Category: Android

Android and Apple. Shots fired.

I’ve been emailed just now about some sort of “Easter Egg” in Google Maps. The mail came with this preview image, which I assumed had been Photoshopped, because as a global company you surely couldn’t get away with adding that into your product…could you? Thing is, it’s not …

ZTE Blade S6 4G – Unpacking

It’s another day and the review kit is coming thick and fast. Today we have the ZTE Blade S6 4G, an affordable Android Lollipop phone sitting in the mid level price bracket (currently £189 on Amazon). The phone is available now, and we had a brief hands on …

Google to deliver more secure and familiar age ratings

  It’s been a problem for some time now, and to some extent it still continues. I’ve been banging on about the fact that the “family computer” is now a distant memory. You can’t really keep an eye on your kids when they’ve got small connected gadgets which …

Skyscanner, who are they and what do they do?

Those of you who are regular listeners to the CSP towers podcast will no doubt have heard of Skyscanner and its resident mobile guru Matteo. Although it sounds from his name that he would be a resident of warmer climes, he actually harks from my neck of the …

Google’s Project Fi to run on 2 networks

Before we start I should put in a slight caveat that this is just in America at the moment, but it is still an interesting development, especially given the network rivalry over the pond. Google are going to rent network capacity for voice, texts and data from Sprint …

Tech21 Patriot Case – Review

I think I have a fetish for cases, either that or I have just never managed to find the right one. I’m always swapping and changing. Now this is my next victim, the Tech21 Patriot Case. This is a rugged case for my iPhone 6 Plus. Tech21 assure me …

Three UK announce Honor 6+ pricing

UK network Three have just announced pricing for the brand new and exclusive Honor 6+ device. The Honor 6+ is a specification powerhouse at an amazingly affordable price as you will see in the press release The Honor 6+ goes on sale 1st May both online and in …

Remix Ultra Tablet – The unboxing

Today is the day people. The day where I can hopefully get rid of my need for a Windows PC forevermore (well at least out with work anyway). I have been lucky enough to get hold of a Remix Ultra tablet from Jide Technologies. These are the guys …

Sennheiser Momentum Headphones – Review

There are times in life when you want to actually hear things the way they were intended. Be it a piece of music that brings back memories of a momentous event or you want to immerse yourself in a horror film or really loose yourself in a game. …

A week with the HTC One M9 – My final thoughts

Missed our “week with” articles? Here they all are… Day one – The criticisms Day two – The audio Day three – Up close Day four – The camera Day five – Making it your own Dan has also written up an extensive HTC One M9 review but …

Honor Holly – Review

To truly succeed in the budget phone market you have tick many boxes, you have to look good, you have to perform well, you have to have some features from phones two or three times the price and most importantly you have to be cheap. Companies like Microsoft …

OnePlus Invite system is over.

On the 23rd of April 2015 the OnePlus One is one year old (to many ones there), and today OnePlus  announced that the hoop jumping invite system ( I know I was a hoop jumper, but to be fair I love my OnePlus one)  to buy the device …

HTC One M9 Review

Mobile World Congress is where most flagship devices get announced every year, and 2015 was no different. This year HTC arrived with an upgrade to their popular M8 phone which hopefully filled in the few missing pieces to make this the best phone they ever made. First of all a …

Sony Xperia Z4 launched in Japan

You won’t be able to understand a word of the Sony press release, but what we can tell you is that the Sony Xperia Z4 has been officially announced in Japan. It comes equipped with a 5.2″ IPS LCD 1920 x 1080 display and is just 6.9mm thick.  …

Huawei P8 – Initial Impressions

A wise man once said: A beautiful Smartphone creates beautiful things Personally I feel that applies to a lot of the smartphone market in 2015, with the likes of the Galaxy S6 Edge, the HTC One M9 and of course the iPhone 6 they are all beautiful devices …

OnePlus to announce something on April 20th

OnePlus, the company that brought us the OnePlus One with the weird invite system have announced something will happen on April 20th. That’s about as much as we can tell you. The date could refer to the end of the invite system, the OnePlus Two, a mini version, a …

A week with the HTC One M9. Day five. Making it your own.

Getting your phone setup is quite easy nowadays. If you’ve previously had a Google device, you just stick in your account details and all your apps, email and calendar appointments will appear. Your contacts will too, and your phone is setup in just a couple of minutes. The …

Podcast 136 – Listen in live

Hello there, welcome to the “listen in live” page for our podcast. Joining me this week should be Dan and Garry. This weeks topics should be about the leaks of the weird looking LG G4, the Huawei event we attended yesterday afternoon where the P8 and the humongous …

Another deal – ASUS ZenFone 2 for less than £165

Gahh… I think I have a problem. I should be out buying food but I’m still sat here looking at cheap phones. Perhaps there’s a “Phones Anonymous” I should join? Either way, with one of our special discount codes, you can get the Asus ZenFone 2 we spotted …

Jide make Remix Tablet OS available for Nexus 9 and Nexus 10

Remember the Remix Ultra Tablet? I have been talking about for the last few weeks now and it turns out that buying one on Kickstarter is not the only way to get the OS. The clever boys and girls at Jide Tech have made a $1 backer option to allow …

