Category: Android

Xiaomi Mi 8 vs the Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro. Face off!

OK, so if you’re looking to get the Mi 8 Pro, definitely dive into our Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro review. The Mi 8 Pro is a flagship phone which costs just £499. It has an in-display fingerprint reader, a transparent back with the chips and NFC showing (ok, …

Honor 8A announced. Octa-core CPU, 6″ HD+ screen – only £139.99

Arriving on the Honor website very soon is this, the Honor 8A. It’s billed as “an affordable smartphone with superior sound quality and a 6.09″ Dewdrop FullView Display”. First let’s look at the “superior sound quality” claim. This is because the speakers are actually combined with a dual-suspension …

Leaked. The Samsung Galaxy S10 and Samsung Galaxy S10E

A massive, hi-res screen. An in-display camera? A great camera? Well, it has to be the sub-£500 Honor View20 surely? Well no, it’s the new Samsung Galaxy S10, which is incoming very soon indeed. Interestingly, there’s going to be two handsets, one possibly cheaper because, y’know, the Samsung …

Huawei P Smart 2019 – Review

I have been using the Huawei P Smart 2019 for a few days now, and itis time for me to put pen to paper and give my opinions of the device. The first thing I want to get out of the way is that this phone shares a …

Passing IT Certification exams in less time with Prepaway

I work in IT. You may have guessed 🙂 One thing you always have to do in IT is learn. You can never sit still. The industry is continually growing, with new technologies appearing on a regular basis which you have to understand. If you don’t look at …

Honor View20 – Stellar battery life

I mentioned how good the Honor View20 battery life was in my recent review but, as some of you may have seen on Twitter last night, I’m constantly surprised by just how long it does last. It’s like the Energizer bunny. In years past, Huawei / Honor were …

Cryptocurrencies explained

I get emailed about cryptocurrencies on a weekly basis. There’s now hundreds of apps for those using Bitcoin or other major cryptocurrencies. You can get a wallet to show your Bitcoin amount, you can convert into different currencies, use address books and – of course – send and …

1TB Storage chips produced by Samsung

Samsung have announced that they’ll be offering the world’s first 1TB eUFS (embedded Universal Flash Storage) solution for phone manufacturers, with mass production already underway. This means that phones will soon be able to have one terabyte of storage with a single flash memory chip. That means no …

Honor View20 – Desktop Mode Demo

If you’re a regular, you may well remember the Huawei Desktop Mode Feature we did. This was a close look at the rather cool feature on the Mate 10 which gave you a desktop output through the USB-C connector. You need a little box to make this work …

Huawei are playing with the power of AI again…

Last year we reported that Huawei was using the AI technology that they had developed for the Kirin 970. That time around they were using the AI to help a car recognise and then take action to avoid the objects. We were able to actually see this in the …

Meizu to launch a phone with no orifices!

I must admit, I’ve never been that averse to holes. Quite like them. However, Meizu are determined to “push the boundaries of future flagship smartphones” by bringing us a handset that doesn’t have any of them… Meizu launches the world’s first holeless mobile phone, a true holeless design combined …

So, you want something different?

How about a folding phone then eh? Yep. Interested aren’t you? Me too! The ability to extend the display ad-hoc is definitely something I’d like to try out, although a piece of me thinks that there must be some sort of creasing on those edges after you’ve folded and …

Honor View20 – Review

I’ll be honest, Huawei and Honor seem to be cranking up the handset launches to a rate where I’m losing track slightly. Honor, let’s not forget, is a sub-brand of Huawei. You get the same quality, the same Huawei processor and the same user interface, albeit with a …

Honor View20 Announced. Spot the difference?

We’re here live in Paris and, just now, the Honor View20 has been announced. Known also as the V20 (you’ll see the letter “V” on the back too, it’s got a few things going for it. For a start, there’s a selfie camera, but it’s actually in the screen. It …

Live from Paris. See The Unseen with Honor.

Well, the lid kinda got blown off this one already, but no matter – we’re here in Paris to see the hot new flagship from Honor for real. As is usual, we’ll be bringing you live coverage via our Twitter account, which we’ve handily embedded here for you. …

Keep it locked. Complete Honor View20 coverage. Live.

Later today we’ll be at a phone launch. Nothing really different about that, it’s something we’ve done for years. However, this is the launch event for the Honor View20, and this phone has a bit of a cool trick up it’s sleeve. Actually, I should tell you that …

Make a successful home business with this 2019 idea list

If you’re looking for a secondary job, want to make money online, or you want to do something part time, it’s now perhaps easier than ever. The guy that fixes and services my bike for example. He has a van. He has a mobile phone and a load of …

Free Aaptiv membership to get fit thanks to Three

OK, so this isn’t a gym but – instead of sweating your bits off in front of strangers, you get an app with professional personal trainers. They offer thousands of workouts and programmes, which have been specially created and guided by world-class certified trainers. You also get some …

Palm – My thoughts on the mini-smartphone

This diddy smartphone is on Vodafone and you can get one here for £31 per month. In the USA this has been sold as a “companion phone” which I can sort of understand. See, I’m a little confused. It’s like Brexit in a way. There’s really no middle …

The Honor View20 – Look closely. Notice something?

