Additional US numbers and a local presence from flyp

Yesterday I was banging on about making international calls and ways to keep in touch with people that are far away. This is flyp, an app which give you a free US phone number on your smartphone. The app lets you call and text any other American number …

CoolSmartPhone Podcast 159 – The Big Android BBQ Edition

Welcome to Episode 159 of the CoolSmartPhone Podcast. Is  this Episode Gary & Matteo join John for an early evening discussion and cover several exciting topics including: Matteo’s recent trip to the Big Android BBQ Gary’s opinion on the State on Sony following the release of the Xperia …

Samsung pay coming to UK

Samsung pay, which is the company’s mobile payment system, is reportedly coming to the United Kingdom, China and Spain in the first quarter of 2016. Currently only limited to a number of handsets, Samsung Pay, has not been as big as Apple Pay to date. However, one way …

YouTube kids coming to the UK and other regions

My little boy loves YouTube: he particularly loves watching people playing Lego video games. But I’m constantly worried he might come across something inappropriate for him. Seven months ago, I thought my prayers had been answered when YouTube announced its YouTube kids app. However (unsurprisingly, yet again) unfortunately …

Gartner reports another slide for Windows Phone

Figures released by Gartner make for yet more uncomfortable reading if you are involved in Windows Phone. The share of the smartphone market has now dropped to just 1.7%. The figures are for Q3 and compare to a 3% share from the same period a year ago. According …

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium now available on Vodafone

Remember our hands-on with the new Xperia Z5 range? If you want the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, it’s now available to buy from Vodafone here. It’s powered by Android 5.1 with Marshmallow on the horizon. It has a Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 CPU – that’s quad-core 1.5 GHz …

EE offer to track your personal items

After raising a serious truck-load of cash on Indiegogo, TrackR was born. It’s a small, coin-shaped device which you can attach to your keys, stick in your wallet or put on your handbag. Working with an app, it shows you where your things are and also works in …

LG G Flex2 down in price yet again

I’ve been in bed for two days straight with a serious case of man flu. It’s a burden us men have to bear, but we plod on without moaning about it, despite the lack of sympathy. There I sat, in bed, trying to fight the dreaded man flu …

5 Reasons to buy an iPhone 6S over a Samsung Galaxy S6

OK, that’s a massive click-bait title, granted. However, let’s be honest, for many years there has been rivalry between Samsung and Apple. Now that Samsung has now brought us the S6, the battle just got a little more heated. Both tech giants are at the top of their …

Google Nexus 9, now crazy cheap at Argos

If you’re out buying Christmas gifts then why not get yourself something? The Nexus 9 has just had a whacking £149 lopped off the usual £299 price – it’s now only £149.99 at Argos. The offer appears to be just on the white 16GB version – the black …

Amazon Prime reduced for 24 hours

With Black Friday deals looming on the horizon, a number of retailers are trying to steal a march by offering some early offers.  Amazon has announced that it is cutting the price of a year’s Prime membership from £79 to £59. As a Prime member I can safely …

You’re filming it wrong!

When you see someone filming with their smartphone, name the thing that annoys you more than anything. It’s probably this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA Filming stuff the wrong way around. It’s criminal. Worst of all is when someone starts filming in portrait and then turns the phone 90 degrees whilst it’s …

Android runtime on Windows Phone dead?

Say what you will about Windows Phone / Windows mobile, it’s still struggling to gain serious traction despite several reboots. Hopefully the new Windows 10 mobile will turn that around. Details of Windows 10 for your mobile are already available, and the new OS will be rolling out …

Get your HUKD on for Black Friday

While I’m not a firm favourite of the idea of yet another day dedicated to spending money, we’ve got to admit that HotUKDeals (HUKD) has continually saved us some dosh on the things we were already going to have to splash out cash on more than one occasion. …

Get the Deezer Geezer for 6 months Free(zer)

Following a rather mad advertising campaign, Deezer have a little gift for Three customers. Their paid-for service normally costs £9.99 for the ad-free, high-quality, off-line-listening version. That monthly subscription also lets you import your dodgy MP3’s that “fell off the internet” and delivers unlimited mobile listening. However, if …

How to get the iPad Pro experience for £186

This is my iPad 2. It’s quite old now and it’s pretty heavy. It has a 9.7″ LED IPS screen at 1024×768 and 132 ppi. It has a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 CPU and there’s 16GB of storage on board. You can get one for about £150 on …