Bad news if you fancy a cheap HTC phone: the company says it won’t take on the low-priced phone market, as it doesn’t want to harm its brand. “We don’t want to destroy our brand image,” says HTC head honcho Peter Chou in an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch. Instead, HTC plans to …

Perhaps one silver lining to Nokia’s massive shakeup is an end to its poorly thought out “smartphone beta test” campaign for the company’s flagship Lumia 900 smartphone. You’ve probably seen one. Following the Lumia 900’s launch in April, the commercials were everywhere. Related stories Your Phone Screen Is Gross. Here’s How to Clean It Without Causing Damage Nokia’s Newest Phone …

If Nokia goes down, it won’t be CEO Stephen Elop’s fault. The company appears to be in a nosedive after it warned again that its financial performance would disappoint. In addition, the company said it would cut 10,000 positions, or nearly 10 percent of its work force, by the end of 2013, as it reshuffles its management team and showed …

Samsung is planning a social network to rival Facebook. The Korean giant is hoping to scoop up everyone with a Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Galaxy phone in their pocket and get their phones, tablets, cameras and TVs sharing with your friends, Facebook-style. The Korea Times reports the network will be based on the existing Samsung social wotsit Family Story, …

Amazon’s Kindle applications now support more titles, the company announced today. Users of Amazon’s Kindle for iOS, Kindle Cloud Reader, and Kindle for Android apps will find that they now support children’s books, comics, and graphic novels. According to Amazon, the children’s books feature fixed layouts and Kindle Text Pop-Up in supported titles, making it easier for readers to magnify …

Nokia has sold off its luxury mobile phone brand Vertu. The company said today that EQT VI, a private equity group in Northern Europe, has acquired Vertu. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but after it closes at the end of the second quarter, Nokia plans to hold a 10 percent minority stake in the brand. Back in …

Now playing: Watch this: A hands-on look at the Sony Xperia Ion Android phone 1:05 Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: an embattled consumer electronics company is counting on its latest smartphone to vault it back onto the U.S. consumer’s radar. I could be talking about Nokia, Research in Motion, or LG. But today, it’s Sony and the …

AT&T officially confirmed the pricing of its new Xperia Ion smartphone. The manufacturer’s first 4G LTE handset, the device will cost $99.99 and ship to stores beginning June 24. Since the Android-powered Xperia Ion won’t run Ice Cream Sandwich but Android 2.3 Gingerbread, many hard-core Android fans aren’t likely to be impressed. Neither will people who have been waiting for …

The App Store is home to lots of weather apps, most of which are good at forecasting the upcoming days and even hours. But few excel at telling you what the clouds might bring in the next hour. That’s where Dark Sky comes in. This new app, the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, predicts the weather for your exact …

In the weeks leading up to the formal unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Internet was full of rumors, conjecture, and a smattering of “leaks.” In some cases we saw dummy displays, and other seemingly legitimate fanboy fodder, but for everything that landed online, no one leak turned out to be 100 percent accurate. So how was Samsung …