The best things in life are free. Except, of course, for the ones that cost you money, such as your shiny Android phone and accompanying mobile service charges. With these two expenses under your belt, however, there’s a plentiful supply of free wonderment available on the Android Market. Many great apps are available for nothing …

We’ve had several inquiries recently about the best way to extend the battery life of the new Android smartphones. People new to always-on phone technology seem to think that a single day’s battery life is a frustrating but inevitable part of the smartphone experience. But there are a number of things you can do to get the most out of …

Now playing: Watch this: Samsung Nexus S 3:55 The Nexus S is set to go on sale this Thursday, and Best Buy has released details about the launch of the Android 2.3 Gingerbread device. The Nexus S will be available starting at 8 a.m. ET on a first come, first served basis and will be limited to two per customer. …

Tech titans including Apple, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic and Nintendo have been criticised by a major charity for failing to clean up their supply chains and potentially using so-called ‘conflict minerals’ from the Congo in their products. Enough, a project of the Center for American Progress, has assessed the precautions 21 major gadget manufacturers took to ensure their components did not …

Will you hear an iPhone on Verizon’s 4G LTE network now? Apple As holiday shopping days shrink, Verizon iPhone rumors are growing. The latest from MacDailyNews pegs the Verizon iPhone for a post-Christmas release on Verizon’s sparsely available 4G LTE networks. These details are from a MacDailyNews source that they “believe to be familiar with the matter”: Verizon managers are …

Viewing photos on your iPad is a beautiful thing. Getting photos onto your iPad: not so much. The traditional method requires copying snapshots from your camera to your PC, then from your PC to your iPad. That’s one irksome extra step, and not exactly practical if you’re traveling. Hence Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit, which for $29 gives you two …

If you caught my review of the Samsung Messager III, you’ll know I characterized it as “one step forward, two steps back.” Though it offered an improved design over the original Messager and Messager II, it replaced its immediate predecessor’s 2-megapixel with a 1.3-megapixel shooter. So though you got a better design, you got fewer features in return. No, a …

Eye-melting hack’n’slash game Infinity Blade is the fastest-grossing app ever to hit the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Epic Games’ fantasy swordplay earned well over £1m in its first four days on sale. Appmodo took the 271,424 users registered in Apple’s Game Center leaderboard after four days and multiplied that by the cost of the game, $5.99 (£3.49 in the …

If your phones have the lifespan of a mayfly and you spend more on phone repairs than food, the Motorola Defy is the smart phone for you — and you could win one in our smashing competition. We’ve teamed up with SellMyMobile.com to give away the rugged, water-resistant phone to one lucky reader. The Defy bucks the trend for expensive …

Santa may be coming to town, but there’s no way he’s going to fit a chuffin’ great 50-inch Samsung 3D TV down your chimney. Fortunately, we’ve teamed up with the festive fellows at Best Buy to give away two, as well as a pair of 3D Blu-ray players. The Samsung PS50C680 is a 50-inch plasma TV, with a 1080p resolution, …

Though we’ve heard rumblings of a revised Android Market for a few weeks, it wasn’t until this weekend that we got to see exactly what the changes entailed. A posting from the official Android developers blog provides details and a pair of images that show a completely overhauled market application. Upon opening the application, users will notice a new app …

In a dramatic and potentially frustrating change to the Android Market, the time period in which you can get a refund on purchased apps has shrunk from 24 hours to a mere 15 minutes. Google will roll out an update to the Market to all devices running Android 1.6 or higher over the next two weeks. The update will focus …

Google’s next-gen smart phone, the Nexus S, is now available to pre-order from the Carphone Warehouse, with the mobile retailer promising you can have it delivered by the end of December if you order now. We wouldn’t bet our houses on getting the hotly anticipated Google phone delivered before Christmas, however — the phone is released on 20 December, and …

Angry Birds for Android will soon let you pay to get rid of ads, with the currently undisclosed fee charged directly to your phone bill rather than via Google Checkout. The hugely popular game’s Finnish developer, Rovio, wants other Android app makers to use its new system too. Bad Piggy Bank will also let players download the Mighty Eagle cheat. …

Editors’ note: This is a guest column. See Jorge Bauermeister’s bio below. For those heavily engaged in the Internet regulation battle that has been raging over the past year, the next two weeks will be a nail-biting period. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski recently announced what seems to be a sensible compromise on the issue of Net neutrality, which …