Category: Android

Nexus 9 tumbles in price

Get down your local Argos if you’re after a 16GB tablet – in particular the Nexus 9 8.9″ model. It was £319.99, but is now £120 cheaper at £199.99. We’ve got a review of the Nexus 9 online and it’s got some pretty decent specifications, including that 2048×1536 …

Keeping to the Beat, LG has a new G4

LG has lifted the lid on their latest creation, the LG G4 Beat. The smaller sibling of the G4, obviously. The Beat is supposed to be a cheaper alternative to the G4, rather than simply just smaller like the Z3 and Z3 Compacts of the world, as is …

EE launch branded Rook 4G smartphone

EE have today announced and launched a brand new device under their own EE device brand – the Rook. When EE launched the Kestrel a while ago the £99 launch price caught a lot of press and customer attention for being a decent spec device at a low, …

OnePlus Two to be priced under $450 (£289)

Over the last few days we have seen little snippets of information being leaked of the next “flagship killer” from OnePlus – the OnePlus Two. It’s due for release on the 27th July and we already know that it will have a type C USB port, a V2 Snapdragon …

OnePlus Cardboard

OnePlus is teasing us with the OnePlus Two quite hard. The product launch, scheduled for July 27th 2015, will be held in “Virtual Reality” (or VR if you are an acronym lover). To allow OnePlus One users to watch the event, OnePlus is giving away Google Cardboard kits …

Google Nexus 6 – Get it cheaper

Fancy yourself a Google Nexus 6? We’ve already posted a full review of the Nexus 6 but now it’s available in both blue and white for a mere £303.99. This is a phone that was £499 when we reviewed it in December last year, so that’s a substantial …

Vodafone offer up the S6 edge – 32GB version

This is the 64GB Samsung Galaxy S6 edge on Vodafone. It was, until recently, the lowest capacity version on the network and would’ve set you back £41 per month with £149 up-front. That’ll get you 500MB data, unlimited texts and 500 minutes. However, if you want to spend …

Storytime for grownups. Why you should try digital audiobooks

Prologue If you’ve ever taken a class on ancient literature, mythology, or even anthropology, you’ve probably run across “the oral tradition”, mankind’s earliest form of storytelling. Perhaps I’m getting to heavy here, but I’m basically saying that listening to stories rather than reading them was the norm at …

Xperia Z4 Tablet – Unboxing

Another year has gone by and another Sony Tablet has arrived on our desk at Coolsmartphone towers. Today I have the real pleasure of unboxing the new Xperia Z4 Tablet. We first saw this stunning device at MWC, which we covered live. It was here that we were …

Got an LG G3 on O2? Notice any signal strangeness?

So, I wanted to put this out there as I think I could be going mad.  I have an LG G3. It’s on O2 and, for reasons I can’t quite explain, it keeps dropping signal. I’ve done the usual tricks – swapped the SIM card, reset the phone, …

Get a personal coach in your pocket

Cross-training? Out for a run? What you need is a bit of encouragement. Something that’ll make you break out into a sweat. You need to get worn out, and quick. You need to go harder and faster. You need to build your stamina. So how’s about…. Yes, the …

Jide Remix Mini PC coming soon to Kickstarter

Just when you thought that I couldn’t talk about Jide Technology any more, this little gem appears. Remix OS is an adaptable OS that can be used on a variety of platforms, with one example being a Mini PC. This is a very active market right now so …

Xperia Z4 Tablet missing USB OTG support – UPDATE

News is starting to trickle in that the new Xperia Z4 Tablet is missing a very important productivity tool. It seems like Sony have made the omission of USB OTG support. It also seems to be that this is the case on the M4 Aqua and the Z3+. …

A touchless smartwatch… it’s happening

Deus Ex Technology have had a good week. They launched their project on Kickstarter on the 18th and within 6 days they have achieved their goal of $100k. Awesome. But why should I care? If you own a smartwatch then this will be very interesting. They have made …

XiaoMi mi4i drops in price

Another week, another handset from Gearbest, and this time it’s the XiaoMi mi4i, which I’ve been having a nose at because they’ve dropped the price from $485.62 (£308.23) to $237.67 (£150.85). It supports dual SIM and is powered by Android 5.0. Specs include a 5″ 1920×1080 pixel screen, …

LG G4 – Review

Most phones look the same. Big screen? Check. One button up front maybe? Check. Manufacturers struggle to achieve differentiation. LG have tried to stand out from the crowd by keeping the screen large and reducing the bezel, which means a better one-handed experience. It also means that the …

Amazon drop Fire Phone to £99

Right now over on Amazon.co.uk the company is selling off its Fire Phone device which is still exclusive to O2 here in the UK. Since its launch the branded device has failed to capture mainstream attention and has been a little bit of a flop, with a high …

Google Music, now free, with some hefty caveats

Google Music is great, but you need to pay for it. Booo. But wait, you can now get it free via an ad-supported version via the website plus it’s coming to Android and iOS. You’ll get adverts, but apart from that we can see absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t want this. …

OnePlus Two to have USB type C

Last week OnePlus revealed that it’s next smartphone, the OnePlus 2, would feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 V2 processor (the cooler running version of its latest chipset). Now the company has revealed that the next device will have a USB Type-C port for charging the smartphone. The announcement came …

Moto G 2015 (Third gen) rumours.

