Author: Leigh Geary
If you’re following us on Twitter then, first up, thank-you. We think you’re brilliant. Secondly, you should’ve spotted our earlier piece about the Xperia Touch in February. It’s a device which turns any surface into a touchscreen and, when I tested it (video below), I kinda wanted to …
If you’ve spent any time browsing Google Play recently, you may have spotted that something has changed. The Play Store here in the UK, until very recently, not allowed gambling with “real money” in apps and games. Now though, following an update to the developer policy page, you …
Say “Fitbit” to anyone and they’ll instantly think of an activity tracker. Usually the name conjures up an image of a wrist-worn strap that’ll keep an eye on how mobile you are. However, Fibit have just announced their very own health and fitness smartwatch, called the the Fitbit …
The jury is still out on whether we should actually be calling it the Note8 or the Note 8, but either way you can get all the details here. If you want one, we’ve got you a list of all the offers and deals, courtesy of the various …
Sky are pushing hard into the mobile arena, but they’ve now announced a better deal if you want some Sky TV action too. Their newly-announced £35 per-month deal delivers an iPhone SE on a “Swap24” plan. This, along with their appropriately-named “Swap12” offering, lets you upgrade to the …
If you keep hitting Coolsmartphone pretty regularly then our social media presence is here for you. You can keep up with all the latest news and gossip easily by following, subscribing or hitting the Like buttons. If you’re on a PC then you’ll see our buttons on the …
It’s Friday! Clucking Friday! Now, although this isn’t “all you can eat”, it’s still a lot of data. Yes, yes, I know there’ll still be the “die hards” out there who really, really want the completely and utterly unlimited mobile data pipes, but if you’re looking for that …
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Yeah. That didn’t go well did it? It became famous for all the wrong reasons – appearing on warning signs at airports and generally becoming the butt of jokes involving explosions or fireballs. Today marks the launch of the Note 8, and the …
This job can be pretty interesting at times. Today I’m on a train back from London after a meeting. If all goes well, the results of this particular meeting should bear fruit on Coolsmartphone in the next couple of weeks. The people I met down there were surprised …
Bluetooth speakers. We get a lot of them here and it can be tricky to stand out from the crowd. This Dodocool mini speaker decides to do it by being small. Really small. It’s 45 grams and is 42.1 mm by 36.7 mm. Straight from the word go, …
I’ve just got back from the Coolsmartphone canteen, where I’ve high-fived almost everyone because I’ve crow-barred the this song into the title of this article. For the uninitiated, head to the bottom for “Magic” by Pilot, and re-live the 1970’s, baby. But wait, before all that, we’ve had …
Google has woven their Android O launch into the US solar eclipse – the first to be seen across the country since 1918. Android is educating fans via this site and taking the opportunity to reveal all the Android O goodness too. You can watch the livestream below …
At home I have a NAS box. I originally purchased one of these because I’ve somehow used all the storage that my cloud provider had available and the cost to upgrade was nothing short of insane. I’d tried other providers, however the cost, the reliability, and the fact …
Remember when a briefcase or a stack of paperwork left on a train or in a taxi would be in the daily news? Private data, secure notes and plans for changes in government or a major company could oh-so-easily fall into the hands of others. Shortly after, it …
At home you’ll probably have an extension lead. It’s probably behind your TV and you’ll have loads of things plugged in. Secretly you’ll probably not be completely sure what plug does what, or whether you need all those plugs at all. Then you’ll have a charger for your …
So, we’ve had a few emails on this one. It’s a product called “Heelight” and is an intelligent bulb that can “hear”. It doesn’t use Bluetooth or WiFi but has 30 different modes including a “Candle” and “Rhythm Mode”. Some 16 million RGB colours are available and – …
Try as I might, I’ve been unable to loan a Sony Xperia handset so that we can give you a review. At the launch during Mobile World Congress I was, however, very impressed by the build quality and the sheer speed of the thing, which in tests could …
The smartphone manufacturer has been keen to let us know certain bits of information about their upcoming V30 device. It’s going to have an F1.6 aperture camera with a glass lens. The dual camera setup also gets laser detection autofocus, optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization too. …
Morning, morning all. It’s Thursday already so we’ve nearly made it to the weekend. Remember STK? They were once a distribution company before becoming an accessories brand and then a mobile phone manufacturer selling well-priced feature and smartphones. Designed in London, we last saw the handsets arriving in …
