Category: Opinion

Over the years I’ve had many Galaxy Note Device’s, I just love the functionality that the S-Pen brings. Like others I heard the leaks and rumours that the Note 21 wasn’t being released this year, and this was reinforced with the S21 Ultra now getting S-Pen support. According …

According to Bill Gates that is…. The Microsoft founder today stated he believed Microsoft’s antitrust issues in the early 2000s was the reason for Windows Mobile not being the OS that people use today. When asked about the impact of the Justice Department’s antitrust case. He came out …

We’ve just put our Huawei P30 Lite review online and, whilst writing our second article about the new iPhone 11, something stuck out. Sure, without doubt the iPhone 11 is a high-end smartphone. Available in six colours, it has an A13 Bionic CPU and is splash, dust and …

I’ve written previously about the state of our news. It’s become twisted, unsubstantiated, click-bait nonsense which – for the most part – is only ever put online or in print to annoy, generate clicks and increase ad revenues. Thanks to the advice of Presidents, global leaders, Facebook and …

If you stop and think about your online presence, just think how many different sites and apps you log into on a daily basis – each needing a unique username and password. Let’s be honest, most of us use a username that’s also our email address, so for …

Kids are the future and we need to keep developing technology that will allow them to develop. This case is even more poignant if children have a disability that will impede their learning. Examples of this include deafness, and this is an area where technology can be particularly …

Whether you’re voting for a new US President or you’re deciding to be part of the EU, in 2016 something new happened. Social media giants allowed a “Wild West” to be created in the digital world. Unregulated and targeted adverts to be pushed hard into the psyche of …

I get it, I really do. I get that a manufacturer will build slightly different products for different markets. There are different LTE bands to consider, and maybe the charger will be different. You may even want to change the packaging, depending on how big of a push …

Take a look at these two phones. Do you know who they belong to ? Yes, they belong to me. Apart from the cracks and the smashed rear panels, you’ll probably also notice that I don’t have a cover on either of the phones either. This, I’ll admit, …

We’ve covered the various dangers of social media. Sure, it can be fun, but it can also be addictive and sometimes a little dangerous. No amount of web filtering or content matching is going to stop people approaching you online or chucking abuse your way. Instagram is one …

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has now signed a law due to come into force in November banning technologies which allow users access to banned websites. These sites are on a list which has been created by the Russian government and extends to virtual private networks (VPN’s) and proxies. …

I’ve waited so long for home kit. Not even a resonable amount of time, a really long time. HomeKit is great and Apple’s approach to creating the most secure home products that all work well is without doubt the correct approach. With that said there are so many …

Google are looking to make Google now more useful, a new update has made news much more prominent. Which might be an issue if some of it is fake news

Remember the dial watch that will.i.am came out with ? You used to be able to buy it on Three. Now Mr I Am is back with his next big fashion gadget thing, and this time it’s a set of Blutooth headphones. He’s called them “BUTTONS”, in block-capitals. …

Old is good too This is a bit of weird and wonderful I think, involving the Nexus 6. Someone remixed the recent Nexus Pixel ad to show off their love for Google’s now-defunct Nexus line. Someone called Superior Sandbox created a wonderful combination of the last time Google …

For the first time in a while, the Apple event gave us a genuine surprise. We knew something was coming, and roughly knew that it was going to be called AirPods, but the rest was up in the air. What Apple announced was (not the best looking but…) …

As Coolsmartphone Podcast Listeners probably realised, there is a slight difference of opinion within the team on the whole issue of how Samsung have performed over the Overheating Galaxy Note 7 issue and associated product recall. Judging by my Twitter timeline today, it looks like it’s not just …

…or why I’m finally all-in on a paid Evernote subscription (at least for this year). It has taken just over five years to convince me, and within this time I have quit a long-term job and joined, left, then re-joined the CoolSmartPhone team. Also, for the last 5 …

