Category: General

Unlimited texts, unlimited minutes, 4GB of data – £11 on Three

The key to writing a good article and getting it indexed, getting it noticed, getting a good SEO rating and lots of comments, is to make it either shocking, argumentative and of a certain length. Now, if I just revealed the core of this particular news item in …

Here’s your Olympic medal. Some of it used to be a Nokia.

Provided that Japan still exists and North Korea haven’t fired another ruddy missile at it, then they’ll be holding the Olympics in 2020. The medals, which usually cost a small fortune to create, are going to be made in a very different way this time. Members of Japan’s …

1MORE H1707 Headphone – Review

We have been waiting for the 1MORE H1707 Headphones at Coolsmartphone Towers with quite a lot of excitement since we covered their launch this summer. The first impression was again very impressive and premium in looks, which we have come to expect since we review the 1MORE earbuds. …

Chromebook ‘Eve’ likely to be uncovered at Pixel Event, Oct 5.

OK, those of us at Coolsmartphone towers have an unreasonable level of fascination with Chromebooks. Yes, they’re a browser wrapped around a Linux based OS. But paradoxically, they’re also so much more than they should be, to the level where both Garry and Leigh use them as daily …

Fitbit launches first ever smartwatch and sports headphones

Say “Fitbit” to anyone and they’ll instantly think of an activity tracker. Usually the name conjures up an image of a wrist-worn strap that’ll keep an eye on how mobile you are. However, Fibit have just announced their very own health and fitness smartwatch, called the the Fitbit …

Sky Mobile – New £35 deal for bundled Sky TV and a mobile

Sky are pushing hard into the mobile arena, but they’ve now announced a better deal if you want some Sky TV action too. Their newly-announced £35 per-month deal delivers an iPhone SE on a “Swap24” plan. This, along with their appropriately-named “Swap12” offering, lets you upgrade to the …

Come on in, get involved. Coolsmartphone, all over your social media

If you keep hitting Coolsmartphone pretty regularly then our social media presence is here for you. You can keep up with all the latest news and gossip easily by following, subscribing or hitting the Like buttons. If you’re on a PC then you’ll see our buttons on the …

First Snapdragon 845 chips bagged by Samsung

At the beginning of this year, Samsung managed to broker a deal with Qualcomm to reserve the first batch of the Snapdragon 835 chips for their latest flagship device – the Galaxy S8. This gave the Korean mobile giant the jump on other OEMs for releasing devices with …

A London meeting, without breaking the bank

This job can be pretty interesting at times. Today I’m on a train back from London after a meeting. If all goes well, the results of this particular meeting should bear fruit on Coolsmartphone in the next couple of weeks. The people I met down there were surprised …

Somfy Security Camera – Review

I have been recently sent through the Somfy indoor security camera for review. Good Points: Design. Ease of Setup. Picture Quality. Ability to digital pan and zoom Built-in in alarm. (Very loud alarm) Motion alerts. Ability to talk back to the camera. Key fob arm/disarm. Door and window …

How hackers are getting into our smartphones

Remember when a briefcase or a stack of paperwork left on a train or in a taxi would be in the daily news? Private data, secure notes and plans for changes in government or a major company could oh-so-easily fall into the hands of others.  Shortly after, it …

Heelight. A remote control bulb, without Bluetooth or WiFi

So, we’ve had a few emails on this one. It’s a product called “Heelight” and is an intelligent bulb that can “hear”. It doesn’t use Bluetooth or WiFi but has 30 different modes including a “Candle” and “Rhythm Mode”. Some 16 million RGB colours are available and – …

Nokia 8 official!

The time has come. Nokia have returned the to flagship party! At least, this is what we are being told. We’ve got details from all the material released during the press event, held yesterday. The more obvious question is, why should we care that Nokia are back in …

SIM only deal – 4G, BT, come see, act quickly.

We love a good deal and, as you know, the best mobile deals tend to be SIM only ones. Today we’ve got one with the company that now owns EE, so this particular offering will be running on that network. You’ll get unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and a …

Fancy owning shares in Pump Audio?

If you cast your minds back to last year’s Gadget Show, we review Pump Audio’s V2 earbuds and even gave a pair away to a lucky reader. One year on, they are still my personal go to ear buds for the quality and the bass but not for the …

1More Triple Driver Earbuds – The Review

Not that long ago we told you about a company called 1More, the Chinese competition to Beat. The released the 1More Triple Driver Earbuds to the UK recently and kindly sent a set to Coolsmartphone Towers for review. Unfortunately, everyone has had some sort of cold or illness which …

Samsung Note 8 out mid-September rumour

After the PR disaster that was the Samsung Note 7 and the exploding batteries, Samsung has had some tough choices to make. It is rumoured that the US will see the new Note 8 released on the 24th August, which is a day after official release. Hopefully the …

