Category: Android

Home, Sweet Home. NAS and WiFi picture backup

At home I have a NAS box. I originally purchased one of these because I’ve somehow used all the storage that my cloud provider had available and the cost to upgrade was nothing short of insane. I’d tried other providers, however the cost, the reliability, and the fact …

What may live may never die – YotaPhone 3

I have no idea what it is about the YotaPhone concept that I like so much. Leigh reviewed the YotaPhone 2 when it was released, so you can check here to see what he thought about it. The TL:DR version is that although he quite liked it, my …

How to unlock your Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Try as I might, I’ve been unable to loan a Sony Xperia handset so that we can give you a review. At the launch during Mobile World Congress I was, however, very impressed by the build quality and the sheer speed of the thing, which in tests could …

Nokia 8 official!

The time has come. Nokia have returned the to flagship party! At least, this is what we are being told. We’ve got details from all the material released during the press event, held yesterday. The more obvious question is, why should we care that Nokia are back in …

LG V30 pictured

The smartphone manufacturer has been keen to let us know certain bits of information about their upcoming V30 device. It’s going to have an F1.6 aperture camera with a glass lens. The dual camera setup also gets laser detection autofocus, optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization too. …

STK now available in John Lewis too.

Morning, morning all. It’s Thursday already so we’ve nearly made it to the weekend. Remember STK? They were once a distribution company before becoming an accessories brand and then a mobile phone manufacturer selling well-priced feature and smartphones. Designed in London, we last saw the handsets arriving in …

Google Pixel 2 leaps onto the FCC

We reviewed the Google Pixel last year but, by the looks of the FCC, we’ve already got details of the next model. Oh, and it’ll be bringing that squeezy technology that we recently saw in the HTC U11. How so? Well, HTC will be making the Google Pixel …

Bloody OnePlus 5 advert. Actually quite good.

Good morning all. I’m a little tired today due to the fact that only around four Swissport staff decided to bother turning up to work at Birmingham Airport in the last month or so. The knock on result is a completely terrible experience and an airport which just …

Samsung Note 8 out mid-September rumour

After the PR disaster that was the Samsung Note 7 and the exploding batteries, Samsung has had some tough choices to make. It is rumoured that the US will see the new Note 8 released on the 24th August, which is a day after official release. Hopefully the …

On the road with Honor

By now you’ll hopefully be familiar with Honor. Although they’ve chosen to spell their name the American way, they’re becoming a strong player. Huawei are the people building and driving this brand, and they’re really rather good at this whole smartphone thing. Our very own James Pearce ended …

OnePlus 3/3T: No updates after Android O

Those of you that are regular readers of this site know I am a OnePlus fanboy. I have had every device the company has produced; my favourite still is my ceramic OnePlus X. (despite there not being any support for this device, i,e, no more OS updates). My …

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 spotted on Geekbench

With mere days to go until the launch of the next big Samsung device, details of the handset have appeared on Geekbench, the cross-platform benchmark site. According to Telefoon.nl the SM-N950F model number reveals the fact that it’s the Note 8, and although the score isn’t massively high …

LG V30 pushes smartphone cameras

LG announced today that their upcoming LG V30 will incorporate an F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens in the dual camera specification. The new specification means that the lens is larger and clearer, which means the cameras can let in 25% more light than a traditional smartphone camera lens. …

Register and check callers via the Telephone Preference Service

A lot of smartphones now come equipped with a blocking system to let you stop unwanted calls from repeatedly bothering you. On the HTC U11 I’m testing now, you can see that in action below.. However, in the UK we have something called the “Telephone Preference Service”, or …

Huawei – Teasers on the next big announcement?

OK, I’m going to open this one out to the floor as we only have a couple of bits of information. It looks like Huawei are giving us some news about what their next smartphone might contain. Here’s the tweets we’ve spotted, and the first one – posted …

Face Off – Samsung Galaxy S8+ and Huawei P10 Plus

The Huawei Press Team sadly ripped away the Huawei P10 that I’d got slightly attached to recently. I took a liking to it and really didn’t want to give it back. Having a good camera and having a good battery life go a long way with me. The …

OnePlus 5 now in Soft Gold for a limited time

OnePlus are a company who make flagship spec hardware but do not charge sky high prices. A few months ago they announced availability of the OnePlus 5, a brand new dual camera flagship going head to head with the big guns. Grey and Black were the two colours …

Honor 6A now on sale with Three

Just recently Honor announced the new 6A. We covered it in detail here and we mentioned that it would be available on Three UK. Well, today is the day. You can Go Binge with it on Three. Wilkin Lee, who’s a thoroughly nice chap and is the sales …

Keeping an eye on the little ones

With my son getting to a “certain age”, he’s now off on his own. He plays in the local park and goes on his scooter with his friends. Even as a geeky phone guy, I really didn’t want to give him a phone. Like most kids, I knew …

What can we expect from mobile gaming from 2017 and beyond?