Global mega starlet Adele gets the same treatment that most musicians do on stage. As she looks out across the crowd there’s thousands of arms held aloft…. filming everything on their phone. Indeed, the same can be said for DJ’s, and a live set by Avicii or Fatboy …

The response to this post will be predictable, but I’ve delayed this long enough and it’s time to put my feelings into words. This site was created off the back of my first Microsoft Smartphone some 14 years ago. That phone was the Orange SPV and it was …

Finding an age-appropriate game for kids can be tricky at times. Only recently I found my son asking Siri a question and, as Siri sometimes does, it responded with some links which I would’ve wanted checking first. I always like to check the games he downloads first too, …

You’ll have to forgive me in advance here. I was going to publish this on my personal blog but, midway through, I started mentioning smartphones and figured it would be worthy of a post here. The whole PPI claiming culture is, if we’re honest, highly annoying. I remember …

Right, let’s attack this straight on shall we? The booth babes aren’t here. Not strictly speaking, no. However, in reality a lot of companies have put very attractive ladies right at the front of the stands. It’s an age-old “trick” to attract the thousands and thousands of suited …

I’ve been a windows user all my life or at least since I bought my first PC thirty years ago. (Actually I tell a lie as I had an Amstrad PCW before that but let’s not get into all that CPM nonsense right now.) I’ve used DoS 5.1 …

With the start of every new year comes a time for reflection, so a number of the Coolsmartphone team and a couple of friends of the site have taken this opportunity to provide a personal insight into their favourite technology of 2015. So the Camera Apps came out and we each …

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that there have been multiple events in the last few months. Apple started the rollercoaster unveiling the new iPhones & iPads. This was closely followed by a Google event unveiling its new Nexus phones (Nexii?) Chromecasts etc. There was also an LG …

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 …

For those of you that listen to the Coolsmartphone Podcast, you have probably picked up on the less than subtle suggestion that I’m somewhat of an Apple fan boy. Guilty as Charged. I’ve been an iPhone user for a long time, and no device in the past has …

So here’s how it works. You buy something and you quite like it. then it stops working. You try to get it fixed, and get prepared for a battle royal with a company that doesn’t give a hootenannie about you once the sale’s been made. This isn’t that …

WhatsApp has been around for a while now. In my sphere of friends, colleagues and family members it used to be something a few people used every now and then for perhaps contacting their friends abroad. It was cheaper than texting a foreign number, and the result was …

It has been just less than a couple of years since Motorola launched the original Moto G, and now the third iteration of Motorola’s successful device is with us. I recently live-blogged the announcement event for the 3rd generation Moto G, the Moto X Play and Moto X …

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 …

SpiderOak, the encrypted online backup and file hosting service, this week launched SpiderOakONE. SpiderOakONE is the paid service of SpiderOAK and has some interesting features to differentiate it from competitors. Pricing for the online storage and backup is as follows: 2GB = Free 30GB = $7 per month …

The team working at CSP towers are great people. They’re passionate, dedicated, and most of all, opinionated. Although we get along, we don’t always agree. This is one of those times. A couple of days ago, Mike posted an article which basically said that Windows Phone isn’t dead, and …

A few days Microsoft revealed that it was writing off a colossal amount of money and sacking small football stadium’s worth of staff.  The tech websites were split in how this move was viewed: for some it was a sensible streamlining whilst for others it suggested that Microsoft …

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 …

Over 1000 jobs are to go at the BBC – far more than originally thought – because “more than one million fewer people had a television set than was predicted in 2011”. What? Are people throwing their TV’s in the bin? No, no they’re not. Whether you like …

I’m Matteo Doni and this is my first post on Coolsmartphone.com. By day I am a Test Engineer at Skyscanner, the travel website. I’m a geek at heart, with passion for Linux, Android, FOSS and tech in general. Two main takeaways about me: I enjoy shopping for mockodile …

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 …

Missed our “week with” articles? Here they all are… Day one – The criticisms Day two – The audio Day three – Up close Day four – The camera Day five – Making it your own Dan has also written up an extensive HTC One M9 review but …