Author: James Pearce
There is always a firmware around that people are waiting for. Nokia users are no different, the latest update is called “Black” which enables and adds a whole range of features. The Lumia Black update has begun rolling out today for Lumia 1020 and Lumia 925 smartphones, with …
Asus have announced a new range of Intel Atom based phones, there are three devices available in a range of colours and sizes. They come in four, five or six variations and Asus have applied a skin to them all called ZenUI. Zenfone 6 The ZenFone 6 is …
Over the years I’ve made an attempt to try and use most of the current flagship devices, be it to see what might work for me or to remain informed about the other OS’s when I decide to criticise. Now and again during my constant phone swapping an …
Acer have their fingers in all sorts of pies, they make decent laptops, monitors, tablets and even phones. Next week at CES they’ve got their new products on hand for the world to see and this week they’ve released the info and some images on the whole new …
I was a fan of the original Galaxy Camera, it had a decent camera, a huge optical zoom and you could slot a Micro SIM card in it, the few weeks I had with it were pretty good fun. When I heard rumours of a successor last year …
Android tablets are a mixed bag and as much as I love my Nexus 7 it always does seem like a massive phone and my Asus Transformer Prime tablet always seems too big. I’ve wanted to try out an 8″ tablet for a while now and the price …
The Nokia Lumia 520 has been one of Nokia’s better moves in 2013 offering a great experience at a great price. Selling millions worldwide with possibly the lowest spec seen on the Windows Phone 8 platform. The Lumia 520 keeps getting cheaper and cheaper, with various retailers and …
Here’s a pretty interesting story from The Atlantic (no, me neither) with some revelations from Chris DeSalvo. He worked with Andy Rubin at Danger before switching to Google to work on Android. It was 2005 and Android was in the early stages, but by January 2007 and – …
There was a bit of a problem between Nokia and HTC recently which meant that the HTC One mini had to stop getting sold. It’s all sorted(ish) now and, if you’ve got one of these mini-beasts, you can now look forward to receiving Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and …
HTC have gone all festive by err.. paving an entire cobbled street in gold this Christmas. It’s all to promote the HTC One in Gold. If you’ve been to a pantomime recently then you may have heard Dick Whittington say that the streets of London are paved in …
The Oppo N1 is a first for many things, it’s the first Android phone with a six lense camera, it’s the first Android phone with a rotating camera, it’s the first phone to ship with Cyanogenmod pre-installed and it’s also the first Google certified Cyanogenmod device meaning it …
Xbox Music has been an integral part of the Music app in Windows Phone, which at times got a little confusing to differentiate between streamed subscription music, cloud music and local music. It’s a confusion which eventually led to me unsubscribing from Xbox Music in the end. Although …
Radio has been around for a few years now, with the latest way of listening being to stream the radio over the internet. There are a few apps around that let you do this such as Tunein and now Windows Phone users have another option. Here’s how the …
Recently Instagram added a new feature to its Android and iOS in the form of Instagram Direct, which allows you to send images to specific people and not make them public. The Windows Phone version wasn’t updated at the time and guess what? Yes you’re right, they’ve not …
Google Keyboard is a solid alternative keyboard, that actually comes pre-installed on many devices. It’s often hidden away by a HTC, LG or Samsung keyboard instead. Well to cut a long story short Google have updated their own keyboard app and now it has an option to have …
A lockscreen on your phone is an essential part of the smartphone experience, over the years we’ve seen various attempts to add further functionality. We’ve seen manufacturers like HTC, LG and Samsung add app shortcuts to the lockscreen, we’ve seen Motorola add fancy notifications to the lockscreen and …
Instagram is rather popular these days, now available on most platforms (even including Windows Phone). It’s a photo sharing service that allows you to post pictures and images and your followers can see them, but what if you have a photo you only want to share with one …
SwiftKey is possibly the most popular third party keyboard, it’s predictions are eerily accurate and sometimes ludicrously absurd. They have a beta version allowing you to try out the latest version for free and this latest version has lots of smiley Emoji built in. Along with the hundreds …
Episode 74 of our podcast marks my return to the fold, I’ve been away for a few weeks and I’ve missed out on lots. Hopefully filling me in on what’s happened over the last few weeks are Dan and Ronnie. This weeks topics are roughly as follows: The …
Having an infra red blaster on my phone has recently become something that I can really appreciate. The app offerings from HTC, LG and Samsung are a bit basic or they get bogged down with TV listings and the like. What I wanted was something I could fiddle …
