Category: Android
Samsung have announced an expansion of the Gear 2 wearable range. They two new editions of the Gear S2 classic, one encased in 18K Rose Gold and another in Platinum, offering people diverse options to express and match their style while highlighting its circular design and advanced functionality. Samsung have …
Cast your mind back dear reader to last year. To a time when the pre-release leaks of Google’s next flagship device(s) were hitting the interwebs. Included in those pictures was a Nexus 6P in an awful gold option. Luckily though it wasn’t among the colour options offered when …
Haier have announced at the upcoming CES 2016, they will be revealing three new TVs. What has this got to do with a phone site, well two out of the three will contain Android built-in. As such, giving a better Android experience within your home. As part of this …
Samsung Electronics have launched a new series of portable SSD drives ranging from 250GB to 2TB. The drives are equipped with Samsung’s proprietary Vertical NAND (V-NAND) and SSD TurboWrite technology. “Following the successful worldwide launch of the Portable SSD T1 in 2015, we made several significant upgrades to …
Last year at CES 2015 Asus announced a new smartphone that will “redefine your expectations of smartphone photography”. The ZenFone Zoom ran Android 5.X Lollipop and should offer some great photo capabilities. The closest the Coolsmartphone team came to it was the device in a glass display case, and it wasn’t powered …
The eagle-eared amongst may have heard our Matteo mention (during our monster End-of-the-Year Awards Podcast) that his “Tablet of the Year “was the “Xiaomi Mi Pad 2”. This was a metal-clad, QHD screen-toting device that was released in China earlier in the year. At 7.9 inches, and with a spec …
CES has kicked off in the Nevada Desert and Archos have been hot to trot in announcing their new handsets to the coming few months. They have actually announced a few phones as part of the new ranges – the Power and Cobalt line. In the Power line …
Well aren’t we being busy Acer? Acer is announcing a slew of devices at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. These include a new tablet, some new laptops, a smartphone and a Chromebook. The press releases are making the rounds on the internet. If on the other hand you …
I had to paint our hallway recently. Trying to choose paint is always a difficult process. There’s usually a thousand different versions of “beige” with crazy names like “harvest dawn”, “straw mocha” or “Oxford stone”. Now, in 2016, I’m getting information about a phone which is “Deep Garnet”. …
Lenovo, the parent company of Lenovorola Motorola, have been teasing their upcoming release of the K4 Note quite a lot recently. The K4 Note is the successor to the popular Lenovo K3 Note, which sits in the same market segment as the Meizu M1/M2 Note and the Xiaomi …
Mini PC’s are quite the thing at the moment and seem to be popping up everywhere. Now for a while, these were nothing more than Netbook components being shoved into a small box. However, with the recent developments in Android and, to a lesser extent Chrome, there has …
We’re all feeling far too fat. There’s still boxes of chocolates everywhere and for breakfast we had turkey on toast. Still, despite the fact that we should probably all be relaxing, loads of you will be out in the sales to finally demolish any remaining allowance you had …
Welcome to the Coolsmartphone Award Ceremony and Podcast, coming to you, prerecorded from Coolsmartphone Towers. Our team of experts got together yesterday and decided on the best and worst bits of 2015 in order to entertain you and reward/shame those responsible. As with all good awards ceremonies we’re …
I need you to tick some boxes for me. – Have you got a Samsung Galaxy S6 or an Samsung Galaxy S6 edge? – Are you on Vodafone? Good news my friend, you can now start using WiFi Calling. Opt into the service by texting CALLING to 97888 …
It’s something we’ve reported on before, but sadly someone else has fallen victim after having his bikes pinched. It’s a double-edged sword at times, with people wanting to challenge each other and share their achievements, but you do need to protect yourself. Strava, the activity tracking app and …
It’s not fully available just yet, but we’ve been given the heads up on this new device from VKWorld. The people there tell me that it “could well be” less than $65 to buy, although they haven’t given us any firm pricing or an availability date as yet. …
I’m conscious that, as my kids hit their teenage years, it becomes a pretty complicated phase in life. As parents we didn’t really have many of the problems that children have today. They’re now connected to the web and a lot of interaction is done online. We didn’t …
Fitbit must be rolling over in some type of fitful unrest. The cross-platform smartwear manufacturer Pebble has just rolled out a new application to bring itself in line with a lot of dual purpose wearables with the new Pebble Health app. The Pebble Health app focuses on three …
It’s Christmas, so that will probably mean that you’re heading off to see relatives. Amongst the gifts, the food and the TV, there’s definitely going to be a period where everyone will sit down and generally fall asleep on the sofa. Although we do tend to concentrate on …
