Category: General

A rather cool cube-shaped travel charger and adapter

Going abroad usually involves you forgetting your travel adapter, then buying some ridiculously-priced one at the airport instead. Now this little cube is here to help. The TA502 has two USB ports and will convert from / to US, EU, AU and UK plugs. These conform to US, …

Bye bye O2 TU Go

Got a patchy signal and on O2? Don’t worry! You can call over WiFi! Well, up until now you’ve had to use a separate app, but TU Go did let you make and receive calls in areas you weren’t able to before. However, here’s the bad news. Tomorrow …

We’ve added some speeeeeed

Just recently we switched to a new server but, despite our efforts (!), the site has continued to grow with more and more of you crazies joining in the fun on a daily basis. Today we’ve switched on a new caching system which will, if we’ve tweaked it …

The Razer Phone has arrived. Here is our unboxing

We have had something very special arrive at Coolsmartphone Towers today. At least, it’s something that I have been looking forward to for a few weeks. Today we’ve got one of the boldest new phones to come out this year (IMHO). Yes, it’s the Razer Phone! You’re obviously …

Three warn customers over call scam

Mobile phone scams are on the rise, and scammers are thinking of new ways to trick consumers out of their money. One of the latest is where customers get a missed call and then call back to a premium number at a cost… And an expensive one at …

Precision Stylus Pro 3 for any tablet

A regular conversation between the writers at Coolsmartphone Towers revolves around using a stylus with a tablet and how expensive some of the “big brand” versions are. The Precision Stylus Pro 3 has launched on Amazon for £29.99 in the UK. This particular stylus is a high quality, fine point …

You! Buy a gimbal for your smartphone!

Gimbal. There’s a word you don’t often see being used in everyday conversation. “Hey man, how’s your gimbal?” “Yeah, good thanks. How’s yours?” No often done that. Anyway, many years ago, when I could get away with calling things “cool” and wearing hats backwards, I laughed hysterically when …

Bank on Mobility

Come on, when was the last time you went to your local bank? My last visit there was to have a chat with the “account manager”. A few years ago he sat me down and basically told me that I was being a little carefree with my money. …

Nest Black Friday Deals

Fancy an intelligent thermostat? One that will know where you are and adjust the temperature in your house accordingly? One that you can talk to via an Amazon Echo to adjust the heating? The Nest thermostat is what you need. We reviewed the thing a while ago. Since …

Christmas Gift Idea – AR Blaster Gun

Yes, it’s Christmas again. Or at least, it seems to have been Christmas for a few months now. So, you probably know what you’re getting here. It’s a gun with a phone holder on top. You plop your smartphone in, start the game and work to become the …

Tag your bag. Prevent a scallywag.

The V-Bag by Vodafone is, if I’m honest, actually called the Alcatel MOVETRACK. You can attach this little gadget to yourself, a loved one, a bag, a suitcase, a car, a piece of equipment, whatever you fancy really. Clip it on or put it inside your bag and, …

OK. The world has gone mad.

Ever heard the phrase, “More money than sense”? Well, that definitely applies here. See, if you have stacks of cash you can get these Bulldog design Bluetooth speaker. The red or black AeroBull XS1 starts at £499 from Selfridges. That’s £499 for a Bluetooth speaker with a 120W …

Got Bitcoins? What do you do with them?

If you’re lucky enough, or perhaps geeky enough, to have some Bitcoins kicking around, you have a number of options for spending them. Most people though, will be holding on to them to see if they rise in value. The value of Bitcoins has risen in the last …

Apple HomePod delayed until 2018

Apple announced their exciting speaker using Siri at WWDC earlier this year, it was pencilled in for a December launch… until now. Apple confirmed in a statement to 9to5Mac “We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a …

Huawei Mate 10 Pro – Review

These days there are so many different smartphones out there it is hard to find things to distinguish them from each other. I genuinely struggle sometimes in finding what makes one phone better than another. That being said, there are things out there that can help to lift one phone above …

OK guys, pack your stuff, it’s time to go

Robots. Those funny, clunky things that used to only be useful when they were in films. Even in Star Wars, C-3PO, the droid which accompanied the rolling dustbin that was R2-D2, walked a bit funny and couldn’t really flex much. Here, now, in 2017, Boston Dynamics are creating …

Eve-Tech announces the retail price for Eve V 2 in 1

You may remember that I was doing a lot of work with a company called Eve-Tech at the beginning of the year. This work was based on the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign of the Eve V 2 in 1 laptop. Although it seems like it has been a very long …

Vodafone will now help you track your pet too.

Remember when I stuck the Paby Pet Tracker on our cat? The gadget sat on her collar and sent live GPS data back to my smartphone. It meant that I could see where she was on a live map. Now Voda are doing something very similar with the …

Anyone remember Psion?

If you’re a long time reader of the site and a long time user of mobile tech, you may remember the Psion series of PDA’s. These were in many ways the forebear of Nokia’s Symbian communicator devices. What made them special was that they used mini thumb style …

Plusnet Mobile SIM Only deals.. GO!

