Category: Android
For a while one of the unique selling points behind Nokia Windows Phone devices was the HERE Maps suite. It offered a truly offline mapping solution for free. It was one of the reason I always took a Windows Phone on holiday. Now the HERE maps team have …
Recently I moved to using my Nexus 5 as my daily driver again (just to use the pure Lollipop Android experience).. Thing is, with it being a 16GB version, space is at a premium, as it is with a number of handsets that haven’t got microSD slots. I …
We don’t know a great deal about Karbonn Mobile just yet, but they are pushing out some relatively cheap Android kit via Amazon. Their Karbonn A5S is SIM free and available in black or white. It has a 5 megapixel rear camera, 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, 4GB ROM, 512MB …
If you are an app developer you’re probably familiar with Eclipse and the Android SDK. Back in 2013 Google announced Android Studio which was to be a more integrated and smarter way to build apps. It’s been available to use as a 0.1 Alpha version since May 2013 …
We’ve got a Nexus 6 into the testbed here at Coolsmartphone and whilst the review is ongoing we thought we would let you have a sneak peak. Well, it is the season of giving and all that jazz. 🙂 The game we have chosen is the old classic …
Specs really aren’t what you should be buying this particular device for. I mean yes, it has a 4.5″″ screen (940×560) and runs Android 4.4.2 plus there’s an 8 megapixel shooter. It has the usual WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 and there’s space for a microSD card. This, though, …
Many months ago I took the plunge, I did what many phone enthusiasts do, I pre ordered a phone from a company with a history of buggy software, dodgy memory setup and questionable update policies. Yes I’m talking about Oppo and my Find 7a. So here I am …
One of the great frustrations in the mobile world is seeing a new handset released, only to find that it is either unavailable in the UK or available in limited supplies via an invite-only scheme. Oppo, the Chinese manufacturer, is a perfect example of this. It’s Find 7 …
It looks like Google are pushing out a point release to the latest version of their operating system Android 5 Lollipop, up to 5.0.1. Google has also released the factory images for the Nexus 7 (2013, Wi-Fi), Nexus 9 and the Nexus 10. Google has not provided any …
My kitchen ceiling is falling in because the bath is leaking. It’s a mess I can tell you and I’m well narked off because it’s about the fourth thing to go wrong this week. But no, I’m not leaving you my friends. I’m hear to tell you about …
If you’re an Aldi shopper then, from Thursday next week, you might well spot a rather cheap Medion 10.1″ tablet. It’s powered by a quad-core Atom CPU and has 32GB of on-board storage. Other specs include a 5 megapixel (rear) and 2 megapixel (front) camera, GPS, WiFi and …
We’ve been all over this phone since an early model appeared in Barcelona. Short version, this is a phone with an always-on rear display. The idea is pretty clever – you use the low-power rear panel for reading text and interacting with your Twitter, your texts, web pages …
Hello there, welcome to the “listen in live” page for our podcast. Joining me this week should be Garry, topics this week will be about the Nexus 6 almost being available, our thoughts on the Yotaphone 2, the HT Desire 816 and HTC One M8 GPE combo I’m …
Fancy yourself a Nexus 6 dear reader? It seems to be popping up all over the place. Made by Motorola it runs Android Lollipop, has a 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 quad-core CPU (with an Adreno 420 GPU) 3GB RAM, 13 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front, 6″ 1440×2560 AMOLED …
In an unusually speedy move for Samsung, it has been reported that they’ve started rolling out the Android 5.0 Lollipop update for the G900F variant of the Galaxy S5 in Poland. Although not confirmed by Samsung itself, the rumour has been released by the folks over at Sam-mobile. …
The latest wearable to come out of the Sony machine has now launched in O2 stores up and down the country. The price is £129.99, however if you get it with a new Android phone then it will cost you just £99.99. The Smartband Talk is the evolution …
It’s a few weeks before Christmas, which means I’ve got precisely 15 million emails in my inbox from various people wanting me to pimp things. Send me BEER people. I need BEER. My message doesn’t seem to be getting through, but either way this little gadget looks pretty …
Earlier we posted news on the new Yotaphone 2. It’s just been formally unveiled and we can clarify the price – a whacking £555. You can buy it from yotaphone.com and there’s going to be a pop-up store just off Brick Lane in Shoreditch tonight at 6.30PM. Inside …
During Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we saw a totally new type of handset. Up front, the usual bright and vivid screen we see on most handsets. On the back though, what you can mistake to be a cover design is actually a fully interactive e-ink screen. We …
The FES (Fashion Entertainments) watch was a crowd-funding project on Makuake, a Japanese crowd-funding site, that ran in September this tear. The project shows a watch made almost entirely of e-ink, the same technology used in Kindle screens and Pebble smartwatches. The difference here is that it’s not …