Barely a day goes by without us mentioning Oppo in some way shape or form and today is no different, thanks to Oppo posting a teaser image on Weibo the Chinese social network. The rumoured specs for the Find 7 are going to be top end if it …
Keeping your gadgets dry is a rather difficult task and it’s a task that many of you out there might never have to do. Some people work in rough or difficult environments, some people spend a lot of their working day getting soaked to the skin and some …
A few weeks ago I got a bit carried away, I accidentally bought two Nexus 5 in the crazy initial rush to buy one before the all of the stock disappeared, I didn’t need one, I didn’t really want one, I suppose I just felt obliged to buy …
Last year we all wrote up our hopes and dreams for the year to come, I wrote about Windows Phone as it’s something I’m fond of and the other guys will all just want to write about Android. So here we go, here is what I would like …
Asus certainly make some interesting form factors. The FonePad and PadFone being the two that confuse me the most and it seems that the PadFone range is going to continue with what looks like a 7″ tablet with a 4.3″ companion handset attached. I think this really could …
With every good phone there should exist a decent selection of official accessories. You know the sort, well made, nice colours and with features not found in third party accessories. The official Nokia Lumia 1020 cases are just that. I’ve got them both and here is my review …
Yellow is the new white ok, in my world it is anyway. So imagine what I thought when I saw the new Nokia Coloud range of Lumia colour matching headphones, I was excited as there are three different headphones to choose from. In the end I went for …
Wireless charging is becoming something I look for in a new device, mainly down to ease of use. I’m lazy basically, just plonking down a phone onto a charging pad is easy, plugging a cable in is comparatively complicated and time consuming (if you add up all of …
Episode 71 marks one of those weeks where lots of nondescript stuff happens. Great stuff really for a podcast. Joining me this week were Ravi and Simon. This weeks topics included the following The ludicrous Microsoft Scroogled merchandise thing Our slightly longer term thoughts on the Nexus 5 …
Rudy Huyn is the developer behind popular third party Instagram and Vine apps on the Windows Phone platform. He’s now gone and made a Snapchat app, called 6snap. Which If it’s anything like his Instagram and Vine apps it’ll probably be better than the original apps on other …
The day has finally come, the day that non Windows Phone fans have to search for another app to cite as their reason for not being able to get on with Windows Phone. Yes Instagram is now available for Windows Phone. But as is often the way, you …
Historically Motorola have been a bit rubbish at updating their devices and since the Google buyout they’ve obviously had to play ball and actually update their devices. Their current generation Moto X & Moto G have both been confirmed to get KitKat (with the Moto X rolling out …
Google made Windows Phone apps are a little rare, the one that has been around for a while is Google Search, it basically lets you search the web and do a little bit of browsing too. The latest update has basically improved the search functionality. Here is what …
Flipboard is possibly the most gorgeous news reader app EVER. It originated on iOS, eventually moved over to Android and it is now coming to Windows. If you’ve never heard of Flipboard and you have a Windows 8 computer or tablet then you are in for a treat today. This …
Episode 70 of the Coolsmartphone Podcast is here, it’s basically week two of our Nexus 5 based discussions. Sorry about the delay, you can thank ancient wiring in my house for that. This week I was joined by Ian and Mark and this weeks topics were as follows: …
A few weeks ago in Abu Dhabi Nokia announced real DNG file format support for the Lumia 1020 and 1520. Today they’ve pushed out the update to enable that, so if you really like to fiddle with your images then your going to be happy. But there is …
TV catchup apps are pretty damn useful, with the move towards official apps from each channel being the way forward apparently. Last night UK channel “Channel 4” released their TV lso catchup app. Which allows you to watch channel 4, E4 and More4. Streaming only works via WiFi …
Don’t you just love a good infographic? Enormous, hard to grasp the point, slightly biased towards the creator and sometimes misleading. Well Samsung have come up with a cracker that shows the history of wearable devices, featuring their products and no one elses. Yay, well done Samsung. Source …
During Nokia World in Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago, Nokia demonstrated a rather useful app called Refocus. Which takes a photo and then let’s you choice which bits to “Refocus” on. Nokia Refocus lets you take a photo first and choose what you want in focus later. …
The thought of Rooting, unlocking bootloaders, flashing ROMs and all the other jargon like ADB & SDK to some may seem like an absolute minefield. A warranty voiding, potentially device breaking minefield. But to some it’s a means to an ends, a way of life, the thing to …
