Author: Leigh Geary

Moto X up for pre-order at Phones 4u right now

Just yesterday we covered the launch of the Moto X. The white version is exclusive to Phones 4u and you can pre-order one with them right now. If you go ahead and decide to do that you’ll get a free wireless speaker worth £120. Available later this month, …

Location, Location, Location. Google – We know where you’ve been.

Morning you lovely people. Want to try something? If you’ve not disabled Location History you can have a peek into the Google “Big Brother World” right now. Last night, I browsed around the www.google.com/dashboard and swam through the masses of information that Google has on me. The amount …

Moto X revealed. More intelligence, more curves, less money.

As we expected, Motorola have just announced the Moto X. The 4G handset has a 10 megapixel camera and a curved back. It’s cheap too. Like that “special club” I went to the other night, this particular handset is all about “No touching”. It uses the Google voice-recognition …

Sony launch the Xperia E1

It’s looking like Mobile World Congress may not be the only place to see lots of phone launches. The third handset to launch today is this, the Xperia E1 from Sony. They are billing it as “simply the best smartphone in its’ class” and it comes with a …

Google splash some serious cash to buy Nest

Imagine that you’re an emerging company who make connected devices. One of your best selling products is a a brainy thermostat which learns your schedule and programs itself. It’s a device you can change and control via your phone and it’ll apparently lower your bills too. Now, imagine …

Sony launch the Xperia T2 Ultra and the Xperia T2 Ultra Dual

Out of no-where Sony have decided to launch lots of new handsets today. The first two are these, the Xperia T2 Ultra and the Xperia T2 Ultra Dual. To be honest the only difference between them is that the latter has a dual-SIM, so it’s really just one …

Bejeezus! LG G Flex to cost nearly £700!

Oh sure, it’s curved and it’ll grab the attention of your friends and colleagues, but would you shell out a massive £690 for the SIM-free LG G Flex? The new handset, which has a curved 6.1″ display with Android 4.2.2, will also be available on contract, with Carphone …

New Xperia update causing WiFi problems

The Xperia Z in the Coolsmartphone office recently got updated to Android 4.3 but, shortly after, we noticed that the Sony Smartwatch 2 no longer worked. It seems we’re not the only ones, with the Xperia Care website now bubbling over with similar comments. It seems that, post …

Tesco Hudl – Doing rather well actually

Whilst the recent sales at Tesco have been a little disappointing, their Hudl tablet seems to have been selling well. Tesco’s like-for-like sales were down by 2.4% during the Christmas period, and its shares fell by 4%. However, the good news for the supermarket is that some 400,000 …

Are you a crazed gadget fan?

A short while ago E.ON emailed me. I did the first thing that most people do when a utility company contacts you directly. I hid under the bed and shouted, “We’re not in, we never use the tumble dryer, honest!” 😉 After a while I emerged and found …

Competition – Win a three-month subscription to The Times Digital

So, we’re already giving away five CAT Active Urban cases. If you’ve got an iPhone, that’s great, but we figured that one competition this week just isn’t enough. Let’s give away some more stuff! The Times (yes, they read Coolsmartphone too) have been in touch and they’re offering …

Centralize your business contact list easily

A company phone used to be a BlackBerry. In a lot of places it still is, but now there’s more and more people bringing their own devices into the workplace and using them instead. It’s called “BYOD” and those people “in the know” tell me that it’s massive …

Picture special – HTC Desire 601 now available on O2 in red

Last September HTC announced the Desire 601. It’s a mid-range device with a 4.5″ QHD display and the video montage feature we also saw on the Desire 500. The handset also includes a dual-core 1.4GHz CPU, which – despite the fact it’s called the Desire 601 – actually …

Top 5 apps for December revealed

Good old Distimo eh? We all love them. No, me neither. However, they’ve done some research and, using bits of data from the Apple App Store and Google Play, they’ve got the top apps of December 2013. The top free apps from the Apple App Store included the …

Moto G coming to Vodafone “soon”

You know how much we like the Moto G. It’s cheap, it’s got decent specs and it won our “Best Smartphone Under £200” award too. The handset, which we’ve detailed here, will be arriving on Vodafone UK at a non-specific point in the future. Vodafone doesn’t have pricing …

EE 4G growth accelerates as two million enjoy LTE

The network originally wanted to get one million customers before the end of 2013, but now it looks like growth is accelerating, with two million 4G customers now using EE. The second million has only taken four months to achieve, compared to 10 months for the first million. …

The Stratus – A wireless gaming controller to get your thumbs twerking

So, we’ve got really good mobile games and we’ve got the odd Android-powered console that plugs into your TV. The latter hasn’t quite taken off as yet, but how about a wireless controller for your iPhone? One that’ll give you the classic gaming experience? This is the Stratus, …

Sony Xperia Z1 Compact unveiled

Sony are expanding their Z1 range with a new smaller version of the Z1. It’ll be available in white, black, pink and lime from February, so not long to wait. It’s waterproof so, if you’re standing next to the sea taking pictures of the storms, you at least …

Samsung announce the Galaxy NotePRO and Galaxy TabPRO tablets

Samsung overnight announced the Samsung Galaxy NotePRO and the Galaxy TabPRO. They come with personalized magazine dashboard interfaces and, according to the on-stage presentation, let’s you do “more with your tablet”. They will let you “view, create and consume more” and come equipped with a 12.2″ WQXGA displays. …

Just what were you doing on Christmas morning?