Amazon off-load another batch of free apps and games

In my head it’s already the weekend, so I’m spending this afternoon looking for deals. Amazon are having another one of their giveaways via their Amazon freebies. You need to go and get the Amazon app store for your Android phone first, then – until Saturday at noon …

Currys kick off a sale, but there’s still a good deal at Tesco

I’ve been having a look through the Currys sale and, like the little bargain hunter I am, I’ve found a few goodies that could tickle your deal-bones. If you’ve got the Samsung Galaxy S5 they’ve reduced the S-View case to £9.97. It was, apparently, £44.99, which is just.. …

Huawei P8 – Ask us some questions

Yesterday we picked up the new Huawei P8 at the launch event. We’ll obviously be bringing you our full review in a few weeks time, but in the meantime I’ll be making a hands on video this weekend showing off the hardware and software features. But there is …

A week with the HTC One M9. Day four. The camera tech.

A lot was said about the quality of the new 20 megapixel rear shooter. There’s a raft of options including the ability to adjust the ISO, EV and white balance settings. Not only that, but if you dive into the camera settings further there’s a stack of capture …

Hands on with the Huawei P8 and P8 Max

This  afternoon was one of those fun afternoons, you know the sort where you get to fondle a new thing. This time round it was the Huawei P8 and the P8 Max, one is an iterative update on the models from previous years, albeit an absolutely gorgeous looking …

Huawei announce the P8 and P8 Max

Over the years Huawei have been making a steady stream of well specified, great looking and well priced devices. Earning them a place near the top of the pile of phone manufacturers. Today we’ve been in London at the launch of their latest devices, the P8 and P8 …

Huawei London event – Live Blog

This afternoon we’ve been invited to London by Huawei to see their latest and greatest flagship device be unveiled. We’re going to live blog the event for you, tune in to this very post at about 3pm to see what they’ve got on show.

ZTE Blade L3 now available on Virgin Media. Cheap too.

A 5″ 480×854 pixel (196 ppi) screen, quad-core 1.3GHz CPU, 1GB RAM and 8 megapixel camera with flash. Sound interesting? What about if I mention that it’s just £79.99 with £10 airtime included. How’s about that? The new ZTE Blade L3 has arrived in the UK today. There’s 8GB of storage on board, but …

Archos Platinum 52 – Review

Archos are the one of the Android stalwarts, they’ve been making tablets for years now and now their product range includes a healthy selection of phones too. All different shapes, sizes and colours are available. The Platinum range offers a large screen, quad core experience at a budget …

A week with the HTC One M9. Day three. A look around.

HTC tell me that their new model has a “dual-tone” design. It’s not immediately obvious when you put it next to the M8, and you can see just that in our MWC gallery, but there is a subtle difference in the edging and the colouring. Yet again we …

OnePlus One starts receiving Cyanogenmod OS 12 OTA

After somewhat of a delay, Cyanogen have finally began the roll out of  Cyanogen OS 12 the Android 5.0 based update for the OnePlus One.  The update has all of Google’s features introduced in Android 5.0 including Google’s new Material Design.   As always the Cyanogen team, have included tweaks …

Microsoft Band Hands On

Yesterday I was at a Microsoft  event in sunny Glasgow where I was lucky enough to get hands on with the Brand new Microsoft Band, which is launching on Wednesday. I am very impressed with it and in the short time I wore it, it felt quite comfortable. The Band …

A week with the HTC One M9. Day two. Sounds good huh?

I’ve been banging on about this in tweets and posts for some time now, but the BoomSound system on the HTC One M9 is something that I appreciate. Despite the proliferation of Bluetooth speakers and headsets you’ll still find me listening to tunes via the external speaker on …

Arctic P324BT Bluetooth headphones – Review

Taking a pair of headphones out with me running is quite an undertaking, controlling my music whilst I’m out running is also fiddly. The fit is usually not quite right, the volume not quite right, the cables flap around and catch on stuff, the Bluetooth connection to my …

Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Yes, they launched today.

James Cordon seems to be making a bit of a name for himself over in the USA and now Samsung have roped him in to promote their shiny new Galaxy S6 handsets. Basically, this is an advert coming up. We can’t get hold of either of the Samsung …

Tesco Mobile properly launches the Samsung Galaxy S6

Tesco Mobile is, like a number of MVNOs, offering some of the very latest handsets at the moment. Using an MVNO is no longer seen as a cheap and cheerful choice. Now it’s perhaps a clever alternative which is just plain better than the main four networks. The …

Getting an S6 today? Don’t forget your case

Today marks the launch of both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge. Whether you like it or not, it’s wise to put a case on the posh new Galaxy handset if you get yourself one today. The S6 is pretty much £600 or more depending on …

Official Twitter Android app receives annoying new update

For many of us using Android, our apps will magically update themselves whenever the developer adds new features or fixes bugs. However, the official Twitter app, which has always been a little buggy on every phone I’ve tried (try sharing an image directly from the gallery for example), …