Category: Android

The Huawei Mate 30 – Missing more than just Google Apps

Huawei is a massively successful company. We’ve been to see them in China. We visited the university that teaches staff, the accommodation where workers stay and play. We saw their facilities and their innovative products. Yesterday though, something massive was missing from their Mate 30 and Mate 30 …

Live – The Huawei Mate 30, the Watch GT 2 and the Huawei Assistant

We’re still in the press event here in Munich and, if you’ve not already heard via our live updates, there’s some new kit coming from Huawei. As I type there’s still no mention of Google Apps and we’ve not seeing any screenshots featuring them as yet, but what …

The Huawei Mate 30 – We’re live!

Let’s not beat around the bush here, this is a big turning point for Huawei. The US President has blocked them from working with Google on upcoming phones, so this will be the first phone that can’t have Maps, Drive, Music, Duo, Photos, Calendar, Gmail and YouTube. That’s …

Sony Xperia 5 now available to pre-order

It seems just five minutes ago that we were at IFA for the launch of the Xperia 5. Now is the time to pre-order if you like the look of it, and you can get some free award-winning WF-1000XM3 noise cancelling headphones too. The Xperia 5 comes with …

Huawei Event – Leaked images appear on the web

We’re here in Germany again, this time in Munich. It’s ahead of the Huawei Mate 30 Series launch and it’s going to be a big one. But we have a problem. Our roving reporting is on site and he’s going to get all the details on whatever is …

The OnePlus 7 Pro. Go get yourself one of these.

OK, it’s quickly turning into OnePlus day here at Coolsmartphone. Today we’re going to take another deep-dive into the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s a phone which has taken up residence at the Coolsmartphone office and yes – we actually got told off by the OnePlus PR people for …

OnePlus leak pictures of their own handset

OK, an update then. On Monday we received an update on the upcoming OnePlus 7T. You can buy tickets to watch the launch here in the UK on October 10th or watch it one their site, however it’ll be revealed much earlier than that elsewhere. For example, in …

Mate30 and Mate30 Pro images leak ahead of Munich launch

We’re all ready for the launch of the new Huawei Mate 30 on Thursday but one thing that probably won’t be is those Google Apps. As you might know if you’re a regular here, upcoming Huawei phones can’t have those all-important apps. Sure, the ones in the shops …

OnePlus 7T Series – Incoming!

Given the issues that Huawei and Honor are facing, it’s fair to say that the competitors are smelling an opportunity. One in particular is OnePlus, who’s today announced the launch event details for its OnePlus 7T Series. Things kick off at 4pm BST on October 10th, with the …

Automating your phone – MacroDroid

A short while ago I had a problem. It was a strange one and I found myself hitting a bit of an impasse. When I got in the car, the WiFi from the dashcam would be detected by my phone and it’d connect. That’s great if you’re planning …

Honor 20 Pro – Review

So you’ve decided that you want to get a top-end smartphone, but you don’t have a spare £800 down the back of the sofa. Well, the good news is that you do have a lot of options these days. You have the likes of OnePlus and Xioami, alongside …

Advantages of mobile-based services for customers

Let’s say you’re a business or service provider who wants, or who even already is taking advantage of a mobile-based model for their services. You provide a service, your customers pay X amount every Y amount of time, and that’s more or less the end of it. You, …

Business ideas for the smartphone generation

If you’re going to start a business, then it makes sense to .. Make sure that it fits into the modern world and Make sure that it fills a need for the people. It’ll be people, after all, that ensure you have a long-term, viable venture! While there …

IFA – F(x)tec Pro1. Android and a sliding QWERTY. Boom!

Oh, I like this already. A phone created by a startup in London, with a strange name, with brackets in it… and it’s a phone with a sliding QWERTY keyboard too. What’s not to like eh? They say that they want to deliver “niche mobile devices” but hey, …

IFA – The Huawei P30 Pro. This is what we now know…

We stayed off the beer (well, we had a bit) and arrived bright and early for the big Huawei announcement here in Berlin. There was confirmation of the upcoming Huawei P30 Series, confirmation of the P30 Pro, confirmation that it would launch in “Mystic Blue” on September 23rd, …

Samsung Galaxy A90 5G announced

People do tend to overlook that “A range” of Samsung devices. For most, it has to be a Galaxy S handset or nothing. However, as we found before, the Samsung “A handsets” are actually really rather good. Now they’ve announced another one – the Galaxy A90 5G. It’s …

IFA – TCL brings us a Dotch-packing PLEX

Wait, who? Well, TCL were behind the re-emergence of the mighty BlackBerry. We had a look at their KEYone handset a couple of years ago and this year they showed off the new red BlackBerry Key2 and some very nice flexible screens this year. But what else have …

IFA – Sony Xperia 5 launched. Pre-orders start soon.

During the Sony launch here in Berlin we saw, amongst other things, the new Sony Xperia 5. It’s sleek, it’ compact and it’s got a triple lens camera with 16mm, 26mm and 52mm lenses. These are all 12 megapixel units and you’ll get OIS, video stabilization and Exmor …

ASUS RoG II Gaming phone on display here at IFA

It’s September and, as Britain’s government is collapsing, we decided to head to Berlin for IFA instead. Today ASUS have got their highly anticipated RoG Phone II. This is a phone that we’ve already covered in July but it’s worth going over the phone again. It’s the first …

Trump knocks Huawei off the table in China trade talks

Whilst being “fully engaged” monitoring Hurricane Dorian at his Golf course in Potomac Falls, President Trump has somehow also found time in his busy schedule to talk about the continual teasing of Huawei. The President, who called a previous hurricane “one of the wettest we’ve ever seen from …

Remember when we used to locally installed Office on a PC?

