Category: Editorial

I’m getting buried in emails from networks and stores. I’m fending off the comments and opinions from industry watchers. No. I need to have my say. Good God Apple. Part of me is astonished. Part of me has to applaud the egotistical attitude on display. It was a …

Things are definitely changing here at Coolsmartphone. Gone are the days when we used to just get emails about the latest smartphone being launched. Now, instead, we’re getting everything connected with smartphones. We’re getting Bluetooth speakers, headphones, VR glasses and everything to do with the Internet of Things. …

Can our hung parliament and chaotic government really “take back control” from the EU? Who knows, but it does raise an interesting question. What will happen with our newly-acquired EU roaming deal? After Brexit, if we ever get it sorted out, will Brits see a return to the …

Most phone users have used the Short Message Service at one time or another. Nowadays, we just call it texting people. Then came the promise of MMS (Multi Media Messaging), or picture messaging. That never really took off in the same way as texting people, since the costs …

It seems so simple doesn’t it. A short cut into making your lights ‘smarter’, with no need to re-wire anything or even look at a screwdriver. Unfortunately almost every brand has adopted connected light bulbs as their go to smart home tech and I’m here to tell you …

OK. Slightly off-topic today, but the regular readers will no doubt be aware that I film a lot of our product reviews in my car. As an example, my SanDisk iXpand overview or this FM transmitter review. I was even doing this some 10 years ago in glorious …

In a way I’m not overly happy that a service like this exists, or has to exist. The NHS here in the UK is crumbling. There’s many reasons for it, and we could argue about them all day, but fact is – it’s broken. We’re now in a …

My wife currently works as a customer service assistant in a local town. While she was working last week, she could hear a commotion outside in the street. A member of the public came running into to her office, screaming for help and requesting a fire extinguisher stating …

OK I’ll fess up. Sometimes I do get distracted by my phone when I’m in the car. It’s all too easy to take a quick glance at the traffic lights and some of us think we can compose complicated messages while we’re driving. You can’t. You just can’t. …

Yesterday, for a special treat, I used the M6 Toll road. It’s just a couple of miles from my house and takes around 20 minutes off my journey but I, along with many, many, many other people, simply don’t use it due to the insane cost. At £5.50 …

It’s now time for another article about someone doing something stupid to a brand new iPhone 7. They’re hoping that they’ll get enough YouTube clicks so that they can get enough revenue to replace the phone that they’re just about to break. I know… this whole internet thing …

These things have been around for a while if I’m honest, but they appear to have popped up in the news recently and I’ve had an email from a guy called Michael about it. So that’s good enough for me. Available on several “iffy” eBay listings like this, …

In the last few hours lorry driver Danny Warby has been given a six year sentence for crashing into an off duty police officer’s car. The collision killed Det Con Sharon Garrett, aged 48, and caused a five-vehicle crash. A police investigation revealed that Mr Warby was speeding …

Recently I switched network. I moved to Vodafone after spotting this deal that got me a SIM-only plan with 10GB of data for just £11.59 per month. I’m a bit of a mobile geek, as you’ll know, and like many of you I become aware of the “not …

When I was doing my recent charity bike ride (and, of course, I don’t like to talk about all the good work I do for charidee mate), we had a problem. In the middle of the Lake District we stopped in a bunk house and found that there …

On Sunday I mentioned a particular YouTube channel that I like to follow (in addition to our rather fantastic channel, which you absolutely must follow too). It’s from a guy called Mat, who is known on YouTube as Techmoan. He also has a website, called Techmoan.com, and you …

Well no. Not many people have thought about doing this, I’m sure, but I’ve got in the rather geeky habit of following the Techmoan YouTube channel and his most recent video features a rather old piece of technology from the 1960’s called the “8-track”. The 8-track cartridge or …

Selling a phone in India and apparently made there too is one thing, but selling it for 251 rupee, which is less than $4 or £2.56? For an Android smartphone? Specs then, and you’ll be getting a 4″ qHD IPS screen, 1.3GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage …

5G and the ‘Internet of Things’ sounds like a movie title, however it will be a reality sooner than we think. The ‘Internet of Things’ is about everyday devices like fridges, TVs, washing machines and kettles all connecting to the internet to make our lives more connected. We …

