Author: Ronnie Whelan
The Motorola Moto G has impressed pretty much everyone since its launch late last year, and the positives just keep on coming with the news that all Moto G phones will be getting the Android KitKat 4.4.2 update, with the roll-out starting today. There have already been some …
You want an initial impression of the Oppo N1 CM Edition? It’s massive! Seriously, that’s the first impression everyone has of it. Let’s get over that for now, because size isn’t everything. No really, it isn’t. An impressive package In fact, the initial impression I got of the …
Motorola have sent out press invitations today to an event being held in London next Tuesday (14th January). As is common with these invites, they haven’t told us what the event is in aid of. There were rumours floating about in September about a new Motorola tablet to …
The Samsung Galaxy Express 2 fills a size gap between the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S4 mini, but its price is the lowest of the three. Is it an awkward, overgrown child, or a serious smartphone worthy of consideration? I’ve spent a fortnight with one to find …
Welcome to the Coolsmartphone Award Ceremony, coming to you, prerecorded from Coolsmartphone Towers. Our team of experts (and Simon) got together yesterday and decided on the best and worst bits of 2013 in order to entertain you and reward/shame those responsible. As with all good awards ceremonies we’re …
Last week we brought you the news that the Sony Xperia Z1 and Z Ultra were starting to receive their Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update. Well, today Sony have announced that the update is coming to a number of other devices. If you’re the owner of an Xperia …
ScreenshotCleaner is a handy little app for bloggers and developers alike. As a blogger I take a lot of screenshots on my phone which, obviously, always have the status bar on. This isn’t really a problem, but often it has notifications and icons that are irrelevant and messy, …
Oppo teased the N1 to death before its recent launch, and now it’s Cyanogen’s turn as the CyanogenMod Edition nears release. The newly launched CM YouTube channel is now sporting a taster video so we can see why we’d want to opt for this non-standard version. http://youtu.be/VV-BPYgWDqc Focusing …
Google Play Music development has always been ahead on Android, unsurprisingly, but the iOS version has taken a big step forward to catching up with the latest update. The first thing you’re likely to notice is the slightly updated user interface. This is to bring it in line …
If you’re a long term Windows Phone user you will want to check the email account you have registered with Microsoft, as you may well have an extra 20GB free SkyDrive storage! Everyone gets 7GB free storage when signing up to SkyDrive, but this “enthusiast” bonus goes on …
Getting Secret Santa, stocking fillers and table presents for geeks technology lovers can sometimes be a difficult task, but the HexStyli 6-in-1 stylus could be six answers all in one (cue Kinder Surprise jingle – other chocolate eggs are available). The HexStyli 6-in-1 is not only a bit …
HTC is continuing to keep their promise of providing updates to their recent handsets with an over the air (OTA) update to the HTC One mini. Android 4.3 improvements are well documented; the update includes improved multi-tasking, music player improvements and an updated user interface. However, the big …
Oppo Style, the European distributor of Oppo phones, has put together a Christmas bundle which will be of interest to anyone after a sub-£200 SIM free phone. From now until Wednesday 18th December you are able to buy an Oppo R819 phone with a screen protector and ‘rock’ …
Minis are all the rage right now, we’ve seen the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, the HTC One mini and the errr… BMW Mini! Apart from the latter, they aim to take the essence of the highly successful original and re-package it into a more …
The innovative Oppo N1 has been released in Europe today via the official distributor OppoStyle. As regular readers will know, the N1 is an Android phablet with a 5.9 inch display, 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Quad Core processor, 2GB of RAM, a touchpad on the rear of …
Oppo has revealed that it’s planning to release arguably the highest spec smartphone ever, the Find 7. The new flagship has been teased on the Chinese company’s official Weibo micro-blog. It hints that the replacement for the Find 5 will have a Galaxy Note challenging 5.7 inch screen …
Welcome to the next edition of the Coolsmartphone writers’ wish list for 2014, in which we hope to entertain, spark discussion, and secretly hope that the design gurus for all major manufacturers are hanging on our every word. I have a bone to pick with James’ comment that …
If you’re an owner of a Nexus 10, you might want to delve into the settings menu and check for updates, because Android 4.4.1 is coming your way. The Nexus 10 is by far the least popular of the Nexus tablets, however, that doesn’t mean Google aren’t showing …
Are you looking for a tablet for Christmas, but don’t have the funds for a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini? Well this bobby bargain may be up your street… Well, if you have an Aldi up your street that is. This Sunday, for one day only, Aldi are …
Vodafone have launched the Nokia 1520 in black today, a full 3 days before Nokia’s initial statement suggested. This monstrous beast is the biggest Windows Phone ever, sporting a massive 6″ full HD display. You think the handset’s too big? You should see the price! If you want …