I didn’t used to rate Microsoft products, but on mobile phones their cloud offerings are rather spectacular. Office 365, and the ability to work anywhere, is refreshing and simple. Today I’ve been using Excel, and it’s got me thinking about how useful and how integrated with the office …

Google Play to start auto-playing videos.

Following the white redesign of the Google Play Store another, and what I deem more annoying update, is due pretty soon. Yes, the Play Store will start playing promo videos in the app listings automatically. According to Google the videos in the app listings will “help more users …

Huawei Mate 30 Series launch date confirmed

With the Trump Trade Termination and subsequent spat with China getting worse, customers in America and China are being hit with higher prices whilst everyone suffers from less choice now that Google have been prevented from working with Huawei. The removal of Google apps on upcoming Huawei phones …

Huawei faces a Mate 30 launch without the all-important Google apps

Like Brexit. Huawei is now facing the unbelievable reality that things are about to go very wrong indeed. Their newly-announced handsets will lack the default Google apps that people use on a daily basis. Despite several reprieves, Google has has now confirmed that the Trump Trade Termination will …

Fairphone 3 available next week with Sky Mobile

OK, wind the clock back to 2016 and you may remember our early hands-on with the Fairphone. The premise is really quite simple. It’s a smartphone, but one that’s actually easy to fix. I listened to Daria from Fairphone who explained just how easy it is to fix …

Honor 20 Pro – First Impressions

Now, normally this is where I would be talking about the unboxing of a new phone and would introduce you to video where I do just that. However, in the case of this phone, I’ll be doing something more. The reason is quite simple. It has been done …

Will Huawei’s woes alter our buying habits?

Chinese tech giant Huawei has struggled of late thanks to bans from the USA government that have prevented them from working with US companies. Thes bans have had far-reaching consequences and directly impacted the most anticipated Matebook laptop sale this year. Huawei pulled their recent laptop release due …

Fingerprint unlock finally coming to WhatsApp.

Back In February this year, WhatsApp had rolled out the authentication feature for iOS beta users, making it possible to use Touch ID to unlock the app. Now finally after more than six months, the feature has finally been made available for Android beta users today. The Fingerprint …

Petrol Prices app receives a big update

With oil being priced in dollars and the value of the pound now at it’s lowest level for many, many years, petrol and diesel prices are reaching all-time highs. A No Deal Brexit is set to raise food and petrol prices further, with incomes reduced. All of this …

Huawei provides words of reassurance for device users

Even if you aren’t a follower of all things interesting, technological and mobile, there’ll little chance that you aren’t noticing the ongoing spat between China and the U.S, with Huawei phones using Android being a casualty. Huawei has been going from strength to strength over the past few …

Samsung to deliver a 108 megapixel camera

Creating a brilliant photography experience is definitely high up on the list of priorities for most smartphone manufacturers. There’s smartphones with lots of megapixels, phones with flip cameras, ones with artificial intelligence and phones with multiple lenses. Samsung have now pushed the boundaries even further by announcing a …

5 of the most popular app categories

Unbelievably there’s now 4 billion people connected to the internet. That, though, isn’t the most amazing number. There’s now a larger number of mobile phone users, now amounting to 5 billion. Mobile phones and the internet are both integral parts of life now, with many people shuddering at …

Nubia – Dual-screen smartphone? Look over here!

With LG teasing a dual-screen V60 ThinQ at IFA, the guys at Nubia want you to remember the fact that they’ve already shown one off. The Nubia X appeared at CES, but now they’re bringing that same dual-screen technology to the new Nubia Z20, and it’ll be available …

Parental Control apps to monitor usage

The internet can be a dark place. As we have now transitioned into our digital world, we’ve also had to wrestle with its complexities. The number of children using the internet grows each day, and the younger children are, the more likely they are to use the internet. …

Well, hello there Samsung Galaxy Note10

Available in “Aura Glow”, Black and White, this is the new Samsung Galaxy Note10. It’s got a 4300mAh battery with super-fast charging and Qi wireless charging too. You can also do PowerShare to charge other devices. There’s three models – a Note10 with 256GB storage and 8GB RAM, …

Honor juggle their marketing messages

There has always been a perceived notion amongst the older generation that young people use their phones too much. On the flip-side, the younger generation seem to think that the older generation don’t use them enough due to lack of understanding. This, as with most perceived notions, is …

Two-screen LG V60 ThinQ smartphone coming to IFA 2019

Announcing your next phone before it’s announced? Well, sounds a bit crazy but that’s what LG have one. A teaser trailer of a new LG phone launching in September at IFA shows what initially could be a shark-fin camera, an opening smartphone, a dual-screen phone or a phone …

HTC, remember them? Now you can’t buy their phones.

Once upon a time there was a smartphone manufacturer called HTC. Nearly everyone had one of their phones, but now there’s about 15 people buying their phones each month. It’s sad to see, it really is. I reviewed the HTC U11 and I’ve had a hands-on with their …