Category: Gadgets & Tech

Give your phone flower power!

If there’s one thing I’m never really much good at, it’s watering the plants. During my recent bike ride to Paris pretty much everyone at home forgot and my hanging baskets sadly fired dried up and became hanging soil carriers. It’s either a sad statement on modern life …

AirDog – A camera-equipped copter that’ll follow you round

This man knows how to make Kickstarter videos. He walks towards the camera like Hugh Laurie in House. Nice style. He basically wants you to invest in an aerial sports drone. If you’ve got enough cash and a penchant for outdoor sporting activity, this could be your thing. …

BBC Playlister can now export to iTunes

BBC Playlister is a service that lets you save the tracks you hear on BBC radio so you can find them with your favourite streaming service. When it launched in October it had support for Deezer, Spotify and YouTube, this has now been expanded with iTunes so the …

Top tips to help you afford the latest gadgets

Here at Coolsmartphone we’ve already had a look at the cheaper smartphones and we’re always quick to let you guys know if there’s a good deal online. However, let’s be honest, for the most part phones are an expensive habit. The old way of getting a handset used …

LG’s G Watch Specs have been leaked. Check them out.

Another day and another leak for the LG G Watch… One of LG’s worst kept secrets now.  @UpLeaks have got hold of the specifications for the LG G Watch which is expected now to be available on the 7th July possibly making an appearance at Google IO this month. …

A meeting destined to shape our future?

This evening I am having a meeting. This meeting will be taking place in a bar. Some drinks will be drunk and words will be exchanged. It sounds quite dull and mundane. However, the meeting is with a very interesting chap by the name of James Hepburn. Chances …

Meze 11 Deco Headphones review

Headphones are ten a penny. Getting the right ones is a tricky task and sometimes you’ll either need a software equalizer or that rather clever Beats technology to make the sound better. These headphones, Meze, are made from handcrafted beech wood. This, according to the makers, produces a …

Google buys Skybox

Remember those mini satellites we told you about? They’re about the size of a shoebox and whizz around space with fairly standard (compared to other satellites) technology inside. The company responsible for them is called SkyBox and Google were sniffing around them last time we covered the tech. …

20% off Kindle Fire family HDX tablets in Amazon UK sale

Amazon the online retailer has announced a 20% sale off its entire line of Kindle Fire HDX tablets here in the UK. This means you can pick up your own Kindle Android tablet from just £159.20 (7-inch, 16GB, Wi-Fi only). Spec’s Include. A HDX display. 2.2GHz quad-core processor. …

Now watch Google Play movies and TV shows offline on your Chromebook

Are you like Ronnie and I? We are owners of Chromebooks.  Back in May, we were promised the ability to view offline any movies or television shows that had been rented or purchased from Google Play. On Thursday there was an update to ChromeOS that now allows this feature, along with …

Is Apple killing off the 3.5mm headphone jack ?

During a developer session on “Designing Accessories for iOS and OS X” at Apple’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), Robert Walsh, manager of platform accessories at Apple, announced the new Lightning headphone module. This, of course, means that those “Made for iPhone” headphones really won’t connect to …

100 000 LG G3’s sold in just 7 days

It has been recently reported that the LG G3 was outselling the Samsung Galaxy S5 in South Korea, well now we’re learning exactly how well. According to a new report, over 100,000 units of the smartphone have already been sold since its launch in the region on the …

Amazon tease the release of a 3D phone.

Over the past few months the internet has been rumouring the existence of a Amazon phone, to join their line up of e – readers, tablets and now set top boxes. The phone is expected to feature multiple front-facing cameras for a 3D user interface that reacts to …

Google to launch 180 satellites for global internet access?

If you want more people viewing your adverts content then one rather expensive solution is to whack a load of satellites into orbit so that a stack more people can get online. Here in the UK we’ve had satellite internet access for some time, and those living “out …

Acer Liquid Z5 – Review

I recently received the Acer Z5 budget smartphone through for review, and despite there being a dual-SIM variant, this is the single SIM version. After unboxing my first impressions were… “Hang on, someone has put a Nexus 5 in here by mistake!” Good Points Good feel in the …

Wait a minute, that’s not a phone…

It’s nearly the weekend, so we’ll let this one through the official Coolsmartphone “stuff that we should publish” filter. It’s a shaver. Yeah, I know. Put this against your ear and it’s not going to be a great smartphone. However, thanks to the Apple-esque addition of the letter …

You are being replaced. Google unveils driverless car prototype

Driving is a pretty dangerous pastime. You’ve got to watch out for truck drivers watching movies on their laptops and other drivers texting and fiddling with GPS apps while trying to negotiate a roundabout. When you get into town there’s pedestrians crossing the road without looking up from …

Voda dishes up some cheap smartphones

Smartphones. Usually high powered. Usually pretty pricey. Usually they tie you into a long contract where you’re paying a bit more per month for the latest shiny thing. Vodafone got in touch with us to promote their “Affordable Smartphone Campaign”. They didn’t send us any money. They didn’t …