There really shouldn’t be much of a reason NOT to go with a “virtual” operator nowadays. Take Plusnet as an example. They use the EE masts so the signal is going to be flippin’ good. Right now they’ve got some deals which, if you’re quick and you want …

Morning guys. We need your help. Badly.

This morning all of our adverts vanished off the site. After looking into it I’ve found that it’s because of our switch to a fully secure URL. We put a redirect from the old http:// pages to the https:// equivalents, however what we… well, what I didn’t do, …

Yack.net – calls, records and transcribes

A new start-up from Newbury has created an application that has been designed to “Capture all forms of conversation” called Yack.net. The concept is that the application allows calls or video chats of up to 6 people to be easily recorded but the contents are transcribed. “Yack.net was …

Introducing the GoBag 2

Today (7th November) the GoBag 2 is launched on Kickstarter to follow up on the original GoBag which started life in the same way in 2015 with circa 2500 backers. Whilst not mobile phone related, it does appeal to those who need to cram lots of stuff into …

A fifth of UK drivers admit to using their mobiles behind the wheel

Every now and then we get an email from a company which includes research relating to mobile phones. The company involved will want to get their name mentioned (in this case it’s Protect Your Bubble) so that they can have some free advertising. This is another one of …

Easy Logger – A hidden mobile tracking app

There’s plenty of monitoring apps out there but, if you want to pay absolutely nothing, the new Easy Logger app might be of interest. It’s for Android and you will need to side-load an APK, but for precisely nothing per month you’ll get full logging of all phone …

MS301 Bluetooth Headphones with AptX Low Latency

Today, Mixcder have launched into the UK their latest headphones, namely the MS301 at a very reasonable £69.99 from Amazon. The MS301 take advantage of Bluetooth 4.2 making pairing very fast and easy but with low power consumption, Mixcder have said you can get up to 20 hours worth …

Huawei set the launch date for the Mate 10 Pro

Hauwai has now released the launch date for the Mate 10 Pro, and it is coming very soon. We have been lucky enough to get our hands on with the Mate 10 Pro from Huawei, and the good news is that if you to want to get one …

Vodafone updates plans to make life simpler

After the launch of the O2 Generation Flex and their very own “Youth network” (Vox), Vodafone have announced a new set of fresh ideas to add a bit more flexibility. First, something called “Vodafone Passes”. These let contract customer use some data-intensive apps without chopping away at their …

Nokia 2 with 2 days battery!

Nokia, currently owned by HMD Global, is trying to make the next breed of handsets relive the glory days of strong battery life. This is something that has not been possible with the current era of smartphones. The new Nokia 2, which is due for release in the UK …

RAVPower 10,000mAh charger. Get it cheaper here.

Yesterday we reviewed the 10,000mAh portable charger from RAVPower. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and is powerful enough to recharge your smartphone or Bluetooth speaker several times over. It’s only £13.99 from Amazon but we’ve managed to get it down even further with an exclusive …

Planning a break abroad? Check out Data Passport on Three

With the summer well and truly over here in the UK, some people including myself still plan on a well earned break abroad. Roaming has been a big topic of discussion this year with networks scrapping their EU roaming rates. Three UK were one of the first to …

OPPO Launches the F5, complete with Expert Selfie AI

Chinese phone manufacturer OPPO has unveiled the Oppo F5. This new device is turning mobile photography on its head, with a 16 MP shooter on the rear and a 20 MP shooter on the front. The F5 features what the company are calling “groundbreaking A.I. Beauty Recognition technology”. Yes, a technology apparently designed to personalise …

Three receive criticism over £117 iPhone contract.

Think about what you could actually buy for £117 per month. Well, I’ve had my eye on this Citroen C4 lease agreement. Sure, you’re not going to end up fully owning the thing unless you pay a big balloon payment later, but for this sort of money, you …

How to keep your kids mobile safe

As you may have realised by the sheer age of this website, I’m old enough to remember when there simply were no phones in school. I grew up in an age when there was a First School, a Middle School and a High School. At no time did …

O2 launch Generation Flex plans

For many people picking the right data package on their phone can be a hassle. I mean who uses their phone the same way every single month? Back in 2013, O2 shook up the contract market here in the UK with ‘Refresh’. It’s a clever way to split …

EE introduces new Fibre Max plans

The largest mobile network, EE, have announced some big improvements to their home broadband offering. Fibre Max will cost you £45 a month (£52 if you also want EE TV) and,on top of super fast fibre speeds up to 76mbps, you also receive free landline calls, calls to …

We’ve gone all secure

Late last night we switched the site over from http://www.coolsmartphone.com to https://www.coolsmartphone.com. There’s a few reasons why we did this. Firstly, Google is pushing for websites to do this as it secures the connection between you there and us here. Any data flowing from the site or into …

Exclusive discount off the ROMOSS Power Bank we reviewed earlier

The lovely people at ROMOSS were so happy with our earlier review of their all-in-one power bank that they’ve sent us ale and a free man shed. Not only that, but there’s also an exclusive 20% voucher code if you want to buy one from Amazon. The portable …