Category: General

Anywhere you roam, you’ll always take a signal with you

Long-term readers will know that we are particularly annoyed about the continuing patchy signal problem across the UK. We hear networks claiming that they’ve invested many millions to fix it, and they tell us it’s getting better, but even though we have 4G, we still struggle to make …

Topless student crashes into police car as she tries to take a selfie

Yesterday I went to McDonald’s to sample their huge range of delicious burgers whilst using the greasy tablets. On the way someone nearly crashed into us as he tried to navigate a roundabout while texting on his phone. It’s human nature sometimes. Some people think that they can …

Amazon now offering “Certified Refurbished” devices

Just in case you weren’t aware, there are only 8 weeks to go until Christmas. This year, the same as previous years, electronic gadgetry will be the top of many a Christmas list. But let’s be honest, the latest technology isn’t the cheapest, so how about a device …

Easily solving pub arguments is affecting your brain

No, we’re not talking about Dave the know it all – although he might not be good for your health either. The real issue is your brain power and the internet, or rather our continued reliance on offloading most of our brain work onto it. This isn’t the …

BT Just killed the phone box

If you’re of a certain age (cough), phone boxes hold a special place in your heart. For some it was perhaps the only access to a phone you had, for others it was simply sheltering out of the rain. There are many reasons to remember the street side communications …

LeEco LePro 3 and Le S3 announced

Sorry but we are a wee bit late on this one guys, however as the phone is not destined for our shores (at least through the normal channels), I’m sure you will let me off. There was a big announcement in San Francisco on Wednesday from the Chinese …

Get your phone in the Christmas spirit!

FLAVR are back with a new range of designer Christmas ugly jumper style cases, today they launched their brand new festive range of comedy Christmas jumper themed phones cases for iPhone 5/5SE, 6/6S, 7, 7 Plus and Galaxy 7 and 7 Edge. The new cases are available from …

Apple closely monitoring Time Warner Acquisition

Despite their best efforts, Apple has never managed to take over TV like they have the mobile. Despite trying numerous angles, and Steve Jobs rumoured to have ‘cracked it’, the old school media companies just keep their hands clasped tight. If recent reports are to be believed from the …

Opposition to new Apple data centre in Ireland

Athenry, in County Galway, is a small town on the west coast of Ireland. A long long way away from the glitz and glamour of Silicon Valley. Although at the moment it is a battleground for Apple over its proposed new Apple Data Centre, as some local residents …

Video mix give the Nexus 6 Pixel Tricks

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 …

AirPods and going beyond the iPhone

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…) …

Macs are much cheaper than PCs in the long run says IBM

Once the poster child of the personal computer age, IBM are now the biggest purchaser of Apple computers on the planet! Simply due to the fact they save a huge amount of money over time according to IBM VP of Workplace as a Service Fletcher Previn. Talking at …

Voices in your Head? – Sony Launches new Xperia Ear

Virtual Assistants are something that major phone vendors have been pushing for a while. Whether it may be Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or the new Google Assistant on the new Pixel phones. Now Sony has gotten into the act with their new Xperia Ear. According to the Sony blurb, this …

Xiaomi sells 1 million phones in India in 18 days

A couple of the writers here at CSP are interested in devices that originate from the far east and are relativity unknown here in Europe. I’m currently reviewing an completely unknown device from a unknown manufacturer, which at the moment is well above my expectations… review coming soon. …

​Offline viewing for Netflix may be coming soon

If you have a look at today’s modern media suppliers – the likes of Amazon’s Prime Video, Sky Go, BBC iPlayer and the all 4 app all offer the ability to download programs and watch them later offline.  When quizzed earlier this year, one of the biggest online …

The M6 Toll – Not quite contactless, actually

Yesterday, for a special treat, I used the M6 Toll road. It’s just a couple of miles from my house and takes around 20 minutes off my journey but I, along with many, many, many other people, simply don’t use it due to the insane cost. At £5.50 …

August Retro EP634 Bluetooth Headphones – Review

I’m going to completely give away the whole upshot of this review in the first paragraph for you now. Sure, you can always skip along to the bottom of the most reviews, but I’m going to serve it up on a platter right here in paragraph one. OK. …

Flat iPhone? Wind it up!