Yes, it’s that time of year again and we’re all a little bit short on cash right now. I think this year I’ve been a little too sensible and I’ve actually bought all my gifts already, meaning that my bank balance – and any cash set aside for …
TVPlayer has just announced it has joined Apple TV with two of its services. The first will be giving Apple users the opportunity to watch over 85 of the UK’s top TV channels within a single app for free called TVPlayer Basic. The other is TVPlayer Plus, the low-cost pay …
I properly love the HTC One A9. Although I loved the quality of the HTC One M7, M8 and M9 – I wanted something fresh and new. The HTC One A9 was it, and our HTC One A9 review resulted in a high score. You might’ve seen more …
If you’re a last-minute Christmas gift shopper and you live in Manchester, listen up. Now Amazon Prime are of offering one-hour delivery slots on thousands of items. Get onto their site, choose your product and have it delivered right to your door in less time than it would …
Right, you’ve only got a few hours on this one, so be quick. We know that the Honor 7 has been dropped in price from the vMall already, but this offer is now direct from Amazon and includes free UK delivery. The Honor 7 has been dropped in …
Don’t know who Honor are? For one they are the company that pinched our own James Pearce, secondly they are part of the phone manufacturer Huawei. They’re based more on-line than having retail outlets, but they’re still able to supply high spec’d devices with reasonable price tags. As …
In November, Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei announced their highest specced phone to date, the upcoming Mate 8. On-paper specifications do look mighty impressive. The Huawei Mate 8 is now available for sale, with the promise of better performance and battery life. The device features the new Kirin 950 …
There are some stories doing the rounds at the moment about the Pixel C. They aren’t just reviews and first impressions, but about the origins of the tablet. Let me explain. We know that the Pixel line has long been attributed to Google’s own high-end Chromebook range, and …
If you like your tunes and the rest of your family does, have a look at this. Right here in the UK you can now get the Google Play Music family plan. You become the “family manager” and basically become responsible for the billing. Then everyone in your …
Those of us who use Siri and Google Now will be familiar with the difficulties and idiosyncrasies of using a voice assistant. They sometime work and sometimes….. they don’t. They struggle with regional accents (if you are a Brummie or Glaswegian, you get me). Sometimes they are just …
I have an exciting task this week. I get to test out the next version of Android from Sony, and it is really nice. I’m using the software on a Z3 that Sony has very kindly provided me with for the time being. There are some significant differences …
I recently received a Plemo LG G4 heavy duty case from Avantek UK for review. So here is a run down of the case and my thoughts on it. The case comes in three parts, the first two of which are required and form the main case, the third …
Usually, if you want to try a new operating system or even upgrade your existing one, you’ll need to mess about with boot loaders and watch as your phone suddenly becomes unsupported. How about trying a whole new OS by just downloading an APK? You’ll need to accept …
I don’t get this. Sorry. I know it’s good and that, but if I’m writing for this particular website and want to come up with a word meaning “fantastic” but, different, I could just go to thesaurus.com and get words like “awesome”, “superb”, “unreal” or “marvelous”. However, if …
The most annoying thing about trying to get a phone from OnePlus has been their insistence on using an invite system in order to allow you to buy one of their phones. It seems like there is some good news on that front as for the next few …
Now, I’m a bit of a sucker for beta software. I like it when I find an issue, or see a new feature. It makes the new shiny feel that bit newer, so Google betaing (yes, it’s not a word, but you get the idea) a new version …
The rumour train has once again stopped by at Coolsmartphone Towers. It dropped off the usual detritus, however, whilst sifting through the rubbish we found this thread of info about the recently discussed Pixel C Android tablet. Dutch website tweakers.net are stating that Google plans to open the …
Have you been thinking to yourself, “It would nice to have a handset that didn’t require a backpack or a monolithic battery”? I had the thought occur to me the other day but then instantly dismissed it as nonsense and told my brain to behave itself. Of course bigger …
This is the ZTE Axon Elite. It’s a big phone, with a 5.5” inch screen, and it doesn’t feel small in the hand. It shouldn’t either – there’s a lot packed under the hood of this ‘Ion Gold’ coloured beast. I’ve never had serious hands-on time with a …
You may recall a little while ago I was raving about an Android PC Box that came from the Far East. China to be precise. Well, the time has come for the unboxing to happen and I’m of course talking about the Remix Mini. I have already had …
Today Samsung announced the details and specs of the 2016 Galaxy A series range of devices. They will be coming in three screen size options: 5.5-inch for the A7, 5.2-inch for the A5 and 4.7-inch for the A3. Equipped with an enhanced camera system for brighter and clearer …
