Category: Android

Pre order the Honor 6 Plus SIM free today

Today is the day that me and many others have been waiting for, the rather fancy looking dual camera equipped Honor 6 Plus is going up for pre order. The phone is going to be exclusive to 3 for a while, but you’ll be able to buy it …

Reduce your London cab ride cost – Share the bill with SPLYT

Honestly it seems like we’re getting some sort of taxi app every week here at Coolsmartphone HQ. Today it’s the turn of SPLYT, who’ve raised our eyebrows by offering shared taxi fares to reduce the cost of getting around and 99p rides for a week, beginning next Monday …

HTC announce the One M9+

HTC have this morning announced the much leaked One M9+. It’s to be sold in China, with no mention of other markets. Shame. The various leaks have all been spot on, including the peculiar fingerprint scanner beneath the display. Spec wise it’s a bit different to the One …

HTC One M9 now available to buy on Vodafone

Seen our hands-on with the HTC One M9? If not, the video is below. About a month ago Vodafone started pre-orders and now it’s available to buy on the network. A quick note though, if you did pre-order, you’ll be able to redeem one of 1000 pairs of …

Will smartwatches have the same range of apps as smartphones?

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. No sooner has the Apple Watch been announced and we’re already getting emails telling us about apps that’ll run on the thing. That’s expected I guess, but when betting apps also set to arrive on the thing, you know it’ll probably be …

Piper NV – Review

Home automation is something that is only really limited by your imagination, possibly what accessories you can buy and possibly also by how much money you have. You get the idea though…. One of the more intriguing things I saw at MWC was the Piper NV, it is …

EE launch WiFi calling

EE have today announced that WiFi calling will launch on 10th April with the introduction of the S6 and S6 Edge and also the Lumia 640 and 640 XL. Whilst Apple announced compatibility back at their iPhone 6 event, it is Samsung that are getting in there first …

LG announce the human-centric UX 4.0

Every year LG announce a new flagship device and to accompany that they redesign the software running atop of it. This year seems to be no different, in the run up to the LG G4 being announced LG have come out and shown us some of the new …

iFit Announce Integration with the Sony SmartWatch 3

iFit is one of the most popular fitness brands, and today they have formally announced that their services will be integrated into the Sony SmartWatch 3. iFit provides a complete fitness ecosystem to try and mentor you to a healthier lifestyle  and they partner with well-known companies such as …

OfficeSuite Free review

Getting Office documents working on your mobile device can be a hit and miss affair. Sometimes you’ll find an app that opens certain documents but won’t let you edit them. Sometimes you can edit some document types but not others, and you can find that the document will …

Kickstarter mess up, Jide to the rescue

Some of you may be aware that I have been harping on about a Kickstarter project called Remix Ultra Tablet,  well it has been a huge success on Kickstarter so much that the actually sold out the entry level tier of $39 in seconds and the next one …

OxygenOS for the OnePlus One now available

Today is going to be a good day for OnePlus One owners. The eagerly awaited Lollipop update for the OnePlus One is now available for download and manual flashing. This is the version that’s free of all the Cyanogenmod extras, it’s basically just like a Nexus Lollipop ROM. …

HTC unveil the rather familiar looking One M8s

I bet you can remember the above phone right? Last years HTC One M8 right? Wrong it’s the recently unveiled One M8s. Although to give you your due, it is the same phone, just a bit slower. It is best summed up by Peter Frølund the UK and Ireland …

Grab the opening hours for anywhere, just head to your pocket.

The people at OpenHours have sent me a missive about their new Android and iOS apps for checking the opening times of stores, banks, restaurants and more. You can give their website a spin now and put in something like “TSB Birmingham“. It’ll then tell you how long …

Compare the (super)market

Don’t get me started about politics. One group tell you that things are great. The other guys say that things are still rubbish. Me? I’m voting Monster Raving Looney. I think they’re marginally better and my local MP is dressed as a chicken. Brilliant. If you’re not feeling …

Lucy Hedges shows how to f’ing save money

Right, April Fools is now over… unless you’re in America, then it’s probably definitely still on. Either way, I’d like to state up-front that this is definitely an April Fools joke. This is the First Direct Swear Jar app. An app that runs in the background and detects …

Honor 6+ pre-order from April 6th, buy on May 1st

This weekend, while you’re enjoying an Easter break painting fences / wallpapering rooms or perhaps even spending several days in the pub.. if you’re lucky. Today Honor, a Huawei owned company, have announced the pricing and availability. As you lovely people know already, it’ll have a network exclusive …

Alcatel Onetouch Pop D5 – Review

Alcatel have a wide range of devices and keeping up with exactly where each model sits in the range is at times a struggle, when I visited their stand at MWC it took me five minutes to gather myself and work out what was what. Alcatel have sent …

WhatsApp gets voice calling for (almost) all

If you use WhatsApp then I really don’t need to sell this thing to you. It’s a cross-platform messaging app that cuts out the need to use text messages. Instead you send everything over your data connection and you can also keep in touch with people in other …

Carphone Warehouse & O2 now stocking the HTC One M9

  Independent phone retailer Carphone Warehouse, has been taking pre orders for the HTC M9 for some time now, but today the retailer has announced that you’ll be able to get your hands on  the device now. The latest flagship from HTC is listed on contracts that start from £37.50 …

LG G4 to be announced next month?