I’m a big mobile gamer. Yes, I’ve got a PlayStation at home but, when I’m on the bus, I’m also playing games on my Galaxy S8 too. It’s predicted that the global games business will grow to some $108.9billion this year, with mobile devices helping to generate a …

Say hello to the Honor 6A

The first thing this actually reminded me of was the Honor 5C, however, it’s actually a replacement for the Honor 5A, announced in January last year. This, the Honor 6A, is available to pre-order from vMall and will be on sale this Friday, August 4th, with Three UK. …

It’s Friday, here’s an advert

It’s Friday. Friday at last. Last night, whilst randomly looking for a YouTube video (and I’ll be honest, I was trying to find some Leslie Chow clips because I’m a bit bonkers), an advert appeared before the video. You know the sort, it’s one of the many YouTube …

Sharp Aquos S1 and S2 leakage

It’s definitely been a substantial amount of time since we last wrote about a Sharp smartphone on here. (I think this 2014 post was the last one). Today though, we hear that the Sharp Aquos S1 and S2 have leaked, and yet again we’ve got the phrase “bezel-less”. …

Vodafone Smart V8 Unboxing

Newsflash. I have a problem. Once upon a time we’d get budget, network-branded phones delivered to the Coolsmartphone HQ and they would be.. for want of a better word.. crap. Now they’re not. They’re really not, and when I see someone walking around with a “big name” budget …

RCA/Venturer Mercury 7L tablet – review

Following on from my Venturer Saturn Pro 10 review, I’m now moving on to review the latest budget tablet from RCA/Ventruer the Mercury 7L. As it is currently priced at £49.99, the Mercury 7L is a direct competitor to the Amazon Fire tablet (which I take with me …

Alexa, can you be my new squeeze?

If you’re used to talking to someone called “Alexa” in your kitchen, then you might also be talking to her on the move too. A new update for HTC U11 owners, provided you’ve got the latest software, means that the Alexa voice assistant can now sit inside your …

Vodafone E8 now available – Just £49 too!

OK, let me set out my stall first. This, the Smart E8, isn’t going to be faster than the likes of the new Samsung Galaxy S8 or the HTC U11. Likewise, it’s not going to have as much on-board memory or storage. But… but.. it’s not over £600. …

HTC U11 – Review

There’s a lot said about the HTC U11. Some have called it a “return to form” or perhaps the greatest HTC handset for many years. Me? Well, I don’t totally agree, but I do need to explain why. I’m already impressed by the existing HTC U Play and …

Remix OS ….. He’s dead Jim

It is a story that is oh-so-familiar these days. Along comes a version of an operating system that could be a game changer, it gets praised and supported by those on the cutting edge. Roll on a few years and things have got very quiet with not much …

Amazon Anytime messaging app rumours

I don’t know if you agree with me on this one, but do we need yet another messaging app? Well if the rumours are correct, the retail giant Amazon believes that we do. The company has reportedly been sending customers surveys relating to a new messaging service called “Anytime”. …

Flic – Smartbutton Review

Last year we had a play with the flic buttons for the first time, now we take another look to see how they have changed. The conversation went something like this Ian, would you like to review a button? A button? Yes but it’s a smart-button. Oooo a …

Nokia 8 leaks ahead of official announcement

Nokia are once again becoming a big-name company. This time it’s thanks to new smartphones running Android and some impressive hardware since HMD Global took over. Their flagship device, the Nokia 8, has just been leaked by well-known leaker Even Blass (evleaks). With a dual Zeiss camera and …

We got some coupon codes for you!

Sure, it’s Amazon Prime day. You can get some great discounts on a range of phones and electrical gadgets if you’re an Amazon Prime member but… .. what if you’re not part of the Prime thing? What if you don’t want to be? Well, we had a chat …

RCA tablets – Saturn 10 Pro – Review

  Back in June, we wrote a quick post about some new Android tablets destined for our shores, these being the RCA Saturn 10 Pro and the Mercury 7L. They’re said to be some of the best Android tablets around so I’ve been sent both devices through for …

New LG and Windows 10 Mobile handsets on their way

Perhaps not the most obvious connection, but new phones are new phones right? It has been rumoured for a few weeks that a ‘mini’ LG G6 is in the works, I put this in inverted commas because the device is hardly ‘mini’: it is thought to have a …