Category: Gadgets & Tech

New LG series of handsets coming soon

LG have already announced their new X screen and X cam, but availability is now known and it will only be initially available in South Korea followed by Europe, Latin America and Asia. At this stage we don’t know if they will be available in the UK. Additional …

VR just did what you all expected it to do

Just over a year ago we took a look at Google Cardboard. The self-assembly kit we bought from China was only £2 and, after a bit of sticky-tape and some patience, it was actually quite good. If you’re unsure about this VR world then trying out the cardboard …

Titan – The toughest charging cable in the world. Review.

Cables can get frayed and worn out pretty quickly when you use them regularly. It could be you, your kids or your dog doing the damage, and it usually means a broken plug or a torn cable. My wife is pretty skilled at wearing out the connection on …

Older Kindle eReader? Update it to stay online

Recently I received an e-mail from Amazon (nothing new there) which read.. Dear Kindle owner blah blah blah .. as with the majority of the others I filed it under bin without reading it. Well, it appears I should have. If you’re the owner of a pre-2013 Kindle …

Here is your new pen Mr Bond

James, while you are in the field you must keep your smartphone charged otherwise we will never catch the bad guys. Queue music! Well not quite, Beuler sent me this nifty little pen to test recently. It’s a pen, stylus and charger! Yes charger! Just when you need …

Nest comes to your Android Wear watch

The Nest Thermostat we reviewed continues to get even more clever. Recently they added multi-account and phone location support, and now you can control and view your home heating on your Android Wear watch. You can get more info on the thermostat here. It’s £199 and you might …

Try the HTC Vive – Today!

The trouble with virtual reality headsets is that you can’t always appreciate just how good they are unless you try them. HTC will be trying to fix this by bringing the Vive experience to stores from today. You can’t quite buy the £689 VR solution just yet, but …

ZUS – A car charger with a cool addition. Reviewed.

The people at nonda got in touch with us and wanted to send us a car charger. We said yes. Then, because it was a car charger, it kinda went into our review queue and I didn’t really look at the great additional feature this thing has. Nonda …

Become the Breakfast Master!

No, I don’t care that this has nothing to do with smartphones. I’ve not had lunch and this looks like something I need in my life right now. You could call it a toaster with an egg poaching / boiling gadget on the side. I’d call it a …

Tronsmart Type-C and micro USB cables overview

Can we call this a review? Possibly. We’re not totally sure what to say in order to qualify this as a review, especially as they’re just cables. However, saying that, they are very decent cables. Tronsmart do lots of Type-C cables and lots of microUSB cables, and we’re …

Tronsmart Type-C Quick Charge 3.0 & Type-C Charger

More car chargers for you today, and this time it’s for those of you with a USB Type-C device. This puppy has a standard USB port with Quick Charge C3.0 AND a Type-C port to fit the latest smartphones including the Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Lumia 950, Lumia …

Tronsmart USB Rapid Car Charger Review

We get sent some stuff here at Coolsmartphone. Lately it’s been cables and in-car chargers, so expect to see a lot of reviews featuring these. To be honest there’s not a great deal you can write about them. This is the Tronsmart USB Rapid Car Charger and is …

Smiling with Triby

We have covered the wonderful kitchen connected speaker Triby before, when it went on sale in September 2015. Now Triby has been updated to handle emoticons! Not a huge revelation but it brings the Triby in-line with every other device that you would expect the Internet of Things …

Plug in some car DAB action, plus a whole lot more

Unless you’ve got a pretty new car, the world of digital radio is probably beyond your reach right now. You’ll probably be listening to some annoying couple called “Kat and Dan” on some generic local radio station as they fake-laugh through your morning commute. How’s about stepping it …

Sculpteo offering 3D printing using CLIP

After reading the title of this piece, you may be thinking – “3D printing?”, “CLIP?” and “On a phone site?” Well, after reading the press release a number of times, I was thinking the same, but it occurred to me that 3D printing regardless of its infancy will …

Have a miniature rave with this LED Cube Speaker

I was never a fan of the Rubik’s Cube as a kid. I think I probably took it out of the box, moved all the squares around and then instantly lost my rag with it. A few weeks later you could’ve probably found it on the floor, with …

