Category: General

Feature – Covering the Olympics with just a smartphone

For the next few days we’re covering the London 2012 Olympic Games from a Samsung Galaxy Note. There’ll be no laptop and no dedicated press centre, I’m doing it’ll all (including this very post) on the phone. I stepped off the train at Euston to be met by …

Coolsmartphone Feature – The Olympic Challenge

I know, by visiting Coolsmartphone you thought you’d found a refuge from all this Olympics stuff didn’t you? Well, no. Sorry. We’re going to be on it like a car bonnet. Right now I’m on a train to London to cover the games in our own unique way. …

“No death spiral here”, says RIM CEO

During a visit to London, CEO of RIM, Thorsten Heins, was impressed to see BlackBerry handsets in use and told The Telegraph that… Surely that’s not bad for a company that one analyst recently suggested was “in a death spiral”. Mr Heins also takes a swipe at Windows …

Some more Google Nexus 7 accessories appear online

Mobilefun have published details of some official Cases for the Google Nexus 7. There are four new cases and a screen protector. Quite why these haven’t been leaked before or whether these are licensed by Asus /Google I’m not sure. Either way they all look pretty useful. So …

Open WebOS will not support any existing devices

The Open webOS project have announced on their blog that their upcoming open source version of webOS will not be compatible with existing devices. This has come as a shock to the small but dedicated community who have supported webOS through difficult times and were looking forward to continued …

Nexus 7 Accessory Lineup Leaked – Coming Soon

So, you have your shiny new Nexus 7, you’ve installed all your apps and got it running exactly as you want it.  But what about those official accessories to go with it.  After all those pesky iPad’s have them in their thousands! Well, according to Nordic Hardware the official …

Sony Xperia tipo headed to Orange

The cute Sony Xperia tip looks set to arrive on both O2 and now Orange too. The handset sits squarely in the “Entry Level” category with a 3.1 megapixel shooter, 800MHz CPU, 3.2″ 320×480 pixel screen and 2.5GB on board storage. However, the phone does run Android Ice …

My experiment with iOS

The other week Jamie, Ravi and I were doing Podcast Episode 5 and as usual we were all just talking away. Jamie asked me how I felt the iPhone had changed the world (or something along those lines), I vaguely answered and added at the end of my …

Alleged assembled ‘iPhone 5 pictures’ surface.

TheVerge have posted pictures of an alleged iPhone 5, courtesty of one of the suppliers, ILabFactory. The device has all the features of the leaks we’ve seen previously, the centered FaceTime camera, the smaller dock connector, and the longer screen which will hopefully take it up to at …

The AYCE EuroPass Challenge

If you have listened to our latest podcast (if not why not?.. it’s free!) you would have heard my latest news around my upcoming holiday and what my plans will be for internet use. If you did not hear then I will give some more information right now …

Weekend deals – Travel Adapter and USB combo

It’s the weekend at last, and if the gorgeous weather holds, we should be getting the barbecues out and thinking of our summer holidays. When you do go abroad, there’s always that issue of travel adapters. Usually you’ve lost them, and you put them in “a safe place” …

SanDisk 16GB microSD going cheap

Amazon have chipped the price of an official SanDisk 16GB microSDHC card (class 4) to just £5.66. The price, apparently, used to be £65. To be honest there’s not a great deal more we can say. If you need more storage and have a microSD brimming over with …

Twitter Offline – now back online – 17:50

Visitors to the popular social networking site Twitter are currently being greeted with the following The Twitter status page says that engineers are working on the problem but there is no current estimated time for a fix. It is currently unknown how many users the outage is affecting. More …

My Vodafone app updated

Vodafone customers can now enjoy a brand new look to the account management app called My Vodafone with the update now available to download on both Android and iOS devices in the relevant app stores. The new version makes it easier to view your allowances, check your extras as well as …

Hatchi arrives on Android

Hatchi, the Tamagotchi-style iPhone game that was released earlier this year, was launched on Android earlier today. The game, which was a bestselling app in the UK, Australia and elsewhere upon release into the iOS App Store, has a price tag of 64p and requires a device with …

Apple Fires Up The Machines

Rumours have been on going for a few weeks now about Apples next handset. The device dubbed the “iPhone 5” is possibly going to be release sometime in the next few months. Will you be buying one? Going off the rumours Apple has started the machines rolling to …

Word Hex – Addictive iOS Game

There is a new game developer in town. We are introducing Very Nice Studio. The new developers have come up with an addictive game that allows you to pass the time of day whilst using your brain. Word Hex. The aim of the game is to find the …

Internet use on Three doubles in one year

We love our stats here at CoolSmartPhone, and one big milestone has just been reached by UK network Three. In this last year average internet use by customers has more than doubled from 450MB per month last year to a whopping 1.1GB per month this year. Customers with new …

Ofcom and the 4G roll-out

Just when will the UK make the jump to 4G? Faster download speeds and coverage in rural areas are always on the “want” list but, last we heard the 4G auction had been delayed until later this year. Today Ofcom have confirmed this, saying that it’ll kick off …

Get an iPhone case and support a great cause

Got an iPhone? Want to get a cover for it and protect your purchase? Sure, there’s stacks to choose from, but we think this is the one to get. HMV have teamed up with the Teenage Cancer Trust to offer these branded iPhone 4/4S covers to raise both …

