Author: Leigh Geary

Sony Xperia S – In finer detail

I don’t know what it is, but the Xperia range looks totally different now that the “Ericsson” name has gone. The all-new Xperia S appeared on Monday and you can expect Three, Orange and O2 to carry it. Specs on the Xperia S include that 4.3″ HD (1280 …

Huawei MediaPad to get ICS

Last year, when we were covering Mobile World Congress, we asked Orange why they weren’t retailing own-branded tablet devices here in the UK. Now they are, in the shape of Orange Tahiti. Under the paintwork it’s a Huawei MediaPad running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). Now, however, Huawei have announced …

GiffGaff look to deal with their data hogs

Let me tell you a story. Back in the day, ISP’s offered us the internet. It was “unlimited”, so people happily browsed and watched videos. The world was a happy place and we all raised our glasses to a job well done. Then.. the problems came. A few …

Acer A200 cheaper deal available from Expansys

Acer are now listing the Acer A200 in either Titanium Gray or Mettalic Red for just £289.99. The tablet has a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual-core CPU, Android 4.0 (ICS), 2 megapixel camera and a 10.1″ screen running at 1280×800. This price is just a touch cheaper than …

Orange and O2 confirm they are to carry the Xperia S

Three confirmed their intention to carry the new Xperia S within minutes of the device getting shown at CES the other day. Now O2 and Orange have both stepped forward to confirm the same. Conor has just posted a tweet to confirm that Orange will be carrying the …

CES – Polaroid Android Camera

We’ve seen a few things running Android over the years. Now we can add cameras to the list, with the new Polaroid SC1630. It runs Android 2.X on a 3.2″ display and, if you’re bored taking photos, you can access the Android Market and grab some apps. The …

HTC Explorer Picture Special

Some months ago we got our first real look at the HTC Explorer. It was known as the HTC Pico and is available on Three, Vodafone and direct. Today we’ve got our hands on one and will be doing a review over the next week or two. This …

Huawei Ascend P1 and P1 S – Up close

The other day we got a first look at ths super-slim P1 and P1 S from Huawei. Now, mark my words, Huawei are definitely worth keeping an eye on, especially with Mobile World Congress around the corner. They’re the people behind the Orange Tahiti tablet and their handsets …

Xperia S in video (again)

So, we’re guessing that you’ve already seen the earlier Sony Xperia S video and you’re eagerly waiting for more. Sony have sent us this promotional stuff which is well worth a look.. The Xperia S is coming soon to UK network Three. Link – YouTube

Get us on Facebook too!

Want to get all the latest news, reviews and gossip while you’re chatting to friends on Facebook? Well now you can, thanks to our spanky new Facebook page. At this point, websites will usually give something away in an thinly veiled attempt to get you to hit click …

Orange Tahiti Tablet now on sale

Orange have just announced their new 7″ tablet running Android Honeycomb 3.2. This isn’t the first time Orange have sold their own Android tablet, and we asked Anne Bouverot last year (when she was Exec VP of Mobile Services at France Telecom) whether their re-branded Huawei S7 would …

CES – Huawei go super-slim with the Ascend P1 and P1 S

Huawei have just announced the Ascend P1 and P1 S Android smartphones. First up, the Ascend P1 S. This is just 6.68mm thick and has a slight buldge at the bottom just like the Galaxy SII from Samsung. It’ll run the very latest Android OS – Ice Cream …

T-Mobile Vivacity video overview

It’s quickly turning into another big “review day” here at Coolsmartphone. Next up is this, the T-Mobile Vivacity. We’ve actually already reviewed this a few weeks ago but I’ve got one right here and figured that you’d like a video overview too. The T-Mobile Vivacity is actually built …

Monaco Extreme Car Charge Review

OK, big news people. YouTube has a new video editing option called “Stabilize”. That’s it, no more one-handed wobble-cam videos… well, maybe just a few eh? Today we’ve had some more stuff to review. This is the Monaco Extreme Car adapter from the guys at WirelessGround.com. It’s normally …

Editorial – Windows Phone Communication Fail

Rather than updating the original blog post, Microsoft have spoken to ZDNet about the recent changes in how updates are delivered. It seems that there actually aren’t any changes, and everything is business is usual. Greg Sullivan, Senior Product Manager, has told Mary-Jo Foley that.. Nothing has changed …

Editorial – Microsoft hands power back to the networks?

I’m worried, and I’ll tell you why. Back in 2002 Microsoft emailed me after reading some of the stuff I’d put on the web. The first Microsoft Smartphones were hitting the market and I’d added some critical but constructive posted about it. They respected this, and they wanted …

Sony Ericsson dangles the carrot

Lord knows what’s going on now. We thought originally that Sony Ericsson were teasing us with a possible Windows Phone, then we changed our minds and figured that it was probably the Android-powered Arc HD which would make an appearance at CES. Now, with this further image posted …

HTC profits drop by a quarter

Not brilliant news for HTC, especially just a month before Mobile World Congress… Profits have dipped by 25% in the last quarter. HTC has faced stiff competition from Samsung and Apple, with Nokia also above them in the smartphone maker leaderboard. Sales fell in December by 20.3% but …

Galaxy Nexus 32GB coming to Expansys soon

Storage. There’s just never enough. Cast your mind back to 2005 when the Samsung SGH-i300 came out. Powered by Windows Mobile it had a hard drive on board. Yes, you heard right… a hard drive on a phone. Now, try not to laugh here, because this seemed like …

Pre-order the Acer A200 for £299

Come on, it’s not the end of the sales yet. Look at the guys at DFS, they only have one week in the year when their sale isn’t on 🙂 Anyway, the people at Very are having a sale. They’ve reduced the price of many Acer tablets… .. …

Signature needed on a Word document? No problem!