We reviewed the Google Pixel last year but, by the looks of the FCC, we’ve already got details of the next model. Oh, and it’ll be bringing that squeezy technology that we recently saw in the HTC U11. How so? Well, HTC will be making the Google Pixel …
We love a good deal and, as you know, the best mobile deals tend to be SIM only ones. Today we’ve got one with the company that now owns EE, so this particular offering will be running on that network. You’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and a …
Good morning all. I’m a little tired today due to the fact that only around four Swissport staff decided to bother turning up to work at Birmingham Airport in the last month or so. The knock on result is a completely terrible experience and an airport which just …
By now you’ll hopefully be familiar with Honor. Although they’ve chosen to spell their name the American way, they’re becoming a strong player. Huawei are the people building and driving this brand, and they’re really rather good at this whole smartphone thing. Our very own James Pearce ended …
With mere days to go until the launch of the next big Samsung device, details of the handset have appeared on Geekbench, the cross-platform benchmark site. According to Telefoon.nl the SM-N950F model number reveals the fact that it’s the Note 8, and although the score isn’t massively high …
It’s fair to say that I’m now of a “certain age” and I can quite easily amaze people by detailing a long-forgotten time “before mobile phones”. At school in the 80’s and 90’s, you simply wouldn’t see a phone, and it was only at college that clever new …
A decade ago I was here, on Coolsmartphone, writing about Windows Mobile phones. They were the king of the castle back then. Every business had Windows Mobile handsets. Everyone used Pocket PCs for their business email and the Microsoft Smartphone was making good headway into the consumer space. …
Many of my friends are still holding on to their rather dented and slightly battered iPhone handsets. They’ve dodged the iPhone 7, some have even skipped the iPhone 6s, in anticipation of the “big one” – the iPhone 8. Rumours are always to be taken with a large …
Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …
This probably isn’t a smartphone brand you’ll recognise, but they’ve emailed me quite a few times and want you to know about their new UMIDIGI S2 Pro. It’s got a good spec and a big screen (5.99″) which doesn’t, apparently, have a bezel. That screen is also an …
A lot of smartphones now come equipped with a blocking system to let you stop unwanted calls from repeatedly bothering you. On the HTC U11 I’m testing now, you can see that in action below.. However, in the UK we have something called the “Telephone Preference Service”, or …
OK, I’m going to open this one out to the floor as we only have a couple of bits of information. It looks like Huawei are giving us some news about what their next smartphone might contain. Here’s the tweets we’ve spotted, and the first one – posted …
The Huawei Press Team sadly ripped away the Huawei P10 that I’d got slightly attached to recently. I took a liking to it and really didn’t want to give it back. Having a good camera and having a good battery life go a long way with me. The …
Just recently Honor announced the new 6A. We covered it in detail here and we mentioned that it would be available on Three UK. Well, today is the day. You can Go Binge with it on Three. Wilkin Lee, who’s a thoroughly nice chap and is the sales …
With my son getting to a “certain age”, he’s now off on his own. He plays in the local park and goes on his scooter with his friends. Even as a geeky phone guy, I really didn’t want to give him a phone. Like most kids, I knew …
Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …
Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, have hit the news quite a bit recently. This is why you’ve seen us cover the technology several times in recent days.
On a recent trip abroad, which happened in an EU country after the big “roam like home” rules applied, there was a definite split between the age groups on phone usage. Some mom’s and dad’s in restaurants still hunted for the free WiFi, but elsewhere on the beach …
At this time of year, it’s safe to say that many of you may be returning, or just about the embark, on a summer holiday. Now, as we mentioned before, if you fly from and to an EU country you can use your phone just as if you …
I’ll be honest, What I know about a Mac can probably be written on the back of a postage stamp. So, when a friend who lives quite some distance away asked me about their Mac, I was a bit stumped. Somehow, and don’t ask me how, they’d managed …
My wife calls me “tight”. I personally like to call it “money management”, but either way it drives her mad. At the moment we’re redecorating the lounge, and we’ve taken a few months to do it because I wanted to get the sofa in the 50% sale and …
