Category: General
If you’ve been won over by the Samsung Galaxy S6 brothers then nearly every UK network has announced pre-orders and pricing. Here’s a run-down of the options available to you if you’re looking to get one. Before I start, if you’re after an up-close look at both the …
Hot on the heels of OnePlus letting us know that they’d had to raise the Euro price of the OnePlus One, comes another announcement that some of us at CSP towers have been waiting for. Yep, the New OnePlus. Just kidding. We know that OnePlus has wanted to …
I have been a fan of Otterbox cases for many years now; it is one of my first purchases when I get a new device. Because I know I’ll be getting a well designed, well made and hard wearing case. I’ve had a Note 4 for a good …
A package arrived the other day and in it there was a very shiny box with an Acer Logo on it. Why don’t you join me while I unbox this little shiny box? What we have here is a pretty neat phone that is coming in a suitably …
Hello there, welcome to the “listen in live” page for our podcast. Joining me this week should be Dan, Garry and Matteo. This weeks topics will catching up with Dan and Garry and their thoughts about MWC, the strange almost negative coverage of the HTC One M9 before it …
High capacity internal storage is the realm of top-of-the-range flagship devices, which in turn commands a top price. Today Samsung announced a 3-bits-per-cell flash memory chip that promises 128GB of storage for “mass market” (read: more affordable) mobile devices. The 128GB storage solution is built using the more prevalent …
Remember the good old Orange Wednesdays? If you were a customer of Orange (now EE), you simply sent out a text and received a code to get two seats in your local cinema for the price of one. Deal. This was a very popular promotion for Orange customers …
It won’t be long till all the main manufacturers go along the sealed battery route. I have no problem with this provided they innovated in battery technology, rather than the most megapixels in the camera or the most pixels per inch in the screen. The way forward, however, …
OnePlus – the company famous for their purchase invite system and high spec, low price devices – have announced that due to the declining Euro they will be increasing the price of the OnePlus One in Europe. Currently the 16GB Silk White and 64GB Sandstone Black OnePlus One retail …
Ahead of it’s 10th April release, Samsung today have announced that those of us here in the UK can pre-order either the S6 or S6 Edge on the 20th of March. No doubt our very own Dan will be mashing F5 at 1 second past midnight. 😉 On …
Nice looking headphones huh? They’re by an outfit called Astell & Kern and they tell me that they’re a “premium high-resolution audio specialist”. Can you hear the alarm bells? Can you? Well, let me tell you a bit about these special in-ear headphones. They’re a “musician’s choice for …
As you’ll know, I have a weakness for looking at the handsets and gadgets that you can’t get on the high street. A perfect example is the Atongm W008 watch that I reviewed this morning. At the moment Gearbest are knocking down prices even further with their “March …
Today One Plus announced that the long awaited Lollipop update will be available by the end of March. They’re so confident of hitting this deadline that they’ll give away five 64GB devices if they miss it. By March 27th OnePlus plans to release their own Lollipop-based ROM, using …
According to a report on TechCrunch, Microsoft has announced that it is collaborating with Chinese Phone manufacturer Xiaomi. They will be providing some customers that currently own the Mi 4 devcie with a flashable ROM that allows them install and run Windows 10 phone version on their devices. Neither Microsoft …
Music plays such a varied role in our lives, it can be fun, it can be serious, it evokes emotion, we listen to it alone and we listen to it to be sociable and often the environment we are dictates how we consume our media. Of course and …
You probably know about James Dyson. He’s a British guy who struggled to sell his bagless vacuum cleaner to the major manufacturers. After being told that the “bags make us money” and “you’re basically bonkers”, he went on to create a solid British brand, making products for Britain …
Online serial “leaker”, @Onleaks, has provided the interwebs with what is to be believed to be the next flagship device from Sony – the Xperia Z4. Measuring in at 146.3×71.9×7.2mm, the Z4’s measurements are very similar to the current Z3, as is the actual look of the device. There’s …
A few weeks ago,while I was getting ready to go out to MWC, I posted a picture of my quite snazzy business cards. I was quite surprised by the response I got, it was not people wanting to stalk me or other nasty and sordid things like that, …
The big selling point of Windows Phone, at least in the TV ads, has been the fact that Cortana is supposedly better than Siri. Get yourself a Windows Phone and you’ll have a proper digital assistant, they say. So, the very last thing you’re going to want to …
A few months ago I reviewed a pair of Arctic Bluetooth headphones, they sounded great, they lasted ages thanks to Bluetooth 4.0 and I was really impressed with the pricing. Well today Arctic have just emailed me advising that their latest Bluetooth Sports headphones are now available on …