My wife says that I’m always winding her up, so let’s put it to good use and charge a battery with my skills. Now, bear with me here, because I know that this is a bit expensive, but if you hang around the AMPWare website for a few …

Brizebox – Review

As the explosion of online shopping continues, more and more of us are having deliveries to our homes (I am now on first name terms with my local Amazon delivery driver, we have so many deliveries). Here lies one of our first world problems, i.e. making sure somebody’s …

Pixel Timepiece – Set for launch in Q1

Serial leaker Evan Blass is rarely wrong when it comes to upcoming handsets and gadgets. He’ll get the pictures and the gossip ahead of time and today he’s revealed that Google will indeed be stepping into the Smartwatch ring very soon indeed. As we mentioned before, Google seems …

Charging all your iPhone and iPads .. tidily.

If you’ve got a few gadgets of the iOS variety, “charging time” can be messy process. Cables everywhere and devices stacked on top of each other. This PowerDock5 Charging Station could fix that and, although it’s £79.95, it has 5 USB ports on the side and short cables …

RATED – The BBC iPlayer Radio app

Welcome to the first in a series of articles celebrating apps which are an example to others on how things should be done. I’m probably preaching to the converted, but I wanted to talk about the BBC iPlayer Radio app. It’s available for iPhone,, Android and Kindle. For …

Vodafone Wallet with PayPal – Hands on

Paying for things has taken a massive leap forward in recent years. Money seems to be getting used less and less, and instead I’m tapping my bank card on terminals in supermarkets, on vending machines and through toll booths. It’s simple, it’s quick and it’s really easy. Now, …

ZTE Blade V7 coming exclusively to Three

Head to Amazon and you can pick up a ZTE Blade V7 for a pretty small amount of cash. For your money you’ll get a phone with a 5.2″ 1080 x 1920 pixel screen, Android 6.0 and an octa-core 1.3GHz CPU. It also comes with 2GB RAM, 16GB …

Lessening cash flows for continued HTC woes

I still love HTC. I really do. Sure, they’ve made some missteps over the years in terms of product, and they may have put out one too many phones that are pretty much exactly the same bar shape and look, but Nokia did the same thing when they …

OnePlus tease Android 7 Nougat for the OnePlus 3

If you are a regular reader of this site, you will know that I’m a real OnePlus fanboy. I’ve owned every device that the company have released, and upon seeing the price of the new Google Pixel phones I’ll definitely be staying in the OnePlus stable. To be …

TalkTalk fined £400,000

You may have heard about TalkTalk this year. They’re a British television, telecommunications, Internet and mobile network service provider. They’ve just been handed a whopping £400,000 fine for what is classed as poor web security. It follows a cyber attack which occurred in October last year. This resulted …

A plug-in self-drive solution – Remoto Pilot

Part of me didn’t like this pretty much immediately purely due to the video below. I mean, what’s going on with the face fur on this guy? And does he have to look so cocky? “I’m not just going to use my phone while my car is driving …

A phone and a contract for just £6 per month

Fancy a phone and a 4G contract for just £6 per month? Check this offer out from iD Mobile. They already do SIM only plans from just £4 per month and sure, that’s only 250MB of data, but for another £2 per month you can get a phone …

Anki OverDrive, the Supertruck arises

Here at Coolsmartphone towers, we love Anki Overdrive, the model racing game powered by your smartphone. Its mix of high speed, artificial intelligence, and weapons provide a great past time for the whole family. Think of it as Scalextric on steroids… and guns. Now Anki has released its Supertruck …

Pixel Prices Published. Pretty Premium.

Morning. Last night Google unveiled the phones we all expected them to unveil. The Pixel and the Pixel XL – a phone and a slightly bigger phone. From a distance, from far, far away, it’s like the Apple launch in a way. Two phones, one a big larger …

Doodling on messages coming to WhatsApp

Oh, you wish there was just one true cross-platform messaging app, don’t you? Oh hang on there is, and it’s called SMS. SMS has been truly cross-platfrom and also operating-sysem neutral for the past, I don’t know, 30 years. Yet no one seems to have grown the service, apart …

Buying a Samsung S6 or S7? Go Tesco Mobile and get free gifts.

Head down to Tesco Mobile to get your Galaxy S6 and S7 and you’ll get more than just a very smart Android handset. Tesco are giving away goodies worth between £39.99 and £199 which you can perhaps keep and use as Christmas presents if you don’t want them …

Xperia XZ unboxing

We have managed to do it – we finally have an unboxing before a phone is due for release. This took us a fair few hours of persuasion and persistence from me upon the bigwigs at Sony to allow us to have this device, the Sony Xperia XZ. …