Category: Website news
I’m typing this on my old Chromebook. Man, it feels good. Like a pair of comfy slippers. Turn on, into a browser, type a bit, close the lid. No updates interrupting the experience. No 5 minute random unknown reboot times. No virus worries. Just productivity power. Love it. …
I’ll give you the short version of this blog post so that you can basically do a “tweet read”. I’ve just been on holiday. I ate too much. I sat around too much. I got all chubby and fat. On Sunday I’m going to squeeze all that blubber …
Over the weekend I got chatting with an old friend. The subject of my “strange hobby” came up they asked if I was still doing “that website thing”. Well, yes. Yes I am. The conversation went on for a while and it made me realise just how long …
Following our award for Top 10 UK Mobile Blog from Feedspot, we’ve won another award. Yes. Get in. Again, I’m going to have to suspend my negative attitude towards these awards, which are usually given out to as many sites as possible in the hope that the company …
Wanna donate some cash easily? Well, there’s a couple of ways we’ve found of doing it. First, the Tesco Mobile guys are donating a crisp £5 for every single pink phone which is sold until June 26th. The money goes direct to Cancer Research UK and ties in …
One day we might win a really big award. After all, I’ve invested a full 16 entire years of my life writing posts for this website and we’ve got a team of crazed smartphone nutters travelling all over the place to bring you the latest chunks of smartphone …
We would like to thank the following people for their help and support in keeping us online. So far this week we’ve had donations from … Deborah Stringer Alistair Dent Mark Harper Bobby Wallace We’re really can’t quite put into words how appreciative we are. As we’ve done …
A few years ago I opened the door to someone who told me that hundreds of houses were potentially going to be built on Green Belt land just a few feet from our home. It was quite a shock, not least because it was the first I’d heard …
Social media. We’re all over it. InstaTwit, SnapTube, FaceGram and YouBook. We’re on it and we’re, like, proper experts and that. If Facebook is your thing, just head to .. www.facebook.com/coolsmartphonedotcom …and we’re there. You can find us easily by just searching for @coolsmartphonedotcom on Facebook too. …
Becoming a well-paid YouTube video star seems to be really high on the list of “wants” for kids in 2018. Many think that they don’t need to concentrate at school, because they can merely chuck a few YouTube videos up, get loads of subscribers, then live like a …
If you use an iPad to browse the site, you may have noticed that everything was a bit squashed. We’ve had a few emails about this so we approached the web design people and they said, “Yeah, we’ll sort it. Here’s an invoice for £2000” Then, after finding …
If you need to get hold of a utility provider, government agency, airline, insurance company or any other large organisation, there’s always a few concerns. Firstly, finding the right number itself can be tricky. You might call their main line, but then when you get through, they might …
Hello again. Just last week we sent emails out and even posted this request for assistance in getting us to Mobile World Congress. Prices for accommodation are getting higher each year, but after all the free publicity and work we’ve done for networks, mobile manufacturers and accessory retailers …
You know us by now. We write reviews, we cover live events. We even road-test cars. As part of all this, we do some lovely YouTube videos. Our channel is right here, and you can whack the lovely red “Subscribe” button to be informed next time a video …
Every day, almost every few minutes, we get emails from manufacturers, retailers, networks and PR agencies. They want us to peddle their thing, to promote their doo-hickey, to mention a gadget or to rave about a new phone. And we love that. It’s what we do. We love …
We’re not like engadget, Android Authority, Pocket-mint and The Merge. Oh no, we do things in a British style-y. We write all proper-like and we like to think that there’s more interesting items on here too. Less marketing, more honesty. As for me, I’ve written about phones and …
Long-time readers will no doubt be waiting for this post, as I usually say what a mad year it’s been and how next year is going to be even bigger, faster and better. I usually go on about the best phones of the year and the coverage we’ll …
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 …
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, …
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 …