You’ll have probably noticed the Acer content this past weekend. We were lucky enough to get a hands on with a number of their devices and you’ll no doubt have read our overview of the Liquid Jade and the fitness band, the Liquid Leap. Whilst in Edinburgh I …
There’s a wide variety of handsets around but , as you’ll no doubt know yourself, they all have a very similar design – one big screen up front, a couple of cameras and that’s about your lot. Yes, I’m generalising a little, but my first impressions from the …
Acer have sent us to Edinburgh and have loaned us a number of devices – the Acer Liquid Leap (a fitness band), the Acer Liquid Jade (a shockingly slender smartphone), the Iconia Tab 8 and the device I’m using to type this out – the Aspire Switch 10. …
OK, I’ll be quick with this one as Aran is going to update you on all the Vodafone Black Friday / weekend deals in a moment, but you can bag yourself the rather nice LG G2 (which we lovingly reviewed here) for a mere £150. That’s not an …
Now, let’s admit it. You’ve probably not heard of Karbonn Mobile. They are, however, entering into the lower end of the Android smartphone market and, right now, you can get their flagship – the Karbonn Sparkle from Amazon for just £129.99. That’ll get you Android 4.4, 5 megapixel …
The Amazon Fire Phone. It’s proving to be a bit “marmite”, you either love it or hate it. The handset has a 4.7″ 1280×720 pixel screen at 315ppi, 13 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi etc. The reviews may be a bit mixed, and you have to be prepared to …
Well OK then, I’ll give these guys some airtime as they’ve been bugging me to heck about their app. Kabbee is a licensed minicab price comparison and booking website for Londoners. There’s an app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone too. You just whack in your pick-up …
Don’t ask me quite how I do it, but I can easily make any low-light photograph look like a hideous mess. The resulting images are either pasty white faces or blurry dark ones, so to see such stunning photos from a phone is always a strange thing for …
Xiaomi are a big name, a big name across the world, they are the third largest phone manufacturer at the moment, behind only Apple and Samsung. They are from China and along with companies like Oppo, OnePlus and Huawei they are starting to show people you don’t have …
For so long Samsung fans have hoped to see a new phone with metal design instead of the traditional plastic material used on so many high value devices. And as if by magic we now have two – the Galaxy Alpha and the much larger Galaxy Note 4 …
Free stuff. At this time of year it’s in short supply. If you, like me, are looking to get something for nothing then, via your smartphone, you can get exactly that. This, at least, is what my good friend told me after a few beers in the pub …
It’s hardly a surprise that OnePlus are thinking about a making a second device, as the demand for their first phone has been rather high. Demand that was partially created by a ludicrous invite system and also by the fact they were offering a phone with great specs …
Do you use your iPad naked (ooooo missus, the iPad, not you) or do hide all of the Apple design inside a case ? I recently took my iPad mini out of its case and instantly remembered how thin and light the device was. I decided that’s how …
I do rather like the LG G3. It’s the first LG device I’ve owned in a long, long time and overall I’m very impressed. It packs a 1440×2560 5.5″ inch screen at 534ppi WiFi, Bluetooth 4, 4G and a 13 megapixel camera at the back with laser focus. …
Here we are folks, the long awaited Xperia Z3 Tablet Review. First things first, why has it taken so long to get this review done? It’s simple really. The first tablet developed a dead pixel line from top to bottom and needed to be replaced. I also decided …
If I was in Los Angeles, and not in the middle of Walsall, I’d have seen a rather cool innovation from JLR (Jaguar Land Rover). It’s called justDrive and it’s not just built into their cars – this is an app that is available for Android and iPhone. …
The HTC Desire Eye is a new phone that will be of interest to many of us. It’s not just because of that 13 megapixel front facing camera with dual-LED flash, but because it is a stunning piece of hardware put together at a very affordable price. Oh …
Vodafone have just announced preorders of the brand new Nexus 6 made by Motorola for their UK network. The Nexus 6 is available in 32GB version in Midnight Blue and is free from £44.50 a month based on a 24 month deal. If you do not like long …
Nokia, yes, Nokia – not Microsoft or Lumia or anything in-between, have just announced an Android tablet. It’s only a matter of months since the phone unit got sold off to Microsoft, but here’s there N1 Android tablet now that the company have regained control of the Nokia …
A while back Nokia shocked people by making an Android Launcher, around about the same time as they released a few Android phones. At that stage they were only available by signing up and downloading the apk file and manually installing it. Well now they’ve gone and published …