StarTech Bluetooth Audio Receiver with NFC – Review

Your phone is brilliant. Trouble is, the speakers on your phone are complete pap. Some of the Bluetooth ones you buy are a bit weedy too, so when you’ve got a chunky and expensive hi-fi system sitting in your house, you kinda want to use it. Whether it …

Kitvision Escape 4KW – A Review of the 4K Action Cam

I love it when I get to review Action Cams and enter the Kitvision Escape 4KW. Action Cams are great, they allow us to capture our must rugged of family adventures, and as technology advances the price has dropped making them readily available to a wider audience.  Yes I …

HTC Vive UK pricing and availability announced

The Vive VR headset was announced some time back but now, just over a year later, you’ll be able to actually buy the thing. HTC have been working in partnership with Valve and the consumer edition you can buy will have three VR experiences in the box. They …

A backpack that gives you a gentle rub

Sooooo….. apparently this is a thing. I’ll be honest, if you’re wearing this in a public place people will, quite rightly, point at you. You will look bonkers and, even if you somehow manage to put a coat over it, you’re still going to look like a right …

OK, that was the Mobile World Congress, but wait. This is better.

I know what you lot are like with YouTube videos. You’re either at work and can’t watch them, or you’re using your phone and don’t have any headphones on or you’re a bit low on data… but please, just watch this. This is both brilliant and scary at …

MWC – Canonical and the BQ Aquarius M10

A few weeks ago we heard the very exciting news that Canonical, in conjunction with BQ, were going to be releasing a tablet device. I wrote a brief article about the device then with all the bits and pieces about it, and was very keen to get my hands …

MWC – LeEco showcase

This morning I headed out to meet a relatively unknown company, in the UK at least.They are called LeEco – formally LETV. The reason I was so keen to go out and meet them was that they were the first manufacturer to release a smartphone with the new …

FlexEnable – A colour screen on your wrist, it’s here at MWC

Sure, we’ve seen curved screens in the past here at Mobile World Congress, but this is something else. A thin film of plastic has been created here on a prototype line in Cambridge. It’s the product of a very young company – formed only a year ago – …

MWC – Bookeen e-reader that never needs charging

It might come as a shock to some readers, but Amazon is not the only manufacturer of ebook readers out there.  Bookeen have a long history of producing reliable, if less popular devices.  At MWC they are showing off a new case for their Cybook Ocean e-reader device. …

MWC – Remix OS Update

For those of you who have been following the site for a while, you will surely be aware of the fact that I am a massive fan of the Remix OS in all its forms be it the Remix Mini or the Remix Ultra tablet. Well, today I …

A tour of the Intel stand at Mobile World Congress

Intel have quite a few innovations on show here, including tracking sensors and a pair of glasses with a miniature TV screen in to show you how fast you’re running or how far you’ve cycled. The glasses are called the “Recon Jet” (don’t ask me why) and display …

MWC – LG G5 and all the toys – Hands on

The concept of this is really rather interesting, and it was pretty freeing to be able to take the LG G5 apart. That slide-out battery, which we initially saw yesterday, slides out from the G5 and then actually detaches from the bottom part too. Let’s get to the …

MWC 2016: HTC and Value bring us Vive

Valve, a name commonly associated in the gaming world with titles like Portal, have teamed up with HTC to unveil a consumer edition of its Vive virtual reality system. Vive is powered by Valve’s SteamVR. HTC and Value say that Vive enables you to stay connected to the real …

Control anything that takes AA batteries from an iOS device

Amidst the chaos that is MWC is little that is of interest to iPhone/iPad users so, to keep our dedicated Apple readers happy, is an interesting story making the rounds at the moment.  While mobiles may not be innovating in interesting ways (LG G5 aside), you can always rely on …

MWC – What’s in my bag – Garry

It is that time of year again when I jet off to the sunnier climes of Barcelona for MWC (Mobile World Congress for those who don’t know). This year after much ‘will we, won’t we’, we are heading out for 2 days of furious blogging. In fact, as …

Kingston MobileLite Wireless G3 Review

The white Kingston MobileLite Wireless G3 provides you with a rechargeable 5400 mAh battery in addition to a USB and SD Card storage options. The black Pro version also includes 64GB inbuilt storage and increases the battery to 6,700 mAh. Whilst not the lightest mobile battery I have …