Category: Android
Woaha. Remember the Huawei Ascend Mate that we saw in Barcelona? Well, I’ve got one. It pushes the term “phablet” as close to “tablet” as you can get. The screen is a 6.1″ 1280×720 IPS unit and the handset itself is pretty huge. Specs include an 8 megapixel …
The HTC One is a fantastic handset. It’s the best handset HTC have ever made in my opinion. I’ve always had a very high opinion of the company and especially of the people that work there, but let me tell you, something is very wrong. I’ll admit something. …
“Are they big? I like them big… BIG!” The Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is on its way, and you could be one of the first in the country to be lugging around this massive handset, because two major internet retailers have them up for pre-order. Expansys are asking …
Bank holidays seem to make people gather in groups. Big groups around the country, be it country parks, beaches, the capital city or just down the pub. But where is our favourite place for the bank holiday? Well that’s quite a hard one to quantify, you’d need to …
If you’ve visited a forum such as ours then you’ll probably have seen the Tapatalk app pop up. It’s usually a paid-for app but, if you download it via the Amazon store right now then it’s free. The Tapatalk Forum App will make most forums a much easy …
Having a waterproof phone is increasingly becoming something that people want these days. For a few months it was just Sony with this trick up their sleeve. Samsung sell a phone for every conceivable niche of the mobile market. From tiny handed people through to giants they make …
A video call isn’t, despite what Apple might tell you, that special. I remember my mate showing me a 3G video call on the Three network a decade ago so being able to see the person you’re calling isn’t a big deal. Well, unless you’re on top of …
I usually skim over the comments / reviews but when checking apps in the Google Play. Usually they’re full of comments like “d0esn’t work”, “uninstalled as this is cr*p” or just one-word responses like “Great” or “Nice”. So it’s interesting to see the comments that have popped up …
SamMobile has reportedly acquired a press photo and possible specs for an upcoming 8-inch version of the Samsung Galaxy 3 tablet. It looks nearly identical to the 7.0 version that was officially announced at the end of April save for a thinner bezel and a different sensor layout. …
Yes, The One is a contender for this years best Android smartphone, and yes, its been stuck on 4.2 since it came out, but there have been rumblings on the interwebs that all that is about to change. @LlabTooFeR, who is an HTC ROM developer happened to let …
Out with the old and in with the new. Of course Google should shed some love on their Maps application and its a rather interesting update indeed. They claim it’s “rebuilt from the ground up” with a lot of new features to give the locations you search some …
The S4 seems to be selling a lot faster than the S3. Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun has told reporters that the S4 will fly past 10 million sales at the end of next week, making it the fastest selling smartphone in Samsung’s history. A huge advertising campaign …
HTC has reportedly been struggling to make the HTC One quick enough. Mainly due to supply constraints with the camera module. In a recent report in Taiwan, Jack Tong the president of HTC North Asia said the following: “Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May. …
People bang on about pure Android quite a bit these days. With some people refusing to buy a device not running stock Android. Hence the “success” of the Nexus range. But what other options are there if you want a stock Android tablet? Especially a super thin waterproof …
Sony are heading along a rather dodgy path, making dozens of different handsets each year. Only Samsung can really cope with the financial implications of doing that. It’s why HTC have decoded to try and stick to one device per year. But who am I to warn Sony …
Liquid cooling? Old news matey. Well for us PC Power Users (loving that term) who are always looking to make our PCs go faster than they’re originally make to do, at the price of heat (and the insides of your PCs don’t like getting all toasty). Liquid cools …
The Vodafone Smart range are at the budget end of the Smartphone market. Not everyone wants the latest and greatest device and not everyone wants to spend a whole load of cash each month either. That’s where the Smart III comes in with it’s basic spec and budget …
How about 80% off. 80% off! That’s like…err… almost free. Well, almost. “Game of the Year”, World of Goo is now just 65p. You have to drag and drop globs of goo in order to build things. Yes, this is a bit hard to explain, but there’s a …
The Xperia Z is a great handset. Sure, there’s always a bit of confusion when you argue with your American friends about the name (it’s the “Xperia Zed” or “Xperia Zee” depending on where you are) but both this and the Xperia Tablet Z are really impressive. Right …
Let’s save a bit of money shall we? Deals are great, so today we’re having a hunt for deals. First, if you’re finding that entering texts or writing emails is a bit fiddly on your Android phone, try SwiftKey. It’ll speed up your typing and learns words as …