Let the birds fly – EE introduce a range of mobile WiFi solutions

Getting 4G is one thing, but turning that ultra-fast 4G speed into a WiFi hotspot is another. Today EE have revealed a number of options for getting yourself a mobile WiFi cloud to hop onto. The first is something called “Buzzard”. It’s a little widget that basically plugs …

Quick cycle-related news update

Was my previous post just a cheap way to get donations to the Douglas Macmillan Hospice? Well yes, it probably was a bit, but they provide care for those with progressive diseases and a limited life expectancy. It’s a bloody good cause and I’ve only had 11 donations, …

Xperia Z2 BookCover by Roxfit

For those of you out there who are lucky enough to have picked up a brand new Xperia Z2, well I’ve done this one just for you. Roxfit have been specialising in covers for the Xperia range for the past few years and I have tested several of …

Mini-satellites could bring live Google Maps views

Google Maps is something we’ve all used daily. The initial thrill of viewing our homes in the “satellite view” changed recently to the popular “street view”. However, actually getting those initial satellite views (many of which are actually supplemented with shots from planes) takes time. So step forward …

Bebop-alloo-la. She’s my.. err.. Parrot Drone

Parrot have really improved their AR Drone and this is the new Bebop flying machine. It comes equipped with a fisheye lens and uses clever software to chop out bits of video to give you a lovely stable image. A controller can work with an Oculus Rift headset, …

Dixons and Carphone Warehouse to merge

Will Carphone Warehouse now change to a more modern name? Or will the two companies merge names? DixPhone? DixWarehouse? Well no, actually. Dixons, who own Currys and PC World, are to merge with Carphone Warehouse in a £3.8bn deal and they’ll be known as… (drum roll please..) Dixons …

Google Glass now available to everyone ( in the USA )

Starting today, Google Glass is available for practically anybody in the USA, as long as they are over 18 and have $1500 to spend. The Explorer version of the Google Glass wearable was sold only to developers who intended to write apps for the device, this was changed to a invite …

G, it’s an LG Watch

A new promotional video for the LG G Watch has popped up on the internet. We don’t have a great deal of information on the new Android Wear watch, other than what’s mentioned in the video itself.. No news on pricing as yet, but we do know that …

I’m troubled by what we’ve created

Friday. I think something is happening to me. At work, during my lunch hour, I did my usual trip to the supermarket to get a sandwich. Like many, I filled the period of “dead time” by faffing about with my phone. Twitter, Facebook, the news, checking email. The …

Apple to buy Beats

Beats are perhaps best known for their presence on HTC handsets. The logo,  the chunky headphones and the beefy sound quality plus the clever on-board sound technology on many HTC handsets won them plenty of fans,  but sadly HTC and Beats went their separate ways. According to multiple …

The return of Nintendo

In everyone’s life a stage is reached whereby everything seems to have been better in the past.  I’ve now hit this milestone.  The music in the 1980s was better, as were films.  There’s no one today who is a patch on the great Terence Trent D’arby (not that today’s …

Huawei Ascend P7, all the info

So there we have it – the Huawei P7. It has now been announced to the world’s press. It’s a beautiful looking device which has a glorious feel to it thanks to it an all metal construction, very similar to its predecessor the P6. The dimensions come in …

Tesco to launch its own smartphone and the Hudl 2

Tesco’s chief executive, Philip Clarke, has today told BBC Radio 5 live that the company is going to launch its own Android smartphone by the end of the year. It’ll compete with the Samsung Galaxy S5, but it’ll be cheap too. The smartphone will come with Tesco services …

Silver surfers are taking a different kind of tablet

Telecoms regulator Ofcom have released their yearly report into the way we use our mobiles and media. In the last year, there’s been a 42% increase in older people using mobile devices. Some 17% of these people (aged 65-and-over) have used a tablet, which compares to just 5% …

Xperia Z2 Tablet – Review

Firstly I would like to offer up an apology for the time I this taken for me to get this review up. I just wanted to make sure that I had enough time to test the tablet to its fullest. So without further ado, the review.. Hardware/Design Those …

Wireless Chargers Review

Since buying James’ Note 3 (or, if you listened to our podcast, me bullying it off him), I have wanted to look into wireless chargers mainly because it came with the Samsung wireless charging back. Now here comes my dilemma, which is of two parts.. 1. I need …

iWalk Backup Charger Review

I’m not usually one to run out of power on my mobile device. At work I have access to a multitude of chargers all day. I also tend to get about 1 1/2 to 2 days out of my phone and more from my tablets. However, as the …

Gaming and social networks are a priority for mobile users

Mobile users in the USA are spending more and more time on their devices than ever before, with gaming and social networks as their priority according to a report by Flurry. In March of last year, research found that users spent an average of 2 hours and 38 …

Clear-Coat UK protection review.

Screen protection. You either love it or you hate it. Unfortunately, with the current screen technology that exists, it is a necessary evil. There’s a vast array of options out there right now that’ll protect your screen but these offerings vary vastly in quality and price. Clear-Coat is …

iGuy iPad Mini case review

Do you have a young child? Does you heart jump into your mouth when those grubby little hands reach out and grab you iPad? If the answer to either question is yes then you need to keep reading. The iGuy case from Speck comes in iPad mini and …