With all-singing, all-dancing new operating system Windows Phone 7 grabbing the headlines, it looked like Windows 6.5 was a lame duck. Microsoft is desperately hoping to change that perception by rebranding WinMo 6.5 as Windows Phone Starter Edition. The boys and girls at Redmond made things clear as mud in an interview with our sister …

Following a tariff overhaul by T-Mobile last month, O2 is the latest network to revamp its monthly contracts. The original home of the iPhone is launching a new SIM-only tariff and updating its contracts for phones and mobile broadband dongles. If you’ve already got the phone you want, SIM-only deals tempt you with cheap rates for just the SIM card …

What do you call a Windows Phone 7 Series phone? We’re going with ‘WinPhoSev phone’, but we’re open to suggestions. Whatever it’s called, LG has chucked the first branded WP7S-p into the spotlight on Engadget‘s video podcast. Aaron Woodman of Microsoft showed an early prototype of an LG phone sporting Windows Phone 7 Series, showing off the Start screen, Bing …

Editors’ note: Sprint also advertises on CNET. We’ve always followed Sprint’s television ads with interest, primarily because they’ve been a roller coaster ride. We were never fans of the black-and-white spots with CEO Dan Hesse, but we liked the most recent campaign that tried to demonstrate what users could do on the carrier’s network at that given moment. Now Hesse …

The U.K. government will not exempt universities, libraries, and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week. This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the Internet, leading legal experts to say it will become …

Nexus One: It could arrive at Verizon in the next few weeks. James Martin/CNET Though we’ve known since January that Verizon Wireless is getting a Nexus One, this week we saw the first sign that the handset may arrive soon. A CDMA HTC phone with the ID “PB99300” cleared the Federal Communications Commission’s certification process this week. As Phonescoop pointed …

Motorola Ciq Josh Miller/CNET A recent over-the-air (OTA) update for T-Mobile’s Motorola Cliq appears to be adversely affecting users who’ve installed it on their phones. Many customers are taking to both T-Mobile’s and Motorola’s forums to voice their anger. The update (1.3.18) aims to improve the battery life, touch-screen sensitivity, GPS, and more. This is not to be confused with …

When your mind replays your iPhone’s ill-fated fall to the pavement, followed by that gut-wrenching sound of shattered glass, it’ll no doubt be in slow motion. Traumatic events like that often are. If you’re lucky enough to live in Chicago or Seattle, however, you can get your baby fixed fast. Jet City Devices is an iPhone repair service that on …

Details of the Federal Communications Commission’s much anticipated National Broadband Plan are trickling out as the deadline for the report quickly approaches. But exactly who will pay for all these bold plans hasn’t yet been discussed. The report, which was mandated as part of last year’s economic stimulus bill, will provide a blueprint for policy makers and lawmakers to provide …

Virgin Media plans to roll out a broadband service that tops out at 100 megabits per second to residential customers by the end of the year. The company said Thursday that it will use its fiber-based network to deliver the new high speeds. Virgin Media, which provides broadband, TV, phone and/or mobile phone service to roughly 4.1 million homes across …

Does your iPhone battery never last as long as you’d like despite our tips to give it more juice? Do you need additional backup power? If so, then you need a battery pack. Griffin’s TuneJuice, which I tested this week, gives an iPhone as much as 2 hours to 3 hours and 30 minutes of extra talk time depending on …

Once a purveyor of simple phones for making calls, MetroPCS over the last few years has worked to expand its handset lineup with fancier models like the Samsung Finesse, the Samsung Code, and the Huawei M750. And on Thursday it gave us another such device when it introduced the Samsung Caliber SCH-r860. Already available with U.S. Cellular, the Caliber is …

Palm’s smartphone recovery took a big hit Thursday as the company sharply cut its outlook for the third quarter and fiscal 2010 because “driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated.” How ugly is it? Palm said its third-quarter revenue will be $285 million to $310 million under generally accepted accounting principles. Non-GAAP revenue will …

Last week we told you that Sprint was being cagey about the future of its WiMax devices. The carrier isn’t saying when it will offer 4G phones, but we’re betting that the summer timeframe> isn’t so far-fetched. Indeed, the carrier is doing its best to keep WiMax in the news. On Wednesday, Sprint announced that it would expanded 4G to …

The life span of most mobile phone batteries is around 500 charge cycles. With smartphones gobbling up more power to run their many applications, it pays to know what settings you can change to impact how quickly the battery drains.