. I was on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and I gave up after an hour and a half. The lines were too long and had formed hours before. …

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Kyocera Domino review: This Domino falls flat

Despite offering solid call quality during our San Francisco tests, the Kyocera Domino had enough design and hardware disappointments to keep us looking for a better simple cell phone. It doesn’t help that for the Domino, Kyocera has regurgitated an almost exact copy of the design used on the earlier Jax, repeating most of the same mistakes. Sorry, Kyocera, but …

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Telstra takes Blue Tick from Moto Defy

Telstra today began informing customers that the Motorola Defy is no longer part of its Blue Tick range of devices. (Credit: Motorola) The Blue Tick rating is awarded by Telstra to indicate handsets provide superior reception and are recommended for use by customers in remote regional areas. Motorola’s Defy launched with a Blue Tick, but Telstra has recently reviewed the …

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HTC Pyramid, Ignite and Prime rumours fuelled by leaked Chinese pics

HTC’s upcoming Pyramid, Ignite and Prime smart phones have apparently been revealed in leaked images. The pictures have appeared before HTC’s latest crop of official Android handsets, including the Wildfire S, Desire S, ChaCha and Salsa, has even gone on sale. The pictures all from the same source: Chinese website XDA.cn, which has some professional-looking renders of all three devices. That said, we’ll reserve judgement on …

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Nokia filed a tablet design patent last year, but will it ever be built?

A US patent filing may shed light on Nokia’s plans to build a new tablet. The company was ahead of the curve with its N800 and N8100 Internet Tablets back in the day, and may be seeking to get back in the game. The patent filing includes diagrams of a tablet device that appears to be to the Nokia N8 what Apple’s iPad is to the …

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Android at CES 2011: Where are they now?

As we get ready for CTIA 2011 next week, it’s worth revisiting some Android devices announced two months ago at CES to see where they are today. While most of the phones and tablets have started trickling out to their respective carriers, some have yet to receive a launch date. The most prolific Android announcement was the Motorola Xoom, which …

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HTC Freestyle review: Right for some

You might not know what to make of the HTC Freestyle when you first see it. And, to be honest, we didn’t either. Though it looks like many an HTC smartphone, the AT&T handset is really a “quick messaging device.” Communication and basic productivity take center stage and you won’t find a lot of high-end options. Though the latter point …

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Cheaper cross

The costs of calling someone on their mobile phone are set to fall considerably over the next four years, thanks to a new ruling by the UK’s telecoms regulator Ofcom on the amount operators can charge one another for incoming calls. This is all to do with ‘mobile termination rates’, which are the key reason it remains expensive to call …

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Why the FCC might ignore Congress’ will on wireless

Editors’ note: This is a guest column. See Fred Campbell’s bio below. Although it’s running late, the Federal Communications Commission is on the brink of releasing its yearly report to Congress on the state of competition in the mobile wireless market. For nearly a decade, the FCC has found the wireless market in the United States to be effectively competitive. …

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Android and the future of feature phones

When the LG Optimus T and Optimus S phones were announced last year, I genuinely felt for the first time that feature phones were a dying breed. Both of these Optimus handsets were branded as entry-level smartphones, but had very impressive features–they shipped with Android 2.2 Froyo (the latest OS update at the time), had portable Wi-Fi hot spots, and …

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Sprint lays out plans for future of Direct Connect service

After keeping us in suspense for the last couple months, Sprint today finally laid out concrete plans for the future of Nextel’s Direct Connect network. The carrier says it will retain the basic elements of the push-to-talk (PTT) network, but it will transition the service from iDEN to CDMA by the fourth quarter of this year. The move will be …

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Speaker options for iPad 2

The iPad 2 works with a wide assortment of wireless speakers, but sometimes you just need a spot to dock the darn thing. Altec Lansing Shopping for iPad speakers doesn’t have to be complicated. If you already have a speaker system you like, you’re probably just a .99-cent stereo aux cable away from making it work with an iPad (or …

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Dialed In #166: 4G duke

Now playing: Watch this: Dialed In #166: 4G duke-out 47:40 It may be the calm before the CTIA storm next week in Orlando, Fla., but you’d think we were already in the thick of it, what with the tongue-lashing we give a certain carrier for its misleading promises. To go along with all this lightning and hot air is a …

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Which phones and tablets can play Flash? Here’s our complete guide

Contrary to what some might say, Flash isn’t the saviour of the universe. But Flash video, audio and animations are all over the Interwebs, which means we want to have them on our mobile phones and tablets too. We’ve rounded up the platforms and their various versions that support the software, so you don’t have to.  If you want to check if …

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HTC 10

HTC unveiled its Flyer 7-inch Android tablet at Mobile World Congress in February, and has reportedly ordered more than one million of the devices to sell this year. It won’t be the only tablet on the way from the company though: a leaked list of devices from US retailer Staples reveals plans for a 10-inch model too. The list is …

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