It’s the day before Mobile World Congress 2016 officially starts in Barcelona, but there’s already plenty of exciting new products to behold. Sunday, Samsung revealed its new Galaxy phones, the S7 and S7 Edge and LG debuted the G5. LG also took the wraps off a few cameras, a VR headset and a home-monitoring device. …

Now playing: Watch this: LG G5 smartphone: CNET Editors react 3:09 We’ve long expected LG’s latest flagship phone would be making the rounds in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress. But here’s something we didn’t expect: The G5 modular, so you can pop the battery out of a compartment on the bottom end and slot in accessories. LG’s G5 goes modular …

If you’re a die-hard fan of The Simpsons, you can quote Homer, Bart, Lisa and Marge ad nauseam. You can probably identify an episode just by the couch gag too. But can you watch 500 episodes of “The Simpsons” all shown at the same time in a 360-degree orb? In this 10-minute YouTube video created by fan John Hatfield, you …

Beyonce just might be the black Bill Gates in the making, and that’s not conjecture. As of last year she owns part of a streaming music service called Tidal (along with her hip-hop mogul husband Jay Z, and chart-topping colleagues Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, et al.). But despite that megawatt star power, Tidal isn’t doing too hot right now; …

While Cowon’s Plenue series of portable high-res music players may not be as well known as Astell & Kern’s or FiiO’s, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the two previous Plenue models I’ve tested on this blog. This new Plenue D is smaller and more affordable than its siblings, and first impressions of its build and sound quality were extremely positive. I love …

I still own and enjoy LPs I bought decades ago, and even ones I’ve played hundreds of times still sound perfectly fine. I’ll go further back, to original pressings of 50-plus-year-old Beatles and Rolling Stones LPs that have survived many hundreds of plays, and they also still sound great. I’m not claiming they’re 100 percent noise-free, but they weren’t dead …

The Federal Communications Commission wants to liberate you from your cable company’s set-top box. You probably didn’t even realize you needed to be freed from this tyranny. But that’s the message from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who’s on a mission to make sure consumers have choices when it comes to their set-top box. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is taking on …

Barcelona’s Fira Gran Via convention center hosts Mobile World Congress. Stephen Shankland/CNET Just when you’ve finished your laundry from CES and put away your suitcase, the technology trade show calendar beckons again. But instead of Las Vegas, this time the destination is Barcelona and the show is Mobile World Congress. Running from February 22 to 25, Mobile World Congress is …

Congrats to Greg V. of San Francisco for winning last week’s prize, a Timbuk2 messenger bag custom-designed by me. This week, we have another Timbuk2 bag, again resulting from my visit to the Timbuk2 factory a couple of miles from CNET’s headquarters here in SF. This one is a striking laptop backpack that has a jolt of color to help …

CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. And find more great buys on the CNET Deals page. Man not included. Rakuten I have a friend, let’s call him Dave (because that’s his name), who thinks hoverboards are just as lame …