Category: Gadgets & Tech

Say hello to Samantha, the AI robot that you can make love to.

She comes equipped with artificial intelligence and has a stack of sensors embedded inside too. This new sex robot can also listen to you and will reply back. However, the “human feeling skin”, as ITV presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield comment in the video below, is cold …

Google in talks to buy HTC

If you have been a smartphone user over the past few years there’s a good chance you have used a device made by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. For many years the company made many devices under different brand names. Remember XDA, MDA, SPV? Even HP branded devices were made …

Huawei now above Apple in market share

Huawei are now the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. The latest data from market research firm Counterpoint Research shows Huawei overtaking Apple to become even bigger. This result is from strong sales in June and July, which have allowed the Chinese manufacturer to inch past Apple into …

Peugeot announce new car dealership… in a phone box

The local Audi dealership I recently visited has the usual “showroom stuff” inside. Salesmen wearing sharp suits, mechanics wearing super-clean overalls, a TV, a free coffee machine, a masseur, a steam room and an open bar. It also has cars. However, as a company called “Daewoo” (remember them?) …

Lindy noise cancelling NC-60 Headphones

LINDY Electronics have announced the NC-60 Noise Cancelling headphones in line with their wired equivalent of the BNX-60. The NC-60 headphones feature a 1.5m audio cable terminated with a 3.5mm stereo jack plug. They are powered by x 2 AAA batteries allowing up to 72 hours of noise-cancelling operation at …

Grab a Bargain! Chromecast and O2 deals!

We do love a good deal at Coolsmartphone Towers and sometimes they come around like buses. First up comes through the money saving platform, Quidco. Save £15 per month with O2’s latest sim only deal which is 15GB for £20 per month, reduced from £35. You have to make …

1MORE H1707 Headphone – Review

We have been waiting for the 1MORE H1707 Headphones at Coolsmartphone Towers with quite a lot of excitement since we covered their launch this summer. The first impression was again very impressive and premium in looks, which we have come to expect since we review the 1MORE earbuds. …

Chromebook ‘Eve’ likely to be uncovered at Pixel Event, Oct 5.

OK, those of us at Coolsmartphone towers have an unreasonable level of fascination with Chromebooks. Yes, they’re a browser wrapped around a Linux based OS. But paradoxically, they’re also so much more than they should be, to the level where both Garry and Leigh use them as daily …

Fitbit launches first ever smartwatch and sports headphones

Say “Fitbit” to anyone and they’ll instantly think of an activity tracker. Usually the name conjures up an image of a wrist-worn strap that’ll keep an eye on how mobile you are. However, Fibit have just announced their very own health and fitness smartwatch, called the the Fitbit …

First Snapdragon 845 chips bagged by Samsung

At the beginning of this year, Samsung managed to broker a deal with Qualcomm to reserve the first batch of the Snapdragon 835 chips for their latest flagship device – the Galaxy S8. This gave the Korean mobile giant the jump on other OEMs for releasing devices with …

Somfy Security Camera – Review

I have been recently sent through the Somfy indoor security camera for review. Good Points: Design. Ease of Setup. Picture Quality. Ability to digital pan and zoom Built-in in alarm. (Very loud alarm) Motion alerts. Ability to talk back to the camera. Key fob arm/disarm. Door and window …

How hackers are getting into our smartphones

Remember when a briefcase or a stack of paperwork left on a train or in a taxi would be in the daily news? Private data, secure notes and plans for changes in government or a major company could oh-so-easily fall into the hands of others.  Shortly after, it …

Nokia 8 official!

The time has come. Nokia have returned the to flagship party! At least, this is what we are being told. We’ve got details from all the material released during the press event, held yesterday. The more obvious question is, why should we care that Nokia are back in …

Fancy owning shares in Pump Audio?

If you cast your minds back to last year’s Gadget Show, we review Pump Audio’s V2 earbuds and even gave a pair away to a lucky reader. One year on, they are still my personal go to ear buds for the quality and the bass but not for the …

1More Triple Driver Earbuds – The Review

Not that long ago we told you about a company called 1More, the Chinese competition to Beat. The released the 1More Triple Driver Earbuds to the UK recently and kindly sent a set to Coolsmartphone Towers for review. Unfortunately, everyone has had some sort of cold or illness which …

Why I have gone back to an iPad

Those of you who have been reading on the site for a looong time will remember that I started with a review of how things were on the iPad with iOS 5 Beta. That was on an iPad 2, I believe and it was the last large iPad …

LG V30 pushes smartphone cameras

LG announced today that their upcoming LG V30 will incorporate an F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens in the dual camera specification. The new specification means that the lens is larger and clearer, which means the cameras can let in 25% more light than a traditional smartphone camera lens. …

Do you actually need that TV subscription any more?

Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …

AmpliFi HD Mesh Wi-Fi Products Launch in the United Kingdom

Ubiquiti Labs have announced that their AmpliFi HD Mesh Wi-Fi products are now available in the UK, the price ranges from £132.49 to £359.99 depending on the package. The central routing device camouflages an advanced antenna design features a glowing base LED and a smart LCD display, making it …

Vaux – Amazon Echo Dot Powered Speaker – Review

Like many households here in the UK, or in fact all over the world now, we have an Amazon Echo… hey it’s the future, it’s… like talking to your house …and it answers back. Our Echo sits in our kitchen and now has replaced our radio, our kitchen …

Out TV viewing is changing

Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …

“Alexa, is my door locked?”

All is quiet, nothing is stirring, not even a mouse and you shout “Alexa, is my door locked?”. No this isn’t the beginning of a weird Internet of Things horror movie but the introduction to Yale’s Keyfree Connected and Keyless Connected Smart Locks in conjunction with Samsung’s SmartThings. To …

RCA/Venturer Mercury 7L tablet – review

Following on from my Venturer Saturn Pro 10 review, I’m now moving on to review the latest budget tablet from RCA/Ventruer the Mercury 7L. As it is currently priced at £49.99, the Mercury 7L is a direct competitor to the Amazon Fire tablet (which I take with me …

Gaming with Android and Windows, Mobile? PGS has an update.

Yes people, I’m learning the Daily Mail-style of click-bait again, in the vein hope that we’ll have enough advertising revenue to pay for the servers this month (sadly, ad-blocking is killing our revenue). OK, long story short. Imagine you want to create a Portable Gaming System. Something running …

Remember the HTC Re ? You can still get something like it..

It was an interesting idea. A camera, without a viewfinder, that you randomly carried around (probably with your camera-packing-phone) and generally pointed in roughly the right direction of whatever you wanted to film. We reviewed the HTC Re a couple of years back but now it’s vanished from …

Perhaps we shouldn’t use our mobile phones while we’re mobile

In an effort to stop people fiddling where their phones whilst driving, the people from the Western Cape Government have taken a slightly different approach. A recent advert appears to have lifted a number of CCTV images showing a phone-relate accidents. There’s people falling into ponds, walking into …

Remix OS ….. He’s dead Jim

It is a story that is oh-so-familiar these days. Along comes a version of an operating system that could be a game changer, it gets praised and supported by those on the cutting edge. Roll on a few years and things have got very quiet with not much …

1MORE H1707 Triple Driver over-ear headphones

In the week the 1MORE triple-drive earbuds drop through the letterbox of Coolsmartphonr Towers, then they drop a news release of over-ear headphones called the H1707. These are a beautiful pair of headphones and a hopeful challenger from China in comparison to Bose and Beats. The headphones feature advanced …

Flic – Smartbutton Review

Last year we had a play with the flic buttons for the first time, now we take another look to see how they have changed. The conversation went something like this Ian, would you like to review a button? A button? Yes but it’s a smart-button. Oooo a …

Menace for Mobike in Manchester

So, here’s the idea. You download either the Android or the iPhone app. You create an account and then, using the app, you find a pushbike in your local area. You scan the code on the bike and off you go. When you’re done, and you’ve reached your …

Why do you need a camera in your car? Watch this..

The idea of having a dashcam would’ve seemed a bit weird some years ago but, with bad drivers and nearly everybody lying about everything nowadays, it’s good to get something that can’t be argued with. Thinkware have just launched their new full HD dashcam, which they call the …

Wanna borrow a car for a bit? Zipcar Flex comes to London

In my head this seems like a strange idea, especially in a city which is already well-known for traffic problems. However, Zipcar is now here in London and they’ve added 300 petrol (don’t ask me why there’s no electric) cars to London streets. Their idea, via the new …

Brainwavz B200 – Review

As recently as last week, we covered the launch of the Brainwavz B200 earbuds which retail at a whopping £156. Not long after that post, the review pair arrived at Coolsmartphone Towers for testing. First impressions? The looked the business. They arrive in a nice box, which included …

Hero Bluetooth earbuds from Winnergear – unboxing and initial thoughts

Fancy yourself as a secret agent or a bodyguard then you will want these Bluetooth earbuds to match your covert activities. Introducing the Hero Bluetooth earbuds from Winnergear.   Just arrived at Coolsmartphone Towers today, the Hero ‘Smallest True Wireless Sports Earbuds’ are gorgeous little beasties and I just had …

RCA tablets – Saturn 10 Pro – Review

  Back in June, we wrote a quick post about some new Android tablets destined for our shores, these being the RCA Saturn 10 Pro and the Mercury 7L. They’re said to be some of the best Android tablets around so I’ve been sent both devices through for …

Carl Zeiss lenses, back in Nokia devices 

Remember the Nokia devices of old? The ones equipped with the high quality ​Zeiss lenses? Together the two combined their skills to produce devices that could take stunning images. Take the 808 PureView for example, a device that still struggles to be beaten even next to the smartphones …

Brainwavz launch dual balanced armature B200 earbuds

The race for high-quality earphones to use with your favourite media player is hotting up this summer already with numerous releases from brands you may not have heard of. The key factors are no longer how the look but how they deliver that rich sound from your MP3s …