Category: General

A touchless smartwatch… it’s happening

Deus Ex Technology have had a good week. They launched their project on Kickstarter on the 18th and within 6 days they have achieved their goal of $100k. Awesome. But why should I care? If you own a smartwatch then this will be very interesting. They have made …

Vodafone change excess call and text charges

Due to Ofcom changing the way service numbers (0845, 0870 etc) Vodafone are simplifying their excess charges. These out of bundle charges are what you pay if you exceed your monthly allowance or if you don’t have one. From the 10th August 2015 there will be a single …

Lynktec 360 degree Tablet Kickstand – Review

This thing is pretty straightforward really. It sticks onto the back of any tablet and gives you a kickstand. Not only that, but it’ll rotate around by 360 degrees so you can set it up just how you want. It sticks on using special microsuction technology. Sure, it …

Fancy a second hand device? Try Envirofone

You know about Envirofone. You send them your old handset, they give you money. What happens after that? Well, I can tell you. The phones either get resold or broken down for minerals and plastic granulation.  Who buys the phones? Well, you guys can. Head to the Envirofone …

Coolsmartphone Competition

Let’s be honest. Nobody likes giving away cash, and after asking for donation yesterday the charity I’m cycling for has only raised £40. If someone comes at me rattling bucket or asking for a couple of quid, I’ll probably dodge them too. You can’t give your money away …

BT Mobile decide to water down free BT Sports offering

With BT looking to takeover EE, all eyes were on their initial MVNO pricing and plans. For me personally, I try hard not to have anything to do with the company, but those that have already dived in appear to have been burned. Initially BT told us that …

The EE Power Bars return

If you’re on a train, on a bus or simply walking around town then you’ll know that looking down and spotting a “5% charge remaining” on your smartphone means that it’s time to panic. EE were previously handing out mobile chargers, which they called Power Bars. They proved …

Kitvision Splash Waterproof Action Camera – Review

A GoPro camera might be found on the helmet of a cyclist near you but, if we’re honest, these things are quite expensive. This is an alternative – the Kitvision Splash. The price is £69.99 (RRP), but you can get it for less than that on Amazon. This …

Neon Alarm revisited – review

I’m a bit of a fiend for alarm applications. I don’t know why… That isn’t true. I’m one of those people who would be late for their own funeral if I didn’t have something to remind me I need to get there on time. And then remind me …

I’m riding a bike again. Help me. Help me.

A quick break in regular programming while I royally abuse my position and ask you for donations. If you don’t want to read all the details but would like to help, just pick up a phone and text the phrase NAZG69 followed by a space and then £2 …

Touchjet Pond Projector – Review

A projector running Android, surely that is the perfect device for use in the boardroom or the meeting rooms across the globe. When I heard about the Touchjet Pond I was rather intrigued, a projector that turns the surface you’re projecting onto into a large touchscreen, just seemed …

BQ Aquarius E4.5 Ubuntu Edition – Unboxing

I mentioned a few days ago that I was going to be playing with the Ubuntu Phones. Now after a small wait I have the first of these phones in for review. it will be an interesting journey and one that I hope you join me on as …

Nuisance callers on your home phone? Give this thing a try

Apparently I had a car accident a couple of years ago and £3000 has already been put aside for me. “That’s pretty good..”, I replied as the cold-caller waited for my response, “..especially when you’re obviously making all this up and I’ve not had an accident for over …

Vodafone Smart ultra 6 – Review

Come, take a seat my friends, because something is happening again in the mobile industry. When I was young kid (when) started a little website called Coolsmartphone. It was all about a network-branded smartphone called the SPV. For years after we saw networks branding their logo onto phones …

Vodafone announce the Smart ultra 6 – Hi-specs, low-price.

Vodafone have just announced another branded handset – the Smart ultra 6. Perhaps the best part is the fact that this 4G, octa-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm CPU handset is just £125 on Pay As You Go. Yes, I did say Qualcomm. It’s also available to buy as of today. …

MOT Models launch mobile portfolios – A world first

When I applied for my first few jobs I had to sit in a stuffy office while some HR person clicked through my CV. I had a folder with all my qualifications in there too, but fast-forward to today and I’m instead getting job agencies using my LinkedIn …

Huawei announce the T1 10″ tablet

How about a tablet with a 10″ IPS screen, Qualcomm quad-core 1.2GHz CPU and 4G connectivity for just £22.50 on a pay monthly deal with a £22.99 up-front cost? O2 will soon be selling the new Huawei T1 10″ tablet in white. It’s powered by Android 4.4 KitKat, …

The daddy of remote-controlled cars

Remember this scene from Tomorrow Never Dies? Bond drove his utterly fugly BMW 750i (worst Bond car, ever) with his Sony Ericsson mobile phone. Oh how we laughed. Wait though, because it’s now actually possible. Jaguar have a Land Rover that you can control with your smartphone. It’s …