Creating a phone that looks a bit “different” is definitely in the interests of most phone manufacturers, however if you do there’s the risk that the phone isn’t going to be as popular. So, there’s smaller but rather cool tweaks happening to new phones now, and although they’re …

A look at the first foldable smartphone – the FlexPai

With smartphones looking more and more similar by the day, there’s always a keen interest in anything that doesn’t look slate-shaped. However, making it fun, different, usable to actually something that people will want to buy is a whole new thing. This, then is hopefully where the Royole …

Huawei P Smart 2019 – Unboxing

To kick things off for 2019, I have got a new phone from Huawei which went on sale with Vodafone (other networks are available) this morning. The thing that makes this phone all sorts of brilliant is that this is a perfect “New year, New you”-phone. It is …

Xiaomi launch Mi Mix 3 in the UK

Xiaomi have today announced its Mi Mix 3 device will launch in the UK on the 16th January, and if you are quick enough, can get a nice £50 discount off the price. The Mi Mix 3 features a full touch screen with no notch, this is tucked …

Top 10 apps based on TV shows

When I was growing up (which seems a long time ago now), I was a big fan of Knight Rider. I checked the Google Play store recently and it was great to see so many apps dedicated to it. There’s a Knight Rider Watch simulator, a car creator, …

Bored whilst travelling? Your phone can do much more

I went to Reading recently. Reading. It wasn’t that thrilling. The Holiday Inn is nice enough, but apart from the local Aldi and a business park, there wasn’t really anything to do. So there I was, in a hotel room, watching the free TV channels and getting bored …

OnePlus 6 – Down in price

Head over to Amazon right now and you’ll find that the OnePlus 6 is now going to cost you just £439. That’s £439 for a device with a 2280x1080p 6.28″ 19:9 ratio screen, 64GB of on-board storage (there’s a 128GB version for £489), a dual 20 megapixel rear …

The all-new Huawei P Smart 2019. Get it from Vodafone now.

Costing just £219 on Pay As You Go or for £25 a month on a Vodafone Red Extra Plan (1GB data, no upfront cost), this is a cheap and yet really very smart handset. The new 2019 version has a dewdrop notch 6.21″ 2340 x 1080 pixel (19.5:9) …

Being productive with your smartphone

It’s no secret that people are becoming more hooked to smartphones—and there are numbers to prove it. As of 2018, there are already 2.53 billion smartphone users around the world and it is projected to grow to 2.87 billion by 2020. China leads the smartphone industry with a …

Your phone is filthy, Let PhoneSoap clean it – Review

We all use our phones as fundamental tools in our day to day lives, and most of us will clean them from time to time. However, cleaning the visible dirt is only half the battle as there is also the microbial “dirt” that is always present on our phones. …

Fake gadget porn or new foldable Xiaomi device?

The jury is out on this one, but it comes via Mr Blass, who’s the kind of leaks round these parts. Is this real? Is this fake? It’s up to you decide. Even if it is real, would you use or want something like this? Or are we …

Essential Phone Discontinued.

News has arrived here at Coolsmartphone Towers, that according to Essential’s website and other stores that typically sell the Essential Phone, the device was showing up as “sold out.” ‘Strange,’ we thought, ‘maybe the Essential phone has had an upsurge in popularity’, but no. Essential has confirmed the …

Xiaomi – An early look at the Boxing Day offers!

Yes folks, it’s not even Christmas yet and we’re getting details of the deals you’ll be able to get after the event. Xiaomi have sent us their offers, which include the Redmi 6, Redmit Note 6 Pro, Pocophone, the A2 and the Mi 8 in their Westfield store. …

The Christmas gaming charts

Let’s face it, the PS4, Xbox and Nintendo Switch are hugely popular. The likes of Fortnite, Fallout 4, Overwatch, Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and the like. Go into a gaming store over this last Christmas shopping weekend and you’ll find it rammed with people buying games and …

Xiaomi complaints result in Advertising Standards response

We were down in London last month for the UK Xiaomi launch. Their kit is absolutely top notch and they’re causing waves by creating flagship phones without the insane price-tag. At the launch, which we covered here, there was a lot of promotional activity going on. The launch …

Card games on your smartphone

When I was a kid, we didn’t go on holiday to exotic sunkist destinations. No evenings walking on the beach or playing in an outside fairground. Oh no, it we were in a VW camper van in Wales, freezing our bits off. I loved it though. I loved …

A busy Boxing Day for new smartphone owners

This year is another bumper few days for sports fans. Boxing Day, the 26th of December, will see a huge fixture list, and Premier League fans get to see Wolves, Burnley, Everton, Crystal Palace, Cardiff City, Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in action. It’s a …

Vodafone donate to Leicester Counselling Centre

Vodafone have awarded £1000 to Leicester Counseling Centre to help locals who are in need of counselling for various situations. The company have helped over 170 local communities so far with generous donations thanks to their Community Connection Award scheme. Othet donations and feedback from recipients include Hyndburn …

Gionee to restructure as they struggle on

I used to work at the biggest online gambling company in the world. I’ve seen at first hand the speed that systems have to respond and how mobile phones are now pushing the industry to huge new heights. If you’re ready for online casino fun, find more casino …

Reviewing a whole bunch of Anker chargers

I am on the constant search for power in the form of transferring electrons from one device to another. This has now got the point where I am actually running my car on electrons (that is for another day!). I am also now following a new mantra for my …