Last week we saw the Xperia Z4 Tablet released at MWC and I have to confess I was drooling a wee bit at the prospect of it. I just went on to the Sony store and found this. Now the biggest issue I had with the tablet was …
Following on from it’s sale by Sony to a local investigative firm, VAIO Corporation has launched the VAIO Phone (VA-10J). It is the company’s first dabble in to the smartphone world, made in partnership with Japan communication. When it was first seen, comments were made that the phone shares …
Some time ago, our very own Leigh carried out a review of the Lugulake Bluetooth speaker, which he was thoroughly impressed with, and you can catch up with the review here. Well the company have contacted CoolSmartPhone towers, asking us if we would like to look at the new improved version …
Last night I stumbled across an old video from 1979 which showed something that was pretty amazing at the time. A truly portable phone. It started me on a bit of a journey into the history of mobile phones, so here’s what I’ve dug out of the archives. …
A number of us here at CoolSmartPhone towers use Chromebooks. I for one am currently writing this post from my HP 11 Chromebook which I absolutely love. Chromebooks are usually inexpensive, with a good battery life, but not that highly specced in terms of RAM or onboard storage, …
Samsung have announced four new battery packs, available in two different capacities and four different designs. They are called the Animal Edition Battery Packs, they feature illustrations of four species of endangered animals as part of the company’s ‘Charge the Life’ campaign, which aims to raise awareness about …
Can’t download an App? You’re not on your own. It’s all Jeremy Clarksons’ fault. Earlier today the Apple iTunes and App Stores for both Mac and iOS went down for many users across the world. Only after a good few hours did Apple acknowledge there was a fault. …
EE have today announced popular entertainment service NOW TV is coming to it’s EE TV box here in the UK. NOW TV allows customers to subscribe to a range of packs containing either entertainment, sports or movies so you get the most suited content for your viewing. The …
Rumoured for a next quarter anouncement, (which fingers crossed is April not May) more leaked renders LG’s next flagship device the G4 are hitting the internet. It’s said to be powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, having a 20 MP rear camera, a 5MP front-facing camera and …
So with MWC 15 having drawn to a close last Thursday, I have recovered enough to get my thought rallied into some sort of order. I want to have a look back and have a think about my top 3 things that I saw at Congress. The list …
Fancy a bit of network-branded phone action? The Vodafone Smart 4 Max is on sale right now for a cool £200 on Pay As You Go. For the money you’ll get yourself a big 6″ 720×1280 pixel screen (245 ppi) and a Qualcomm MSM8926 Snapdragon 400 quad-core 1.2GHz …
2015 was my first year of attending MWC. I really had no idea what to expect, Leigh and Dan have spent years going and covering a huge range of devices. This year was going to be no different, Garry, Leigh and I all arrived on the Saturday ready …
If you’ve watched our full hands-on with the HTC One M9 then you’ll probably also be aware that it’s going to arrive here in the UK on pretty much every network. Already we’ve seen Vodafone, giffgaff and Three and O2 put their hands up. Today you can start …
Around the side of the ZTE stand there were some ordinary-looking watches. I only say “ordinary” in the sense that they didn’t immediately scream “smartwatch” at me. They were neither chunky or “techy” in appearance and the design was both understated and stylish. None of these are on …
We’ve heard these rumours before about waterproofing but this time they come with a little weight. Apple have applied for a new patent that allows the coating of components with a silicone based substance something called “hydrophobic coating.” From what I understand, it’s basically a way to coat everything …
We’ve just got back from a week in Spain, you may have noticed our coverage of MWC in Barcelona. Our coverage was made easier thanks to Cellhire, who lent us a Huawei MiFi unit with a data SIM and some Spanish data. Cellhire offer a range of …
One of the most intriguing things I came across at MWC was Piper NV, Piper NV is a product from icontrol Networks in the US, it basically is a network attached device that allows you to create a home automation or home security system to suit your needs. …
This past year I’ve travelled around Europe quite a bit and the data roaming and connectivity costs are just insane. We were promised by the European Commission that this would all be sorted out soon enough. Now I don’t care who I upset, this is a massive cash …
We’ve seen AR before. Displaying images over the a live image that your phone is seeing. It’s all very cool. However, things have moved on a little since then and Metaio look to be pushing things on pretty quickly. Already they have companies like IKEA using their solution, …
It looks like eBuyer are off-loading this Lexar 16GB microSD card today for less than half the normal price. If you still have a microSD slot in your phone then count yourself lucky my friend, as this 16GB Class 10 card is a quick way to boost your …
