Category: General

Google Currents Goes International

In December 2011 Google released Google Currents for Android and iOS in the United States.  This app let users explore online magazines and other user generated content. Since the release users have requested that the app be made available internationally and that the speed of updating increases. From …

Favourite Android Apps: WiFi File Transfer Pro

Like most smartphone users I  have apps that I simply cannot do without and WiFi File Transfer certainly fits into that bracket. Put simply, WiFi file transfer allows you to upload and download files from your phone to your PC over your wireless network without the need for …

Instacast for iOS review

Recently I realised I had a problem. I listen to a lot of podcasts and the built in iOS way of handling these is problematic. They are downloaded from the iTunes app and listened to in the podcast section of the Music app which is confusing from the …

Gadget Show Live 2012

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the trade only day of Gadget Show Live 2012 at the NEC in Birmngham. This was a great experience and I am grateful to Otone Audio who were good enough to provide my ticket for me to attend. I will hopefully …

Sopcast Now Available On Android

Sopcast, the popular streaming application is now available on the Android platform. Currently in beta, the app runs on any Android device currently using version 2.2 or above. Sopcast say that as well as supporting P2P live channels it can play most types of local audio and video …

Save Coolsmartphone – The winners

OK, short version. About a week ago we found out that this very site was going to be taken off-line. It all revolved around a rather substantial excess bandwidth charge. Thankfully, you guys cam to our rescue and generously donarted your own hard-earned cash to keep the ship …

Facebook to buy Instagram

The Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has today announced his plans to buy the popular Photo taking/sharing website Instagram. The deal, which is still to be approved by the regulatory bodies, is said to be worth $1 billion, made up of cash and shares. I am new to …

In app advertising impacting battery life

Recently I carried out a full reset of my lovely Samsung Galaxy Nexus as it couldn’t survive more than 4 hours away from a charging source, truly shocking! I went through all my settings and my apps and removed any that I thought could be causing the problem …

UPDATE – The biggest Coolsmartphone giveaway

Three days ago we had a rather huge problem. Some very unexpected charges were added onto our monthly hosting costs for one of our servers. It seemed that we’d breached some “fair use” policy regarding “unlimited” bandwidth. Either way, we had until Friday to pay an unbelievable amount …

Tesco Tops Which? Satisfaction survey

It has been announced that Tesco Mobile has come top in Which? magazines annual Mobile Phone Satisfaction Survey for 2012. Beating competition from the big four providers, the supermarket was the only network to achieve a 5 star rating for cost. Tesco claim that this is due to …

Ofcom to make 0800 numbers free, even from mobile networks

Here in the UK you can dial an 0800 number and it’ll be free. However, it’s only free if you’re using a landline. If you’re using a mobile phone you suddenly become all special and the networks delight in adding a fee for you to call it. The …

Numbers are everything… Can Microsoft reverse the trend?

Figures recently released  by comScore reveal a telling story regarding market share for the major smartphone manufacturers in the United States. Perhaps the biggest suprise is the fall of Microsoft’s share of the market from 5.2% in November ’11 to only 3.9% in Februrary ’12. Microsoft can only …

Instagram (finally) hits Android

18 months after its release on iOS, Instagram has finally come to Android. For those of you unfamiliar with the app, Instagram popularised the use of applying various filters to photos, making quick edits and then sharing them online.  Although the concept has been copied to death, Instagram …

A status update, and a massive competition.

Morning all. I’ve been writing on this site for 10 years now and, I’ve got to confess, the last few hours has been amazing and shocking in equal measures. Our main problem is that our “unlimited” bandwidth didn’t turn out to be quite so “unlimited” after all. We’ll …

Some rather urgent news

We have a bit of a problem. It’s an issue we get every year in February whilst covering the Mobile World Congress, but this year it’s one we can’t get around. Our coverage of the event means a massive hike in traffic. In years past we’ve seen bandwidth …

HTC One X and S heading to Orange

After hearing last week that Three had announced the HTC One X and S would hit their stores on Thursday, earlier today we heard that one half of Everything Everywhere were planning to launch the phones on the same day. It only seems right then that the other half …

The Oona – Lick it, stick it !

So, we reviewed The Oona recently and filmed a hands-on video. However, we pretty much ruined the original video so I set about re-filming it today. The result is below but I wanted to see just how versatile this stand actually is. The Oona is a pretty unique …

HTC One X and One S on T-Mobile from Thursday

A fairly brief but self-explanatory email has just popped in from T-Mobile. They’ll be retailing the excellent HTC One X and the slim One S from this Thursday, so if you’re reaching the end of your contract or you’re looking to switch, check their site to get your …

Google Drive – Cloud Storage

Google have seemingly been a little slow on the uptake of cloud storage, especially as they currently hold 7339 terabytes of emails in the Gmail service, offering over 7gb per email account. At the moment, details are sketchy, with no firm launch date or pricing information. The screen …