Time once more for White Nexus 4 News! Yes, another one has been spotted, this time at Google IO. There were no announcements made about the white Nexus 4 during Google’s keynote at IO, but one was seen on the premises by Taylor Wimberly from Android and Me. …
The dust is settling after the rather long keynote at Google I/O yesterday and as things start to rollout we can start to examine things in a little more detail. One of the big enhancements to the Google ecosystem is the rehashing of Google Hangouts. This unification of …
Google finally took the wraps of Babel yesterday with the relaunch of Hangouts, a cross-platform unified messaging service to take on the likes of iMessage, Facebook Chat and WhatsApp. Users no longer have to contend with separate Google Talk, G+ Messenger, G+ Hangouts and Google Voice apps. …
One of the bigger surprises announced by Google at yesterday’s I/O keynote was the release of a Nexus-like stock Galaxy S4. Gone is all the nasty TouchWiz S-rubbish, replaced by the beautiful vanilla Android experience. We’re also told we can expect a Nexus-like update schedule. As someone who …
As part of Google updating everything last night they updated the Play Books app. Not only have Google updated the interface to be in-line with the other Google Play apps they have also added some new features. What’s in this version: Support for reading your own PDF or …
Google Search / Google Now has just received an update and, if you have Jelly Bean, you’re now going to get some additional recommendations or “Cards” from the techno-butler. So now, if you say, “Remind me to get some break when I get home”, it’ll do just that. …
Well, Google I/O 2013 has certainly been eventful so far. Our live blog and resulting traffic knocked the site over but hey, no matter, we’ve seen tonnes of good news. Google+ is to get a stack of new features – 41 to be exact – including a redesign …
Use this, not the previous two articles! Google I/O is once again being hosted in the Moscone Centre in San Francisco. The annual developers shindig hosted by Google is due to kick off at 5pm BST and we here at Coolsmartphone are proud to bring you a liveblog …
Times are hard. Just last week I had to downsize my second home to a condo in the Caribbean. Ohhhh the shame of it. If you’re looking to switch to a SIM only deal and get yourself a decent cheapo smartphone, have a look at the Acer Cloud …
When I started reporting on the White Nexus 4 I was only really interested in a nice piece of cake. Now I feel it’s my duty to keep everyone abreast of the subject, and with that I bring you today’s edition of White Nexus 4 News. Firstly I …
Sunday night bought with it a sheer sense of unhappiness. I was having issues connecting to the Wi-Fi at work (not an unusual occurrence!) so I tried to reboot my Nexus 4. The power button having been pressed, off the device powered. I pressed the Power button once again …
I own an LG Nexus 4, so as you could imagine I am always concerned I’ll damage it. Not so much because it’s fragile, but because it looks so nice I don’t want to spoil it. I have a ‘bumper’ for it but it just doesn’t feel like it’s going …
When HTC and Facebook announced their device called the ‘HTC First’ EE were chosen as the network in the UK. Over in the USA we’ve seen AT&T possibly can the device so we wanted to see if it was still showing on the EE website. Worryingly it looks …
OK, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I make mistakes. I fess up, it was me who caused the break-up between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Oh wait.. no, sorry. The Samsung Galaxy S4 vs HTC One video I did the other day… that’s it. That’s where the mistake was. …
Let’s strap Facebook into a phone. That’s a winning idea. People will buy that. Everyone loves Facebook, don’t they? Sadly no, according to BGR the HTC First is actually about to be kicked out. LThe “Facebook Phone” is said to be an official flop in the USA. Prices …
Remember that lovely piece of cake I reported on back in January? You know, the one with the white Nexus 4 next to it. Well, there’s been another sighting of a white Nexus 4. Unfortunately there’s no sign of the cake though. This time the lesser spotted Nexus …
So, in the time after my original First Impressions post on the Gemini Devices JoyTab Duo 7 3G, a few things have happened. North Korea decided to try and bluff the world into a nuclear war, Margaret Thatcher died, I began revising for exams and the document that …
Following our post this morning it seems that sadly the Xperia ZR won’t be arriving here in the UK. A post on the Clove blog states that…. There are no plans for the ZR to arrive in the UK, so if you think this is the device for …
The Galaxy S4 or the HTC One? Well, you’ll already have seen the Samsung Galaxy S4 review and our HTC One Review. So, with Mark busy comparing the camera quality and reviewing the S4, I’ve decided to take some shots comparing the phones close-up. You’ll see below that …
We like the Xperia Z here at CoolSmartphone towers, it looks gorgeous and performs just as well. Dan had one for a while and wrote about it here, we were all jealous. What if you had small hands and struggled with the screen size though? Well Sony has …