Details about the third incarnation of the hugely popular Motorola Moto G have leaked, and just to add to the confusion this is not the Moto G that was released earlier this year. Specs 5-inch 720p display. Snapdragon 410 processor. 1GB RAM. 8GB of storage. 13-megapixel rear camera, with …

Touchjet Pond Projector – Review

A projector running Android, surely that is the perfect device for use in the boardroom or the meeting rooms across the globe. When I heard about the Touchjet Pond I was rather intrigued, a projector that turns the surface you’re projecting onto into a large touchscreen, just seemed …

Remix Ultra Tablet – Review

I have now had this tablet for a few weeks now and I was holding back on the review until a few software updates had been delivered. Since I did the unboxing video back in April it has been a very busy time for the Remix as it …

Vodafone Smart ultra 6 – Review

Come, take a seat my friends, because something is happening again in the mobile industry. When I was young kid (when) started a little website called Coolsmartphone. It was all about a network-branded smartphone called the SPV. For years after we saw networks branding their logo onto phones …

Vodafone announce the Smart ultra 6 – Hi-specs, low-price.

Vodafone have just announced another branded handset – the Smart ultra 6. Perhaps the best part is the fact that this 4G, octa-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm CPU handset is just £125 on Pay As You Go. Yes, I did say Qualcomm. It’s also available to buy as of today. …

MOT Models launch mobile portfolios – A world first

When I applied for my first few jobs I had to sit in a stuffy office while some HR person clicked through my CV. I had a folder with all my qualifications in there too, but fast-forward to today and I’m instead getting job agencies using my LinkedIn …

Huawei announce the T1 10″ tablet

How about a tablet with a 10″ IPS screen, Qualcomm quad-core 1.2GHz CPU and 4G connectivity for just £22.50 on a pay monthly deal with a £22.99 up-front cost? O2 will soon be selling the new Huawei T1 10″ tablet in white. It’s powered by Android 4.4 KitKat, …

The Terminator gets added to your navigation

Way back in the day we used to upload voices to our hacked versions of TomTom to Pocket PC devices. Remember someone having Yoda speaking out the directions? Now we’ve got Waze which, if you didn’t know already, is a rather clever community-driven traffic and navigation app. If …

Cortana for Android (beta) coming in July.

Microsoft has revealed that a beta version of Cortana, their digital assistant (none of which I can get to work right), will be available for Android users sometime in July – as a Beta. This means that the Cortana version for Android won’t have all of the features of …

Motorola UK have a sale on people!

Morning. It’s hump day, which means it’s the middle of the week. Wednesday to be precise, and right now there’s a Motorola sale on. If you want a deal, head to this special Motorola page where they have huge discounts on a range of products. We’re talking a …

Now your Smartphone tells you how bad your food is for you

Well here’s a thing…. We know that smartphone s and their interactive personal assistants are becoming more intelligent, but now they can inform you exactly how bad, or – if you are extremely lucky – good, the food you are eating is for you. Imagine you are in …

YotaPhone 3 on the horizon

The dual-sided YotaPhone series made a big splash at MWC, but it wasn’t picked up by the major networks over in Blighty. However, we quite liked it all in all, so when news of the YotaPhone 3 leaked, colour us excited. The e-ink screen is a great idea …

Samsung Galaxy J7 & J5 Leaked.

In typical Samsung “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach” to mobile devices, two more units have been leaked, these being the Samsung Galaxy J7 and J5. From the images that have appeared we can see that the devices are made from the good old …

Beam TV into your device without the internet

Getting streaming TV on your phone or tablet is great. You get to watch TV anywhere. However, if you’re out of the house and you don’t have a clever DVR or set-top box that’ll squirt the TV picture from your aerial to your device over your WiFi, you’re …

Dear HTC. I want something like this I can design myself.

So HTC sent us a press release. We’d perhaps like one of their new phones, but we can’t get that. Anyhow. They sent us pictures of a model called Jourdan Dunn. We’re not sure who she is, and we’re totally against sexist imagery of ladies advertising phones. It’s …

Archos 50 and 55 Helium Plus, UK-bound in July.

Following their announcement earlier in the month, two devices from the French manufacturer Archos will be available in the UK soon enough. These will be the 50 Helium Plus and 55 Helium Plus. Both the devices are classed as “budget” handsets and both have almost identical internals. Archos have posted …

LG G4 Photo special – Teaser

Anyone who follows me on social media (I’m @mobilemandan on Twitter) will know that I love my phone photography. I am by no means a pro at it, and I’m still learning the different settings from ISO to shutter speed. However, with smartphone camera technology getting better all …

Get your eBooks from.. the supermarket

Did you, my friend, know that Sainsburys do eBooks? No. No. Neither did I. I just go in there for some apples and my special cream. Now there’s a whole new website on www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk filled with the things, and you can either take a preview or go to …