Testing O2 LTE

I have arrived in London for the first day of O2 LTE 4G testing using a LTE modem kindly supplied by the network.  If you did not know, O2 have a test 4G network covering 40km distance in London and selected websites have been given a dongle to …

O2 customers get to Go On & On

A new tariff from O2 will dish out unlimited minutes and unlimited text with prices starting at £26 a month if you keep your current phone. There’s a decent data allowance too – 1GB. The plan prices go up if you’re bundling with a new phone and start …

Review – The Oona

Another stand for you now but this one is a bit different. It’s not just one stand, it’s many, many stands all in one. A multi-purpose stand that you can construct and adapt to your needs. Their Oona website has just one video to show it in action …

RIM Posts big quarterly loss

Well, we kinda knew that RIM were going through a rough patch, but figures released today show a loss of £78 million in the last three months. This compares to a £588.1 million profit for the same period last year. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet failed to impress and, …

Can you film a movie on a smartphone?

The BBC have filmed a miniture movie but, instead of using expensive HD broadcast cameras, they used a smartphone instead. They’ll be showing how it was done later but the results, we must admit, are rather good. Now sure, there’s going to be some slick BBC editing and …

Three set to delay 4G

The mobile network 3 are announcing a plan to upgrade its network which will enable it to start legal action against Ofcom, undoubtedly this will have the knock on effect of delaying the 4G auction that is planned for 2013. Three was actually the first network to release …

16GB MicroSD – Cheap deal for your Wednesday morning

Fancy a microSD card with more capacity? For £9.99 you can get this Play.com one with free delivery chucked in too. But stop – wait a second there young trigger-happy-traveller. If you stick the discount code “MEMORY20” in you can get it for just £7.99. Ooo… get in, …

Review – The Standeazy

Stands. They’re always a touchy subject here at Coolsmartphone. There’s usually a couple of things you have to put up with when you’re looking for one. For a start there’s a selection of stands and base units which you may have to carefully select to suit your specific …

Accessory Review: ZooGue Capacitive Stylus

Here at CoolSmartPhone we love peripherals and accessories for our devices. As Leigh’s recent videos on device stands have shown, we love those that are simple but effective even more! Enter the ZooGue Stylus. This device is primarily sold for iPad devices however can be used on any …

Vodafone prep the HTC One X and S

Old news this really, but people have seen it elsewhere and have nudged us about it. We heard that Voda were to take the HTC One X and One S back in February and they’ve now appeared on the Vodafone website. The One X looks to be coming …

UK Trumps Europe For News On The Go

That’s right…the United Kingdom leads the way…..albeit this time in the use of mobile devices to visit News-based sites. This is the outcome of a new report from comScore, the digital marketing intelligence company. According to comScore, over 45% of UK Smartphone users have accessed a News site …

Sky Anyime+, now through all ISP’s

Back in January Sky announced that their on-demand TV service “Sky Anytime+” would be opened up and available via any ISP. The exact date was a little foggy, but we’re now seeing it live. The service has been available through Sky broadband for a while now, but as …

Is poor battery life a price worth paying for free apps?

Recently we published an article about how most of the power usage of free Android apps actually goes towards displaying the ads. Angry Birds, for example, apparently uses “70% of it’s power draw to upload information and download ads”. Presumably it’s an even higher percentage for other less …

GMail bug affecting Android handsets

  There appears to be a bug affecting GMail on Android handsets this morning. It seems to be affecting several different manufacturers, so the problem is most likely at Google’s end. It’s quite an odd bug, as it appears to only affect certain accounts, even on the same …

O2 leaks HTC One launch date

The rumoured April 5 launch of the HTC One is looking confirmed now following a leak of inventory information from O2. It also reveals a potential late April debut for the Sony Xperia P and Xperia U models. Earlier this month our roving team managed to get up …

Win a HD camera and headset !

Want to win a Freetalk HD camera and headset? This is a great prize for video calls and its courtesy of our friends at Skype. The kit costs around £60 and we’ve got three of these excellent webcam and headset packs to give away. Skype, of course, is …

ICS SII update for Orange customers not ready just yet

Got the Galaxy SII on Orange? Is it branded? Don’t fancy putting a ROM on it yourself? Well, if you tick all those boxes then you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for your Ice Cream Sandwich update. A Twitter update from Orange gives no firm date …

CoolSmartPhone Goes 4G LTE

Thanks to the kind team at O2, I have managed to get myself onto the very limited trial of 4G LTE in London currently being run by O2 UK who are owned by Telefonica. Currently a 40km section of the capital has been enabled with this new LTE …

HTC buys MOG? Spotify beware!

HTC clearly have a thing for audio at the moment, best shown buy their $300 million purchase of Dr Dre’s Beats Audio, and the subsequent highly rated integration into their new products. So that’s the sound taken care of, but what about content? Well looks like HTC have …

Giffgaff get a little wet, major network outage ensues

We like Giffgaff. They’ve done things a little differently and built up quite a following. Today, though, has not been a good day. A major service outage hit the network – one that took almost 8 hours to fix. Calls, texts and data failed completely around mid-morning today …