Never Fall Behind with Smartphones

At the train station today I noticed a stack of people just staring at their phones. I was one of them, and if I’m honest I’ve become a phone zombie too. However, despite how mainstream mobile phones have become in society, many people don’t use them to their …

HTC Desire EYE review

HTC have been around for many years now. They’ve produced some really top end devices such as the HTC Sensation, HTC One X and even back to the HTC Desire which at the time was a specification powerhouse. The problem seems to be so many people still walk …

Now talk to your boiler

I know. We’ve now got to the point where we’re having to have a discussion with our own central heating. Thanks to Google Now working with those Nest thermostats, you can simply pick up your phone and say, “tweak my temperature to 22”. You’ll then hear your boiler …

MFX Glass Screen protector for Nexus 6

You’re sitting there on Christmas morning and you’ve just received a new smartphone. It looks brilliant in that pristine just-out-of-the-box way. You are concerned though, as you’re worried about taking it into the great outdoors without wrapping it up in cotton wool or perhaps oversized bubble wrap. Just …

BT in talks to purchase EE

The fight, we thought, was between O2 and EE for the pot of money being waved around by BT. There was also some discussion that Three were possibly going to make a surprise outside purchase of either one to consolidate their holdings. It seemed to make sense to …

Quad-core 1.5GHz for less than £94

Remember my review of the Rocomo GT-I9500? well, I’ve been on the hunt for cheap Android kit again and this time the 5″ Elephone P6000 has caught my eye. It’s on presale at the moment but will cost you just $169.99, which works out at around £108.60. This …

Android App Review – Lazy Swipe

Large screen devices have a lot to answer for these days, they force me to wear trousers with large pockets, they force me to carry a man bag whilst I’m out and about and most of all they force my thumbs to stretch way beyond what they were …

That’s it, I’m jacking it in

Seriously? I’ve spent about 12 years writing about smartphones. It all started off with the Microsoft Smartphone, then Windows Mobile, then Windows Phone and now it’s all seemingly going around in a big fat circle with Windows 10 Mobile. That’s not my beef though. I’m not even in …

WhatsApp on top of your lap – or just on your laptop?

Heck its been a long time coming – and it’s been wanted for a very long time. Who knows why it has taken so long, but we’re finally starting to see indications that WhatsApp may be coming to our desktops. So these hardcore guys over in the WhatsAPI-Official …

Mohawk – TurboCharger 8000 Emergency Charger review

This is less than £30 my friends, and inside there’s a fat 8000 mAh battery. I say “fat” because of the capacity, not necessarily the size, although it is about as chunky as my wallet used to be before I had a house and child. It’s another one …

Why I have (hopefully temporarily) ditched Windows Phone for iOS…

Reader’s beware: this is very much a first world problem!  Nonetheless, for those interested in tech matters it is a real issue.  So, without further ado, here’s my story. Much has been written lately about long-time Windows Phone users switching to other platforms.  This article blames the update …

I can see a MIPOW RAINBOW

Remember out MIPOW PLAYBULB Review? Put simply, it’s a light bulb with a Bluetooth speaker inside. Not only that, but you can also control the brightness of the bulb with your phone. Now MIPOW have gone one further, releasing a new product called PLAYBULB Rainbow. This is another …

Olixar BabyBoom Wireless Mini Speaker

It’s that time of year where you start to panic about what to get for the slightly tech savvy people in your inner circle of family or friends. You have trawelled through all the usual shops. You’ve already emptied your wallet/purse and your credit card has melted from …

Galaxy Note Edge lands on Vodafone UK

Samsung recently announced the new Galaxy Note 4 smartphone which we all expected to see and had a rough idea what was coming. What we were not expecting though was the introduction of another Note handset, this time the Note Edge. AFter our up-close look we were then told …

Drivers fined for snapping photos whilst driving

Picture the scene. You’ve been held up in traffic for ages. You’ve got sunburn from the brake lights of the car in front. Eventually, after shuffling along on the motorway for what seems like hours, you see the cause of your misery. A truck, on it’s side and …

Coolsmartphone Podcast 120 – The one without James

You really won’t believe it folks, but yes, we managed to actually record a podcast while James was away. I’ve got a little tear in my eye and the pride is pretty overwhelming, I have to say. This week we used Google Hangouts instead of Skype, so the …

Orange Wednesdays – It’s all over

A lot of people chose EE and, previously, Orange, because of the Orange Wednesdays offer. It gave you two seats in your local cinema for the price of one and, if you got enough codes, you could take the entire family for half the price. EE continued the …

Production of the Nexus 5 finished

Google has confirmed that the Nexus 5 production has stopped, and… once they are gone, they’re gone, so we’d suggest people get them while they can. It was only yesterday that Google removed the listing of the the Red and White variants of the Nexus 5 from Google Play. The …

Festive Fun apps to keep you entertained

OK, it’s that time of year already. Your bank account looks like a wasteland, there’s pine needles everywhere and that roll of sticky tape has mysteriously disappeared just when you need it. What apps do you need to ensure things go smoothly? Well, the Google Santa Tracker is …

Coolsmartphone Podcast 120 – Watch live

Look, it’s raining and it’s cold outside. You really don’t want to be out there. Get yourself comfy for the live “as it happens” recording of our 120th podcast. We’ll be going live at 8.30PM tonight and it’ll then be available tomorrow morning after we’ve removed all the …