Have you ever been sent a Word document that needs your Signature? There’s a couple of ways of getting around this issue. You could print the document, sign it, scan it back in, then email it back.. Or you could print it, sign it and fax it. However, …

CES – Motorola announce the MOTOLUXE

Motorola have just announced the MOTOLUXE over at CES in Las Vegas which is another android handset with a large touch screen and decent set of specifications.  Packing a 4 inch corner to corner display and an 8 megapixel camera the MOTOLUXE looks quite an appealing choice. Other …

CES – Motorola DEFY MINI Announced

You’ve seen the Motorola DEFY, you’ve had the Motorola DEFY+ .. now, shrink it down and you get this, the Motorola DEFY MINI. Motorola have just announced two new phones, this being one of them. The DEFY MINI is dustproof and water-resistant just like the earlier models. We’re …

Samsung Galaxy SII on Orange now with NFC

The Samsung Galaxy SII is amazing. We know that, you know that. However, when Orange (and Barclaycard) launched their “contactless payment” service the Galaxy SII wasn’t listed as a supported handset. Actually, there weren’t a great deal of phones supporting the “touch to pay” system. To do this …

HTC Getting ready for MWC

More power! Single core CPU’s? Pah, they’re yesterdays news. Digitimes reckon that HTC will be rocking up in Barcelona with many disk and quad-core CPU’s inside their spanky new phones. The HTC Edge is going to be one of them but there’s now rumours of Tegra 3 (quad …

Asus Prime now selling in the UK

Are you after a Asus Transformer Prime? Are you in the UK? It probably worth checking this thread over at xda-developers . It looks like units are starting to fly off the shelves from PC World and Currys. It seems that the larger PC World stores are the …

Xperia Arc HD teased again?

Well, that’s an Android then. Despite our earlier guess that Sony Ericsson had gone all Windows Phone on us it looks like this will be the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD, aka Nozomi. The camera / video switcher image is a bit of an Android give-away here, and …

Windows Phone daily news website available

If you’re after your daily news fix but don’t want to leave your Windows Phone UI, this could very well be your answer. Getnews.mobi(or JM News as it’s also known) looks and feels like Windows Phone 7 and gives access to a range of news sources from around …

LG Prada 3.0 to arrive in stores here in the UK this month

The brand-conscious will be able to get the flashy LG Prada handset this month according to an LG press release. It states that .. The phone is now available to Korean customers and scheduled for the release in most European countries and other parts of Asia in January. …

Make us your daily click

A new year. Time for a fresh start. Now, I’ll be honest here, during Mobile World Congress (which kicks off again next month) we get a truck-load of people accessing the site. It’s insane and I love it. Mobile World Congress, for those that aren’t aware, is a …

Nokia Lumia 900 Specs and pictures appear again

The Nokia Ace, aka Nokia Lumia 900, has show it’s top-half over on Pocketnow. It’ll arrive on US-network AT&T later this month after an announcement at CES and it looks to be an exclusive too. At launch the Lumia 900 will run Mango but will shortly get a …

Asus ready to unlock the Prime?

Story so far. The bootloader on the Asus Prime is locked. This prevents developers doing a lot of fun developer things like custom ROMs. The Prime is a SIM free device too, so there’s no networks asking Asus to stop network unlocking. The guys at xda-developers have started …

HTC Flyer Honeycomb update begins to roll

Did you get yourself a cheap HTC Flyer this Christmas? If so, it’s time to check for updates as we’re hearing that the Honeycomb update has started to arrive. We’ll have a hands-on with the new Android update later on, but do let us know if it has …

Sony Ericsson tease… something

With just a week to go until CES, Sony Ericsson are at least telling us that they will be launching…. ermmm…something. There’s a guessing game on Facebook at the moment as to what it’ll be. We’re thinking that another Android handset or three will be popping onto a …

Asus lock the Prime bootloader, developers not happy

The Asus Transformer Prime has kinda fell out of love with the developers over on XDA-Developers. No ROMs can be flashed to this device because the bootloader is locked down with 128 bit encryption. This is the same trick that HTC did, but then they eventually did a …

Samsung Galaxy SII Getting ICS via Kies?

Wehay! Official Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs for the Samsung Galaxy SII are arriving, and through the Samsung Kies software too….. apparently. Android 4.0.1 and Android 4.0.3 have leaked out, although it looks like there’ll be certain markets and variants getting the new OS update first. This roll-out has …

SanDisk 16GB microSD card, just £9.99

Hey, we know it’s early, but for those of you who weren’t too drunk last night you can get yourself a great deal on a new microSD card. This one is made by SanDisk and is a Class 6 16GB SDHC type. Best of all, this is now …

Jonathan Ive receives a knighthood

Designer of many Apple products, Jonathan Ive, has today received an honorary knighthood and can call himself Sir Jony. Jonathan has been the principle designer of the PowerBook G4, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone and the iPad. He was born and raised here in the UK and …

Siri for Android is here… Kinda

There’s a stack of voice-control apps in the Android Market. Stick “Voice Assistant” in and you’ll see Vlingo, Speaktoit, Skyvi, Alice and a whole load more. There are, however, several apps calling themselves “Siri”. Some show themselves as “Fake Siri” but one is actually by a developer calling …

HTC offer up bootloader unlocking

HTC are now letting you unlock the bootloader of every phone they’ve launched since September 2011. There’s not a great deal to say here, but if you’ve tried it do let us know. The announcement was made on their development site where you can also find the tool …