Why haven’t Lenovo cracked the tablet market? After all, we all know that Lenovo make great laptops, so they know about portable computing. We also know that the likes of Acer and HP haven’t had much success either, so perhaps it’s not surprising. The Lenovo IdeaTab S5000 is …
If you like a good custom ROM on your Android device, but don’t want to bother with all those buggy nightly releases, you’ll probably be looking forward to the final stable version of CyanogenMod 10.2 (their take on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean). The final release candidate has been …
Thinking of buying a loved one an HTC One mini for Christmas? You’d better be quick, because as of 6th December they will be taken off the shelves after HTC lost a patent battle with Nokia today. Without getting too technical, there’s a chip in the HTC One …
Fragmentation. It’s the bane of Android’s life. Not only that, but they have to publish the figures regularly so developers know what they have to account for when coding apps. There’s no hiding from it! This time around we see that KitKat makes an entry with only 1.1% …
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is many things, but one thing you can’t call it is lite. Well, not until next year anyway, because an industry ‘insider’ has confirmed to fellow tech site SamMobile that there will be a Note 3 variant with lower specs arriving next year. …
OPPO like to indulge in a bit of teasing. So, true to form the leak marketing department has released a rather tasty photo of what seems to be the rumoured R829T Android phone on the company’s Weibo page. Aside from it looking suspiciously like a Sony Xperia Z1, …
A couple of weeks ago I ran a story saying that OPPO Style were going to run a Black Friday special offer, but weren’t telling us what. Well, said day noir is upon us and the deals page live. Basically all handsets are reduced, but the standout deals …
There are two things that really get the blood flowing here at Coolsmartphone Towers. One of them is new toys, and the other is bargains. Now, combine the two and the extra large bottle of smelling salts gets put on standby! This time it’s the new Huawei W2 …
Are you a Nexus 4 owner who’s recently had the over the air (OTA) update to Android 4.4 KitKat? Listen up then, because there are reports cropping up around t’interweb complaining about errors affecting a whole array of functions. The issues range from the start button being a …
If an OPPO phone is top of your list of handsets, you may want to hold fire on that buy button. You see, they’ve sent out an email today saying that they’ll be doing a “Black Friday surprise” offer! Wooh! Black Friday, the last Friday in November, is …
Everyone’s got a phone these days, and every third person is an expert telling you what to buy and why you’re on the wrong tariff. The vast majority of people will never have heard of CyanogenMod, and even those who have probably won’t have heard of OPPO. Why …
Sony have come under heavy fire in the past for not providing updates to its Android phones, but the release of its update schedule will come as pleasant reading to many Sony owners. Android Jelly Bean 4.3 will be rolled-out in December to the following devices: Xperia Z …
Swiftkey is the most popular third party keyboard replacement app for Android, and it’s easy to see why due to the uncanny predictions, swipe and standard input options, cloud sync and various themes. Now though, it’s got even more features! Fully paid up Swiftkey users will find an …
The budget baby of HTC’s One range, the One SV is receiving an over the air update to Android 4.2.2 and Sense 5 as we speak. Whilst this is still a good few iterations behind its senior counterparts, the fact that HTC are showing willing to keep supporting its …
Hot on the heals of the news from Google that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will not be getting Android 4.4 KitKat, and less than 48 hours after the release of this latest version of Android on the Nexus 5, the clever bods over at XDA Developers have a …
On Thursday pretty much everyone in Coolsmartphone Towers bought themselves a Nexus 5. Listeners of Podcast Episode 69 will already know that I didn’t, and that’s because I had bought an LG G2 that got delivered just as the Nexus 5 was launched! One of the reasons I …
Are you a student with a penchant for decent smartphones, but you can’t afford one because your loan ran out during freshers week? Well here’s some good news. OPPO Style, the European distributor of all things OPPO, has got a back to school promotion on! The deal is …
Giffgaff have announce the timing of its first phase of switch-on for its share of the 4G network. It basically goes like this: There will be several consultations between the MVNO and its customers so that they will be supported appropriately if they choose to make the switchover …
All the surprises are being taken away from Nokia fans ahead of tomorrows big device announcement event, it seems, because leaky old Twitterer @evleaks has gone and dropped a couple of images of the new 1320 phablet (previously known as ‘Batman’). Whilst we really don’t know exactly where …
Are you a loser? I don’t mean a pasty geek who spends hours obsessing over mobile phones then writing about them on the internet, I mean someone who misplaces their phone. Well, either of the above may be interested in the HTC Fetch. It’s basically a keyfob that …