OnePlus 3/3T: No updates after Android O

Those of you that are regular readers of this site know I am a OnePlus fanboy. I have had every device the company has produced; my favourite still is my ceramic OnePlus X. (despite there not being any support for this device, i,e, no more OS updates). My …

Why I have gone back to an iPad

Those of you who have been reading on the site for a looong time will remember that I started with a review of how things were on the iPad with iOS 5 Beta. That was on an iPad 2, I believe and it was the last large iPad …

Exploring the evolution of mobile phones

It’s fair to say that I’m now of a “certain age” and I can quite easily amaze people by detailing a long-forgotten time “before mobile phones”. At school in the 80’s and 90’s, you simply wouldn’t see a phone, and it was only at college that clever new …

LG V30 pushes smartphone cameras

LG announced today that their upcoming LG V30 will incorporate an F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens in the dual camera specification. The new specification means that the lens is larger and clearer, which means the cameras can let in 25% more light than a traditional smartphone camera lens. …

Do you actually need that TV subscription any more?

Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …

AmpliFi HD Mesh Wi-Fi Products Launch in the United Kingdom

Ubiquiti Labs have announced that their AmpliFi HD Mesh Wi-Fi products are now available in the UK, the price ranges from £132.49 to £359.99 depending on the package. The central routing device camouflages an advanced antenna design features a glowing base LED and a smart LCD display, making it …

Vaux – Amazon Echo Dot Powered Speaker – Review

Like many households here in the UK, or in fact all over the world now, we have an Amazon Echo… hey it’s the future, it’s… like talking to your house …and it answers back. Our Echo sits in our kitchen and now has replaced our radio, our kitchen …

Honor 6A now on sale with Three

Just recently Honor announced the new 6A. We covered it in detail here and we mentioned that it would be available on Three UK. Well, today is the day. You can Go Binge with it on Three. Wilkin Lee, who’s a thoroughly nice chap and is the sales …

Out TV viewing is changing

Got a Sky or Virgin TV contract? Let me ask you a serious question. If you’re not into sports, are you really using it fully? Enough to warrant the monthly cost? Statistics announced today by Ofcom show that 90% of people still watch live TV every week. Some …

Russia to ban VPN’s and Proxies.

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. …

“Alexa, is my door locked?”

All is quiet, nothing is stirring, not even a mouse and you shout “Alexa, is my door locked?”. No this isn’t the beginning of a weird Internet of Things horror movie but the introduction to Yale’s Keyfree Connected and Keyless Connected Smart Locks in conjunction with Samsung’s SmartThings. To …

RCA/Venturer Mercury 7L tablet – review

Following on from my Venturer Saturn Pro 10 review, I’m now moving on to review the latest budget tablet from RCA/Ventruer the Mercury 7L. As it is currently priced at £49.99, the Mercury 7L is a direct competitor to the Amazon Fire tablet (which I take with me …

Selfie stick? Phone cover? Combined? Boom!

You want a case, but you also want a selfie stick. What to do eh? Just how are you going to take those arty shots and simultaneously annoy everyone in the surrounding area without that selfie stick? What you need, flower, is a Stikbox. It’s a world first …

Gaming with Android and Windows, Mobile? PGS has an update.

Yes people, I’m learning the Daily Mail-style of click-bait again, in the vein hope that we’ll have enough advertising revenue to pay for the servers this month (sadly, ad-blocking is killing our revenue). OK, long story short. Imagine you want to create a Portable Gaming System. Something running …

Remember the HTC Re ? You can still get something like it..

It was an interesting idea. A camera, without a viewfinder, that you randomly carried around (probably with your camera-packing-phone) and generally pointed in roughly the right direction of whatever you wanted to film. We reviewed the HTC Re a couple of years back but now it’s vanished from …

Vodafone reveal continued increase in data usage

A trading update? That’s normally quite a dry document and not one we’d feature here on Coolsmartphone, but the latest one from Vodafone has a number of pretty interesting points. Amongst mentions of “Q1 organic service revenue” and “acceleration in AMAP”, it also shows that data traffic has …

Perhaps we shouldn’t use our mobile phones while we’re mobile

In an effort to stop people fiddling where their phones whilst driving, the people from the Western Cape Government have taken a slightly different approach. A recent advert appears to have lifted a number of CCTV images showing a phone-relate accidents. There’s people falling into ponds, walking into …

Remix OS ….. He’s dead Jim

It is a story that is oh-so-familiar these days. Along comes a version of an operating system that could be a game changer, it gets praised and supported by those on the cutting edge. Roll on a few years and things have got very quiet with not much …

Amazon Anytime messaging app rumours

I don’t know if you agree with me on this one, but do we need yet another messaging app? Well if the rumours are correct, the retail giant Amazon believes that we do. The company has reportedly been sending customers surveys relating to a new messaging service called “Anytime”. …