Pebble Time – Hands-on

I have one. That is all see you later! Only joking… 🙂 I am now a proud owner of the brand new Pebble Time and I thought I would share some of my thoughts about it. I’ve now had it for a couple of days. Bear with me …

Smart Clock – Sync your life with your bedside buddy

You might think that I’m a gadget monster. You could believe that my house is a computer-controlled ultra-modern home which does everything for me. Not a bit of it. I’m a deeply disorganised and forgetful individual who tends to work far too much and I run out of …

Google acknowledge battery drain in Wear 5.1

Last month Google began its rollout of the latest update to Android Wear – version 5.1. This update enabled features like Wi-Fi support, new gestures, hand drawn emojis and more. However, the update also came with a major unwanted feature – severe battery drain. It is present for …

The Terminator gets added to your navigation

Way back in the day we used to upload voices to our hacked versions of TomTom to Pocket PC devices. Remember someone having Yoda speaking out the directions? Now we’ve got Waze which, if you didn’t know already, is a rather clever community-driven traffic and navigation app. If …

Cortana for Android (beta) coming in July.

Microsoft has revealed that a beta version of Cortana, their digital assistant (none of which I can get to work right), will be available for Android users sometime in July – as a Beta. This means that the Cortana version for Android won’t have all of the features of …

Give your garden some colour – the new MiPOW Playbulb Garden

Our garden was OK until we realised that the previous owner had decided to fill in an old pond pretty badly. Over the years it’s developed into the Himalayas and I’ll probably need to get someone to roll over it with something. I’m no gardening expert, but I …

YotaPhone 3 on the horizon

The dual-sided YotaPhone series made a big splash at MWC, but it wasn’t picked up by the major networks over in Blighty. However, we quite liked it all in all, so when news of the YotaPhone 3 leaked, colour us excited. The e-ink screen is a great idea …

Samsung Galaxy J7 & J5 Leaked.

In typical Samsung “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach” to mobile devices, two more units have been leaked, these being the Samsung Galaxy J7 and J5. From the images that have appeared we can see that the devices are made from the good old …

EE announce Harrier branded tablet

Not long ago EE announced two new devices – the Harrier and Harrier mini. Now the network has added a new tablet to their range called the Harrier Tab and it costs £199 on PAYG, or £18 a month on contract giving 10GB a month. Specifications include an …

Beam TV into your device without the internet

Getting streaming TV on your phone or tablet is great. You get to watch TV anywhere. However, if you’re out of the house and you don’t have a clever DVR or set-top box that’ll squirt the TV picture from your aerial to your device over your WiFi, you’re …

Archos 50 and 55 Helium Plus, UK-bound in July.

Following their announcement earlier in the month, two devices from the French manufacturer Archos will be available in the UK soon enough. These will be the 50 Helium Plus and 55 Helium Plus. Both the devices are classed as “budget” handsets and both have almost identical internals. Archos have posted …

Spy Pen – Review

I used to review phones. Then I guess people saw those reviews and thought “hey, let’s send him some other stuff to review”. Now I’ve got a pen with a secret camera in it. Why you’d want one of these is a question for you. Perhaps you want …

Text walking lanes introduced in Brussels

We’ve seen something like this before. China tried it but, from what I remember, it was abandoned because mobile phone users didn’t see the signs or the phone-only walkway. Now something similar is rolling out in Antwerp, with “text lanes” trying to separate “phone zombies” from other pavement …

LG G4 Photo special – Teaser

Anyone who follows me on social media (I’m @mobilemandan on Twitter) will know that I love my phone photography. I am by no means a pro at it, and I’m still learning the different settings from ISO to shutter speed. However, with smartphone camera technology getting better all …

EE Osprey Mini 2 review

Getting online these days is more important than it ever was before, in some cases being able to get online for email and browsing is more important than a phone call or text message. There are a few ways to get online if you have a tablet or …

Charge 6 USB devices all at once. Go on, you probably need that.

I’ll admit. If you’ve got to this stage then you might have a bit of a problem. Yes, you could convince yourself that your need to charge 6 things at once because they’re essential. You’ve got your iPad in there, your smartphone, perhaps a sports camera, extended battery …

Hey you. We want you. We do.

Welcome to Monday my friends. This is the day you dreamed of. That horrible weekend is over and now you’re back to school, work or college. It’s fun times baby. If you, like me, like to waffle on about phones, accessories, networks, data plans, tablets, apps, services and …

Vodafone SIMs become flexible

Vodafone SIM only deals are becoming more flexible. I don’t mean the SIM card will bend more (please don’t try that at home), rather Vodafone are relaxing the upgrade rules. Previously if you were on a 12 month SIM only plan then you could only upgrade to a …

Apple Pay for Visa, Mastercard and Santander

Apple announced that Apple Pay will be coming to the UK next month, and so all the banks seem to be tripping over themselves to announce they will be supporting the service. We have had press releases from Visa, Mastercard and Santander saying they will be supporting the …