App Review: Whale Trail Frenzy

Fresh off the back of the spectacular game Whale Trail comes a new free app by the developers ustwo – Whale Trail Frenzy. Frenzy is a new game based on the original that moves into a new genre for both ustwo and the Whale Trail series – freemium …

Shortage Continues – Qualcomm

The chip designer Qualcomm has confirmed that they are still struggling to meet demand. Back in April they reported that they under estimated the need. The chips, 28 nanometre ones, are used in the most popular Android handsets including the Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X. This shortage, …

Nexus S Jelly Bean Update for The Less Brave

We reported recently that if you’re brave you could go the XDA Developers and download a ported ROM to your Nexus S, but it was potentially buggy. Well, now the official update is rolling out over the air (OTA) to the less brave owners. The vanilla flavour of …

Review – Bugatti Leather Cases

My hands smell of leather. It’s a strange pleasure, and I can perhaps see why there are those who wear special “driving gloves”. We asked Bugatti whether we could “review” the Veyron, pictured below.. ..they said no. Perhaps it had something to do with the two cars I’ve …

O2 Dishes out goodwill gesture after network failure

Following news that up to a third of their customers were offline during “that failure” last week, there’s now 10% off your bill if you were one of the unlucky 7 million-or-so that were without service. The rather apologetic blog post details how the goodwill gesture will be …

It’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore

It’s official, we’d rather not speak to each other. Head down, umbrella up, we’d rather use text and data than actually talk. The research, by Ofcom, reveals that 58% of people sent texts daily whilst 47% of people make a phone call every day. The average Brit sends …

Vodafone Mobile Wi-Fi R205 Review

So, what exactly is a Mi-Fi? It sounds a bit complicated but in reality it’s not that hard to grasp. It’s a small (and in this case, rather pebble-like) unit with a SIM card inside. The sticker on the front of the box sums it up best – …

Gear4 StreetParty Wireless Bluetooth Speaker Review

If you’ve been reading our reviews recently then you’ll know we have tested a few speakers but none of them as yet have been able to become my own personal”Daily Driver” no pun intended. Recently I have ben testing the Gear4 StreetParty Wireless Speaker, a bluetooth speaker with …

Jelly Bean Now Available For Nexus S… if you’re brave!

If you’re not the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus or a Nexus 7 tablet, then you’ll probably be wondering when (or if) Jelly Bean – the latest version of Android – will be coming to your device. Well, adventurous owners of the rather excellent Nexus S …

Nexus 7: first impressions

You know what they say about third time lucky. Having made and then cancelled orders with Google and Currys, I decided to try my luck with Ebuyer yesterday afternoon as they were advertising the Nexus 7 as in stock and ready for delivery today. Roughly 16 hours later …

A third of O2 customers without service during failure

Many of you were knocked offline in the large O2 failure which began on Wednesday. The problem wasn’t confined to any particular region and many were left without data, calls or text for almost 24 hours. Many have mentioned a failure with a “core part” of the network, …

Opinion: Nexus 7 – Dawn of a new age, or failure of an existing one?

Well most people will be waking up this morning to the news that Ebuyer and Google either are, or will shortly be dispatching Google’s new Flagship Nexus device, the Nexus 7 tablet, running Jelly Bean 4.1 OS. Let’s just run through the key specs of Google’s newest device: …

Rovio’s New Amazing Alex Now On Android and iOS

Fresh today from Rovio Mobile comes a brand new game, Amazing Alex. This whiz kid has a boundless imagination and a houseful of fun toys that can turn anything into an adventure! From cleaning up his room to battling cardboard robots in his backyard, Alex creates amazing chain …

Android.Dropdialer Identified on Google Play

Norton by Symantec have drawn our attention to the fact that they have identified a new malware posted to the official Google Play market. Masquerading as two popular games titles, Super Mario Bros and GTA 3 Moscow City, they were posted to Google Play on June 24 and since then have …

O2 Network falters (Update 5)

On O2? Got a network problem? You’re not the only one. Mo Bhayat emailed us this afternoon to tell us that he’d lost his connection on his O2 phone. We checked the O2 Status Page but got …err… this… ..looks like there’s a bit of an issue. Mo …

Deal Alert: Desire C £99 (and many more!)

The Carphone Warehouse Summer Sale started today and it looks rather good – much better than the O2 “secret” sale earlier this week! Highlights of the sale include the HTC Desire C for £99, the Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition from £199 and various contract deals (Galaxy S3 …

The Android Games Console

Take an Android phone or tablet with a powerful Tegra 3 CPU, 1GB of RAM and a HDMI outout. Now, take out the expensive high-resolution capacitive screen, the camera, the Bluetooth, GSM radio kit and battery. You’re left with something which costs a lot less to build. Put …

Do you say “no” to upgrades?

Something strange seems to have happened in our house recently. My wife has the HTC Desire S. She loves it, and she’s broken it more times than I can remember (insurance is a must). A few months ago she came to the end of her contract, but she’s …

ZTE Kis smartphone now available on Virgin Media

Another ultra-cheap Android device is about to hit the market, this time from ZTE. The ZTE Kis will sell for less than £50 on Virgin Media from today and has a 3.5″ HVGA 480×320 screen. Powered by an 800MHz CPU, the phone runs Android 2.3 and has Bluetooth …