Category: Hardware Reviews

HTC One – Review

HTC have suffered somewhat this last year. Samsung, with a massive marketing budget and good quality handsets, have bashed the company over the head. It was clear that the next HTC flagship had to be something special. Something to help bring the company back into the forefront of …

Huawei E589 unboxing

After arriving in London for a 4 day break I knew I was going to be enjoying 4G speeds thanks to my existing EE account and having both a HTC One and Sony Xperia Z with me. However using internet on these drains the battery and these mobile …

Acer Aspire S7 – Review

A few years ago I thought that to have a small lightweight easily transportable device you would have to get an iPad or an Android Tablet. Or get cross with a Netbook or break the bank and get a fancy Ultrabook. I settled for an Android Tablet a …

Logic3 Ferrari Scuderia R300 headphones – Review

I’ve become a bit of a over ear headphone convert recently, having used the Logic3 Ferrari Cavallino T350 headphones a few weeks ago. In the past my experience of over ear headphones had been cheap plasticy cheap headphones, that had awful sound quality as you’d expect. When I got the …

Kidigi car kit for Samsung Galaxy Note II – Review

Most generic car kits just aren’t man enough for the Samsung Galaxy Note II, so Kidigi have addressed this with a nice, meaty dedicated kit. Kidigi are a specialist third party mobile technology accessories company from Hong Kong that caters for most popular handsets (they even do Blackberry …

Reviewed – Innergie Magic Cable Trio

Cabling is always a bit of a nightmare. I can’t be the only one who’s got a knotted mess of cabling behind sofas, under beds and in the foot-well of my car. The microUSB charging standard should be just that – a standard. For most of the time …

Pebble unboxing and first impressions

Ok, it’s finally here! The last post I made about the Pebble was back in January where I roughly estimated that we’d have our Pebbles with us by the end of March, so my estimate seemed pretty realistic. Those that backed the Kickstarter project are more than familiar …

Hi-Fun Bluetooth Gloves

Hi-Fun Bluetooth gloves… Yes, bluetooth gloves. These are brilliant. You will look like a fool using them but if that doesn’t bother you then go for it. They are cool too. The gloves are made from the same material as most gloves. Thinsulate springs to mind but these …

GEAR4 Angry Bird Speaker

Cool new gadgets just keep coming and coming! GEAR4 have added to this with a new range of speakers. The one we have is the Purple Bird from Angry Birds Space. I’m not usually a fan of portable speakers, seeing the little “chav” stood on the corner with …

Motorola RAZR HD – Review

First of all I’ll quickly run through the good and bad points. Good Points 4.7″ inch 720p Display Expandable storage up to 32GB Smooth Operating system Bad Points Not a good looking device Non-removable battery Build I don’t think the RAZR HD is a good looking device, there …

Acer Iconia W700 – Review

Windows 8 has been one of the most intriguing OS launches that I have ever seen. Manufacturers have been given an OS that lends itself to any shape or form that they can think of. Off the back of that we have seen a variety of different shapes, …

Acer C7 Chromebook Review

The move to the cloud is becoming an almost irresistible force with remote storage being offered by companies such as Dropbox, Google (Google Drive), Apple (iCloud) and Microsoft (Skydrive). Possibly the first batch of devices to attempt to fully utilise this move are Google’s Chromebooks which run the …

BlackBerry Z10 official leather flip case review

So you’ve taken the plunge and bought yourself one of the brand new BlackBerry Z10 phones. Looks good, eh? The last thing you want to do is damage it. What better than the official BlackBerry Z10 flip case? BlackBerry (don’t call them RIM!) have gone all out with …

Gemini Joytab Duo 7 3G – Extended Initial Impressions

What have we here? Well, the lovely people at Gemini have sent me their new Joytab Duo 7 3G for review. I’ve spent a few days playing with the device to a point that I have started to get a feel for its capabilities. You can see some …

BlackBerry Z10 – Review

The BlackBerry Z10 is something quite different; it is something I can’t quite put my finger on. Is it good? Is it bad? Am I indifferent? What it definitely is; is part of a last attempt (along with the Q10) by BlackBerry to regain their place in the …

Sony Xperia Z – Review

Sony have been producing some fantastic phones since they took over the Sony Ericsson brand and now just produce Sony smartphones.  There have been a few so far in the S, P, U and T which was last years flagship camera phone. Now Sony go a step further …

Motorola RAZR HD video review

There are so many great phones out there at times the team end up getting hands on two at the same time.  This can be a good thing because it brings different opinions and thoughts to the table and helps create more content for you all to read. …

Adventures of a BlackBerry virgin – the foreplay

The Android lover’s eyes widened with expectation; what had once appeared to be a repulsive idea now seemed intriguing, daring, exciting even. Be gentle with me Mr. BlackBerry, it’s my first time. BlackBerrys have never appealed to me. Even in their heyday, when every third person was tapping …

Netatmo Urban Weather Station Review

The weather. It’s always a major topic of conversation here in the UK. You can stop anyone in the street here and probably spend a good half hour talking about the rain or how cold it is. If you’re into your weather, and you’re into your tech, check …