I’m not a huge football fan, admittedly. However, even if you don’t follow the great game you’ll probably have heard about the Villa match this weekend. As a local team, it was all over the sports and news bulletins last night. Aston Villa, and I don’t really think …

It’s been apparent for a while that you don’t really have a product to release if there aren’t leaks of it before you’re ready to announce. This time it was LG’s turn with the up and coming LG G5, due to be announced on Feb 21 (the same …

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 …

Time for something a little different. The other week I had the pleasure of attending one of the ongoing Westminister e-Forums. These are a series of events in London where the various regulatory bodies that keep things working properly in the UK convene to discuss a wide variety …

When you see someone filming with their smartphone, name the thing that annoys you more than anything. It’s probably this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA Filming stuff the wrong way around. It’s criminal. Worst of all is when someone starts filming in portrait and then turns the phone 90 degrees whilst it’s …

This week I am attending The Big Android BBQ Europe in Amsterdam. Today I am blogging live from the Code Kitchen where some very clever people are engaging in code challenges. The Big Android BBQ has been a two day Android focused conference. Opened with a Keynote delivered …

I love my wife. She’s a little bit bonkers in all the right ways. If you live near us then you’ll probably already know of my wife through her singing. Now, whilst I don’t think she’ll end up on X-Factor anytime soon, she does love a good singalong …

If It wasn’t such a possibility from the Chocolate Factory, I’d dismiss it as yet another rumour, but it makes a weird type of sense. Whilst we have absolutely no confirmation yet that there is any truth to this, some photos have come online from China that purport …

Yesterday there was yet another shooting in America. That, in itself, isn’t unusual and will probably continue for quite some time yet. What was different was the fact that the double murder occured on live morning TV. Footage from Virginia has already appeared on news bulletins all over …

Seeing as the whole point of the Samsung Unpacked event is to announce their new Autumn line up, there hasn’t been anything official announced yet. We know there’s going to be a new Galaxy Note, because there’s always a new Galaxy Note at this time. But there have …

Earlier this week we covered the Motorola Triple Product Launch in London with a live-blog and have discussed what was launched in a post and this week’s Coolsmartphone Podcast. Lets look at the three products Motorola launched in a bit more detail. Moto X Style Motorola’s new flagship. …

Before we covered the news of the Motorola announcement, all I thought I wanted was the equivalent of a 2014 Moto X with a better battery and camera. Then the Moto X Play came along. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I didn’t need to go up to …

In a recent interview with Arabian Business the Sony Mobile CEO Hiroki Totoki dropped a number of headline-worthy quoteable statements. In the interview, Hiroki Totoki discusses the challenges Sony Mobile faces in the global smartphone industry, particularly the competition from budget brands and the internal restructuring. One of …

First, a bit of detail about how all this came about. Phones. I get a lot of them to review. I borrow them then send them back, but with different sizes of SIM cards and some handsets offering dual-SIM functionality, it can result in me using Pay As …

For a moment early this morning I honestly thought I’d dreamt this. Perhaps it was part of a drunken vision. No. Wait… it’s a real thing. Oh dear me. Where do I start with this? Well, let’s say you’ve just taken a really good selfie and you don’t …

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 …

2015 was my first year of attending MWC. I really had no idea what to expect, Leigh and Dan have spent years going and covering a huge range of devices. This year was going to be no different, Garry, Leigh and I all arrived on the Saturday ready …

You may have noticed a little countdown timer on the side of the site. You may have even wondered what Mobile World Congress, or “MWC” for short, is. The event website details it as being the “very best exhibition for the mobile industry”, and around this time most …

Did you get an iPhone 6+ recently or are you considering one for your next phone? If so then you might want you keep on reading. Test’s have been performed about the amount of data being used by iPhones over the years. Now I am not saying these …

You’ll find every tech blog in the world following the endless announcements and reveals in Las Vegas right now. Yes, we’re following the crowd a little too, but in the midst of all the emails and new innovations I almost forgot that I don’t like being part of …

I have been dabbling in tablets for a while now. It all started when the first gen iPad hit the shelves in the UK. Now, whilst all these tablets are great and they all performed admirably during the time I had them, my needs have quite simply evolved …