Invites have been sent out for the next LG launch. We’re suspecting it’ll be the LG G4 and it’ll be launched at events in New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, and Istanbul next month on April 28th and 29th. Other than this invite and the phrase “See the …

Doro Liberto 820 Mini – Review

Doro have found themselves a niche, they have really really thought of everything that a phone should do in that particular niche. A few weeks ago I was introduced to the new Liberto 820 Mini and when I got back from MWC there was one waiting for me …

HTC One E9+ Slips out in China

According to the specs on the HTC China website, this E9+ has a 2GHz 64-bit octa-core MediaTek CPU, 16GB storage plus a microSD card slot for another 128GB. WiFi, 4G and dual nano SIM card slots are included plus an UltraPixel front-facing camera with a 13 megapixel rear …

KitSound Clash, Bluetooth Headphones Review.

Usually, headphones are a difficult item to review and at the end of the day,  you the reader have to take my word for it. We’ve had the KitSound Clash Bluetooth Headphones in for review recently and we’ll start the review off with my good and bad points. …

Oppo’s bezel free device leaked.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Oppo looks set to release a handset with  jaw dropping bezel free display. The new smartphone has been anonymously leaked online, flaunting almost no bezels on either side of the screen and Running Oppo’s own operating system ColorOS. The only other handset without a curve that …

More HTC One M9 Plus images leaked.

  HTC has sent out invites in which it clearly teased a new HTC One M9 variant with the One M8 Duo camera set up. Tie this in with the leaked images from the normally spot on @Upleaks on twitter, and could this be the rumoured HTC M9+? From viewing …

HTC One M9 on sale via giffgaff tonight. Cheaper than competitors

This is a handset which has received a fair amount of criticism because it doesn’t look hugely different to the previous One M8. Almost a year ago Scott Croyle, chief of design, left HTC and now Industrial Design Lead, Jonah Becker, has left. However, I know plenty of …

Jide Remix Tablet will be made

The Jide Remix tablet that I mentioned the other day will indeed now be made and shipped to the US, EU and for this here writer, most importantly the UK. To celebrate this I want to share a great video done by Brad Linder of Liliputing that shows …

More phones able to run Windows 10 preview soon

Windows 10 is coming for Windows Phones (hence forward to be referred to as Lumia’s in this article) and work appears to be going pretty well. Windows have just announced a raft of new Lumia’s that will be able to run the preview version of the new OS …

Speck cases for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge

Whilst at MWC I met the guys from Speck, we had a chat about cases, as you’d expect. They asked me what phone I had and what case I used, I pulled out my Note 4 in an Otterbox Defender case and they actually recoiled in horror. We …

Oxygen OS & CM12 Delayed Say OnePlus

On the 18th March I posted an article about fledgling phone manufacturer OnePlus stating that by the 27th of March this year, their very own Oxygen OS would be available and the CM12 update would be available by 30th March, which you can read here. Since the beginnings …

Acer Liquid Jade S Review

It has been a while since I have done a review of a new phone so when Acer asked me to test the new Jade S I figured I would give it a shot. I had done a small article when the prices were announced a while back …

Honor 6 available from Clove for £229.99

We should point out right here that this isn’t the Honour 6 Plus you might have seen us looking at during Mobile World Congress. No, this is the slightly lighter version with a 5″ 1080×1920 pixel screen, compared to the 5.5″ on the Plus. That said, there is …

Remix Ultra Tablet on Kickstarter UPDATE

What do you get if you take a Surface 2 and combine it with 3 ex Googlers, determined to make Android productive? The Remix Ultra by Jide is the answer. Today the industrious guys at Jide are looking to release this Tablet to the US market under a …

Less bloat on the Samsung Galaxy S6 brothers?

Ooohh. That bloated feeling. It’s bad enough in your stomach, but when your phone has it and you’ve not even installed anything, it’s bad. Samsung have always received quite a bit of flack for this, but it looks like things have improved somewhat in the S6 devices. There’s …

Amazon – permission much? – opinion

Oh Amazon, what are you up to? Why do you want so much from us? If we say yes, what are we letting ourselves in for? These are some of the thoughts that flew across my mind when my phone wanted to update the Amazon app. Granted, I …

Hannspree announce a Sports Watch

Hannspree manufacturer Android tablets, TV equipment, monitors, Windows 8 all in one PCs and now a wearable fitness tracker that they are calling the Sports Watch. It looks a lot like a Misfit and the key point is the price. £29.99. This could be quite good…. Key features: …

Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge – Cashback

Yesterday we had a look at the various places you can buy the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Both handsets are available pretty much everywhere and it’s safe to say that they’re quite expensive. If you’ve chosen to go to EE to pre-order, you can save yourself …

Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge – Start your engines

If you’ve been won over by the Samsung Galaxy S6 brothers then nearly every UK network has announced pre-orders and pricing. Here’s a run-down of the options available to you if you’re looking to get one. Before I start, if you’re after an up-close look at both the …

OnePlus announces…actually we don’t quite know.

Hot on the heels of OnePlus letting us know that they’d had to raise the Euro price of the OnePlus One, comes another announcement that some of us at CSP towers have been waiting for. Yep, the New OnePlus. Just kidding. We know that OnePlus has wanted to …