Logic 3 Ferrari Cavallino T350 headphones – Review

Over the ear headphones have seemingly become popular again. Not a day goes past without me seeing some kid in a tracksuit and a huge pair of white headphones costing hundreds sat on top of his head. I haven’t really bought into either the over ear headphone market …

Powwaaaaarrr!! (Desk charger review)

This week is going to be a bit of a blinder in the world of technology. There’s a HTC event tomorrow..at which HTC have something special to announce. Sony are apparently unveiling something the following day (Playstation 4?), and Coolsmartphone are heading to Mobile World Congress. With that …

BlackBerry Z10 – Initial Impressions

The BlackBerry is one of those phenomena that have totally passed me by. I have never used one, touched one or even within about 4’ of one. So when the whole world erupted with excitement a few weeks ago with the arrival of BB10 and the new flagship …

Nokia Lumia 620 – Review

For some reason whenever I get a “budget” or “entry level” phone I always expect great things. Somewhere along the line my brain just can’t compute that something that costs about £200 isn’t always going to be astounding. I think it is the various amazing budget devices that we’ve seen in …

Galaxy SIII Mini vs Galaxy SIII vs Galaxy Note

Remember that story about Goldilocks and the three bears? The little tike broke into their house, gobbled up some porridge, tried out some chairs and then went and had a kip on all the beds. The naughty little sausage. But what’s “just right” for you eh? The big …

Nexus 10 – Review

Introduction OK so this device has been out for a while.. but with limited availability we’ve struggled to get hold of a review unit.. well now we have one! You all know about the ridiculously high resolution screen, but how does the rest of  the device perform? What’s the overall experience like, …

HTC Butterfly – Review

I am an avid user of iPhones and I have been for the last 4 years and I’m currently getting bored of iOS, yes, bored. I have been wondering what to get next and the opportunity to review one of HTC’s top end devices arose, so I jumped …

Samsung Ativ S Review

By the sheer number of handsets sold Samsung are the world leader in mobile devices.  The Galaxy range of devices have become a massive hit and from the excellent Note II to the Galaxy SIII, their range of Android devices have taken the world by storm. It comes …

Otterbox Commuter Glacier case for Galaxy Note II – Review

I’m quite a fan of large phones, I’ve owned both of the Galaxy Notes and before that I owned a Dell Streak. With each and every one I always found myself balancing the phone on a narrow edge or just shoving it my rucksack to carry it around. For …

Asus Nexus 7 Audio Dock – Review

Do you know that feeling when you just have to have something? Well during my time with the Nexus 7 I have experienced it three times. First of all when the damn thing came out. The thought of a Nexus branded tablet was too much for me and …

Nokia Lumia 620 – Initial Impressions

Nokia seem to want to cover all sectors of the mobile market. From the lowly Asha range right through to the top end Lumia 920. The Nokia Lumia 620 sits somewhere smack in the middle. At first I thought the Lumia 620 was going to be a drastically …

Movpower Portable Charger – Review

So on Tuesday we added a post about the Movpower 5200 Portable Charger. I decided to get one. There’s another version available but this baby has a capacity of 5200mAh. That’s quite a bit. The Samsung Galaxy Note has a 2500mAh battery, which is hefty enough, so this …

Snugg iPad Headrest Holder – Review

Picture the scene, you’re on a long car journey with one or two kids they’re sitting in the back, asking “Are we there yet?” You’re not. You’re no-where near. You’ve not even got off your drive yet and they’re already bored or fighting each other. How do you …

Samsung Galaxy Camera – Review

Cameras are a part of our lives these days. Be it taking photos of your lunch and posting it to Instagram, taking photos of your ugly children and posting them to Facebook or even taking photos for a living.  I take a lot of photos every day, normally …

Seagate GoFlex Satellite – Review

About two “Gadget Show Live” events ago I was approached by a man carrying a iPad with a HD film playing on it. Nothing new there I thought, but as I was walking away, he showed me a small portable hard drive which he had in his pocket. …

Samsung Ativ S – Initial Impressions

There is always one late comer to every party.  In this case, Samsung announced the Windows Phone 8 touting Ativ S back in August of 2012 but didn’t actually manage to release it until December, almost a whole month after the Nokia Lumia 920. Still as the saying …

Power Jacket Case for iPhone 5 – Review

Regular listeners (and now viewers) of our podcast will know that I recently moved from a Galaxy Note 2 back to the iPhone 5.  I won’t go into the reasons why here, as it’s worth a good article on it’s own. On the whole, I’m happy with that …

RHA MA450i Earphones Review

This is the third in the RHA series that we here at Coolsmartphone have reviewed following on from the MA350’s and the CA-200 headphones. Both the 350’s and the CA200’s were impressive with the RHA-MA350’s being particularly good. So, how do the current top of the range MA450i’s …

Samsung Galaxy S III Mini – Review

We finally managed to land a Samsung Galaxy S III Mini in the palm of our hands. Thanks to the guys at Mobicity for the opportunity. Good points Good size Good battery life Good screen Bad Points 5 MegaPixel Camera OS can be laggy The Galaxy S III …

Huawei Ascend G330 – Review

Huawei are quickly becoming a major force in the mobile world and their latest budget offering, the Ascend G330, has a lot of pressure on it to continue the impressive trend of affordable handsets that punch above their weight. The Ascend G330 is the replacement for the Ascend …