I’m always writing about the need to protect kids from their own mobile phones. In the house, when they’re in front of you, you can keep an eye on them. However, when they’re away from you – even in the other room – you could assume that “someone” …
Reading this on a PC? Well, there’s not many of you left. The PC now seems to be more widely seen in the workplace, whilst at home and everywhere else, the smartphone is becoming king. Verto Analytics, a research company that tracks the devices used by 5,000 UK …
In recent months we’ve seen a significant uptick in traffic. This has left us with a problem. We needed more funding to pay for better, faster and more powerful infrastructure. Last week I tried a quick-fix solution to this, which was to add some full-page website banners. You …
Good morning! It’s Friday at last !! Well no. Sadly it’s not. It’s still only Thursday. No matter though, because it’s Autumn now and the nights are drawing in, so you can turn the heating on and sit inside, twiddling on your smartphone more. Boom! Now, we all …
I woke up this morning and somehow got a tirade of abuse. It was because I’m apparently not “down with the kids” and don’t have an Instagram account. “Facebook and YouTube is so yesterday”, I was told. But wait. There is actually an Instagram account for Coolsmartphone, and …
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 …
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 …
Yes, we did it. Thanks to everyone who supported us ! We made it all the way from Lichfield to Edinburgh in just 3 days. Amazingly I didn’t use a portable charger once during the entire trip and the HTC U11 I have on test traveled the entire …
It doesn’t seem so long since we were pretty much mentioning expansys on a weekly basis. It was the place to go if you wanted a smartphone or tablet without having a network tweaked model. Now times have changed and profit margins just aren’t what they once were. …
My day job involves a lot of sitting down. A lot of tea drinking and a lot of mouse moving. It is not, let me tell you, the most strenuous job in the world. A few years ago I had to register with a new doctor. He wanted …
It’s 2017. The internet has been around for quite a long time and, I’ll freely admit, so have I. I’ve seen web pages go from simple blocky creations to Flash-heavy monstrosities. I’ve seen us go from huge CRT monitors and PC’s to tablets and mobiles. Here’s how our …
We don’t tend to have too many disagreements with our ad suppliers, but one thing we really don’t like is adverts that autoplay sound. Sure, we have to display adverts to pay for the increasingly large servers, but ones that start shouting some Daz washing powder at you …
We’ve got the result of some research from OC&C Strategy Consultants, Google and Paypal. It shows that shopping on your smartphone is going to treble in the next four years. Treble. Yes, treble. Think about that. It’s already pretty massive as it is – £13.5bn. This research states …
Way back in 2002 this whole site was kick-started by one phone. It ran an operating system created by Microsoft and the handset was the result of a partnership with UK network, Orange. The network itself has since left the UK, but HTC – a relative unknown at …
Have a quick look on the “Whois” for this site and you’ll see the following … Creation Date: 2003-02-14 08:44:29 Yes, in February it’ll have been 14 years since I bought the coolsmartphone.com domain name. Now, while I’m having a quick trip down memory lane, does anyone remember …
You may have noticed a bit of a “theme” developing on Coolsmartphone this week, and it’s all to do with movie watching. Yes, you can watch TV and sports events too, but there’s a definite battle going on for your eyeballs right now. If you pay for cable …
Whilst Yahoo! isn’t as big as it once was, there’s a lot of Yahoo! Mail users out there and, worse still, this is a data breach which dates back to 2014. Details of 500 million users are now in the wild, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates …
Fame and fortune. We can promise neither, but you can get your name onto the t’interwebs and help us review some kit and cover the latest news about mobile phones. We’ve been around quite some time now, and we’ve seen the competition come and go. We’ve got a …
Hello all, hope you’re well. For the last few days I’ve been up on the Lake District. Not for a holiday, but for a rather grueling bike ride up 30% hills and a lot of very rugged mountains. It was a combined 20,000 foot climb in wind and …
Unless you live under a rock, you may have noticed that there is a little football tournament happening in France. Last week England were playing Wales during traditional working hours with a kick-off of 2pm. In previous years, businesses would get a high amount of “sickness” during tournaments, …