Every now and then, usually when I’m just falling asleep, I have mad ideas for the site. I tried to stick a smartphone to my car once to try and create a cheap version of the GoPro sports camera. It didn’t work. The phone fell off somewhere up …

HTC quarterly figures are out. Still a little uncomfortable

Back in September HTC decided to off-load their remaining shares in Beats. The action, which effectively ended their partnership with the company, brought in some much-needed cash and has meant that HTC narrowly avoided a second quarterly loss. HTC reported their 2013 Q4 figures and made a net …

New Year data usage up 80% on Vodafone

We recently heard how O2 saw a 62% increase in data usage over the New Year festivities. Vodafone have now been in touch and they’ve seen an even greater increase – their smartphone customers used 80% more data than New Year last year. It seems that texting, although …

Watch cartoons and movies for free

I’ll be honest and admit that this app isn’t the right and proper place to get streamed movie and cartoon content. It’s not Netflix and the app, named “Cartoon Plus”, has the infamous get-out-clause stating that it’s “just a search engine for content which is readily available on …

HTC Desire 500 available on Three for really not that much cash

Following our full HTC Desire 500 review last month, Three have announced availability online and in-store. Prices are pretty good too, with just £18 getting you 100 minutes per month, 5000 texts and unlimited data (24 month contract). You can choose to notch up to 500 minutes and …

Keeping ahead of the scammers

Yes, I’ll confess to watching a TV show about scams last night. A lot were scams that you’re probably already aware of, such as the card skimmers on cash and ticket machines and 419 scammers trying to fool you out of your money. However, I’d not heard of …

Christmas, online.

The festive season is definitely a good time to “people watch”. On Christmas Day you’ll see tablets and smartphones getting unwrapped and, as the new owners get online, you’ll see a surge of traffic onto major websites around the internet. This year and last I have witnessed a …

Review – My iStory

If you’ve read my review of the HTC One or HTC One mini then you’ll know how much I love the “video montage” feature. It bundles together photos you’ve taken into a fun movie that will help you remember all those little moments from your day. If you’ve …

Parental Access – Monitor your child on their mobile

Getting your kids on the internet is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you want them to use a tablet or phone like their friends do, but on the other hand you want them to be safe. Parental Access, which is free and available for Android, seeks to …

Win! Five CAT Active Urban Cases to giveaway

It’s January 1st, New Years Day 2014. The very last thing I should be doing is SHOUTING but, on a dreary wet day when your hangover is making your head feel like a football, I figured that a competition was in order. If you’re lucky enough to own …

Can you fall in love with your phone?

Yesterday I went to watch the Harry Hill Movie. It is, I’ll confess, utterly insane. The kids seemed to like it, although there weren’t a great of laugh-out-loud moments. I was just utterly puzzled about the whole thing and how on earth it had got into a movie. …

Merry Christmas Coolsmartphoners !

Hey you lovely lot. It’s Christmas Eve! As is usual, I wanted to borrow some airtime to wish you all a fantastic festive season and thank you for repeatedly returning to our site. The guys writing the articles, churning out the podcast, tweaking code, reviewing handsets and replying …

Tittat – Share opinions anonymously

Being on places like Facebook and Twitter is all well and good, but you do mostly have to watch what you’re saying about people. The guys at sentzLab have come up with a solution thanks to a unique application called Tittat. Available for iOS it’ll let you find out …

ZTE Blade V review

The budget end of the smartphone world is always a tad scary. This, the ZTE Blade V, has a 5 megapixel camera with flash, 4GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot and a quad-core 1.2GHz CPU. That’s a good start. Not only that, but if you’re a …

Phone Zombie takes an unexpected dip

My lunch break has become increasingly interesting in recent years. I meet new people and literally bump into them as I head out to grab a sandwich. It’s the “phone zombies” – those people who walk down a street staring at their phones. They put walking and avoiding …

Dropbox updated. Now with folder sharing management

Dropbox has been the online storage choice for many. However, if you’ve checked the app recently you’ll have noticed a pretty significant update. It’ll now let you manage those magical shared folders that you can invite your friends to view. Now send a link and invite people directly …

LG G Flex coming to the UK in a matter of days

It’s bendy, it’s curvy. No, it’s not an Olympic gymnast, it’s the LG G Flex. EE have announced that the device will be arriving in selected stores this weekend. You’ll be able to try out the device and have a play with it but you can’t purchase it …