The first updates to current Symbian phones will appear in the first half of next year, Nokia said today. At the Symbian Exchange and Exposition in Amsterdam, the handset manufacturer–which said yesterday that it was bringing development of Symbian back in-house–said the first updates would include the addition of split-screen text entry, a Qwerty keyboard …

The Samsung Zeal uses e-ink to change the characters on the keyboard buttons. Samsung We see plenty of phones with unique designs, but this week Samsung is bringing Verizon customers a shape we haven’t seen in awhile. The Samsung Zeal is a dual-hinge messaging phone. Flip it in portrait mode like you would a clamshell phone to see a numeric …

I’m a TV reviewer, so it stands to reason that I’d champion a television in our Greatest Gadget of the 21st Century tournament. But I’m not putting my vote behind the Pioneer Kuro PDP-LX5090 out of some sense of duty or loyalty — I’m doing so because it’s hands down the best piece of technology I’ve used since I started this …

Like all great works of art, James Cameron’s Avatar needs some specific 3D television tweaking before the director thinks you’ll be in a good position to to watch his masterpiece, and Panasonic has posted the settings on its website. Putting sceptical cat down for some meowmix for a second, we actually find ourselves applauding aspects of this idea. After all, …

AppleInsider A patent application recently filed by Apple reveals that the computer maker is looking to reduce the amount of junk on your desktop by consolidating menu items and making them scrollable when touched, AppleInsider reports. AppleInsider By touching an area of the screen, menus and commands would be activated (such as the pictured Shut Down menu). Keeping these types …

LG Optimus T T-Mobile Right when we thought the T-Mobile Comet was the cheapest Android phone, at only $10 under contract, we learned today that you can get the black version of the LG Optimus T for the unbeatable price of free with a new two-year agreement from T-Mobile. Both the burgundy and titanium versions are still $29.99 each, but …

Welcome to The 411, my column answering all your questions about cell phones and cell phone accessories. I receive plenty of questions about these subjects via e-mail, so I figured many of you might have similar queries, too. At times, I might solicit answers from readers if I’m stumped. Send your questions and comments to me at [email protected]. If you …

The Pocket eDGe from Entourage is a dual-screen tablet and e-book reader. Donald Bell/CNET Sometimes, convergence between two devices happens so naturally that you hardly notice. You wake up, and your iPod and your phone are the same thing, and you wonder how you ever managed them as separate devices. Some convergence is a bit more blunt. Case in point–the …

Opera Software just unveiled Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Android tonight, but we’ve had a chance to play around with a prerelease version for several days. Opera has already had a presence on Android phones in the form of Opera Mini, a Java-based proxy browser that delivers Web pages fed through Opera’s servers. Opera Mobile, by contrast, is a standalone …

NEW YORK–Though not much of a surprise, Samsung and Verizon officially unveiled the Samsung Continuum at a press event in Manhattan today. The latest in Samsung’s Galaxy S series of Android phones, the Continuum is special in that it has two separate displays: a larger 3.4-inch Super AMOLED touch screen on top and a smaller 1.8-inch ticker display on the …

MetroPCS has plucked the simple Samsung Contour (SCH-r250) for its lineup. The candy-apple-red flip phone has a VGA camera, and both internal and external displays. The Contour is a very simple phone for making calls. Features-wise, it supports Bluetooth, multimedia messaging, and voice commands. There’s also a slew of MetroPCS apps, including MetroWeb for the Internet, e-mail with mail@metro, Metro …

Few mobiles elicit the red-hot love and ice-cold hate that the iPhone does. In the passionate world of mobile phones, where a new Nokia can bring tears to the eyes of grown men, the iPhone has managed to stay the latest and greatest since the moment it spawned from the labyrinthine mind of Steve Jobs. Here’s why I think it should …

Samsung Mobile’s U.K. Twitter account confirmed late last week that Android 2.2 is rolling out to the i-9000 Galaxy S handset. According to the tweet, the long-awaited Froyo update will hit “everyone” by the end of November. Assuming that “everyone” includes only U.K. residents, we have to ask when other countries and carriers will see a similar update to their …

Expect to wait a little longer for the Samsung-built Google Nexus Two, as a hardware issue has delayed its release, which was expected this week. Google was set to launch its second own-brand phone on 11 November along with the OS it runs on, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a new version of its smart phone OS. Previous rumours that the phone …

Want to have a really rotten day? Lose your iPhone. It’ll make you feel sick down to the pit of your stomach. Trust me: I’ve been there. Actually, losing anything important can be a nightmare: your car keys, your wallet, that cute guy/girl’s phone number. The thing is, those items can’t tell you where they are. Your iPhone can. All …