Tag: android
Usually, if you want to try a new operating system or even upgrade your existing one, you’ll need to mess about with boot loaders and watch as your phone suddenly becomes unsupported. How about trying a whole new OS by just downloading an APK? You’ll need to accept …
I don’t get this. Sorry. I know it’s good and that, but if I’m writing for this particular website and want to come up with a word meaning “fantastic” but, different, I could just go to thesaurus.com and get words like “awesome”, “superb”, “unreal” or “marvelous”. However, if …
The rumour train has once again stopped by at Coolsmartphone Towers. It dropped off the usual detritus, however, whilst sifting through the rubbish we found this thread of info about the recently discussed Pixel C Android tablet. Dutch website tweakers.net are stating that Google plans to open the …
Have you been thinking to yourself, “It would nice to have a handset that didn’t require a backpack or a monolithic battery”? I had the thought occur to me the other day but then instantly dismissed it as nonsense and told my brain to behave itself. Of course bigger …
This is the ZTE Axon Elite. It’s a big phone, with a 5.5” inch screen, and it doesn’t feel small in the hand. It shouldn’t either – there’s a lot packed under the hood of this ‘Ion Gold’ coloured beast. I’ve never had serious hands-on time with a …
You may recall a little while ago I was raving about an Android PC Box that came from the Far East. China to be precise. Well, the time has come for the unboxing to happen and I’m of course talking about the Remix Mini. I have already had …
Today Samsung announced the details and specs of the 2016 Galaxy A series range of devices. They will be coming in three screen size options: 5.5-inch for the A7, 5.2-inch for the A5 and 4.7-inch for the A3. Equipped with an enhanced camera system for brighter and clearer …
This is the review of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2, an affordable 5.5” smartphone which hails from the largest smartphone vendor in China (third largest smartphone vendor… in the World…). The Redmi Note 2 was announced and released in August 2015, and as with all other Redmi branded …
Google’s latest handset has been garnering a lot of interest from the tech world over the last few weeks. In between all the reports of people not getting their orders delivered on time and Google delaying the launch, I managed to secure one for this review. With the …
You all know it the legend that states if you drop a piece of toast, it will land butter side down the vast majority of the time. It has even been scientifically proven by this guy. In a number of tests he ascertained that the majority of falls will …
Yesterday Xiaomi officially unveiled the Redmi Note 3, but this wasn’t all the company had to announce. During the same event Xiaomi announced the Mi Pad 2 and the Mi Air Purifier 2. Lets start with the Xiaomi Mi Pad 2, which as the name suggests is the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
This week I am attending The Big Android BBQ Europe in Amsterdam. Today I am blogging live from the Code Kitchen where some very clever people are engaging in code challenges. The Big Android BBQ has been a two day Android focused conference. Opened with a Keynote delivered …
It feels like it was only yesterday that I was writing a story about malware on Coolsmartphone . A security researcher from Quihoo 360, unveiled an exploit at the PacSec conference in Tokyo by Guang Gong. However, most of the details have not been fully released to the …
We recently reported on various studies and stories about Android being vulnerable and various applications been hijacked by malware. It is important to stress at this point, with due care and attention to where you are downloading applications from – you will reduce the risk of an attack on your …
Two unstoppable forces. Two immovable objects. Apple and Android. They never seem to really work well together, and if you want a small piece of one OS then you usually have to jump in and sign up for the whole ecosystem. But wait. What’s this? Apple Music on …
First it was Bendgate, now it’s Crackgate. More supposed tales of woe to hound the new Nexus 6P flagship. Some users are reporting that the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 panel that sits in front of/protects the camera is spontaneously cracking. It appears that this piece of glass isn’t …
The time has come to put Sony’s finest under a microscope and to see what you are getting when you plonk down £610* on the counter. We know that the camera is meant to be the best thing since they made the camera obscura back in the early …
Meizu is a brand not particularly well known here in the UK. Leigh recently reviewed the Meizu M1 Note, and I have been using a Meizu M2 Note for a few months now. This is my review of the Meizu M2 Note, a device purchased from Shenzhen Chigon …
It’s safe to say that we were pretty impressed with the HTC One A9. Our review highlighted the great battery life and excellent build quality. Sure, it’s a shame that here in Europe we’re going to have to pay more for it and we’ll be getting the 16GB …
Have you ever wanted to have an exquisitely made Android phone that will make those “friends” that have been drinking from the iPhone lake for so many years a little bit envious? Good news then, as you can now get one. The phone I am talking about does …
Oh no. We’ve had OUKITEL contact us again. They’re taking an interesting approach to selling their phones. Yesterday they were using a phone as a chopping board and now they’re hacking away at the OUKITEL K6000 with a blinkin’ angle grinder. Obviously this is something we’d advise against. …
We are quite fond of Huawei here at Coolsmartphone. We also have a soft spot for Honor. Now what is these companies have in common? Well, there are several things. One is the daddy brand and the other the offspring, they use the same design language etc. The …
I know Christmas is around the corner, but do you have £111.52 kicking around? Fancy yourself a Lenovo K80M? It looks like this and packs a quad-core 1.8GHz CPU with 32GB of storage, 2GB RAM and a microSD card slot.. The screen is a 5.5″ 1280×1920 pixel unit …
Monitoring a phone might sound like a slightly strange idea, especially when people talk of “spy software”. However, there’s perfectly legitimate reasons for doing it, such as keeping an eye on your kids. XNSPY, which is available for both Android and iPhone, will let you know where your …
Here is a game very close to my heart, as it combines smartphones and tablets with heavy metal! TeamRock are usually known for the Internet radio station and collection of music magazines from Metal Hammer, Classic Rock to Prog, covering every genre of rock music. Now they have …
OnePlus have been busy as of late and have just launched the OnePlus 2. They have just closed off the reservation list and are busy sending invites out to the millions of people who had registered. Not only that, but there’s flash sales to appease the masses of …
Not something we usually consider as mobile phone owners, is that question of “Where did my application come from? What platforms does it use?” Both questions tie into: “What permissions does my applications require?” Sadly we rarely think of any of these questions, therefore we put our trust …
Oh now, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Yet another great deal on what is a very good smartphone. This one is from LG, and it’s the curved G2. This is a handset that was £459, but they’re now knocking it out for just £214.99 at Expansys. …
A bit of history first, and perhaps a personal viewpoint from myself. Back in 2002 I handled my first HTC smartphone. It was branded up as an Orange SPV and it kick-started this entire website. HTC had a meteoric rise in the years following, releasing phones under their …
I know what you’re after a random smartphone that you’ve never heard of for less than £65. Well, we already know that the network-locked Vodafone Smart speed 6 is just £50, but how about an unlocked smartphone for £64.42 ($98.92)? Meet the good ‘ole iNew U5. Nope, we’ve …
I need to go out this afternoon and buy a sander. A sander. Sheesh. What happened to me eh? If I didn’t have to get one of those, I’d probably upgrade my rather battered LG G3 for an LG G4 because, well, just check out these prices. At …
During Mobile World Congress we paid a visit to the KAZAM stand. The UK company had grown quite substantially, and had a rather grand display of handsets plus a much larger presence at the exhibition. We attended just a few days after reviewing their super-slim (and rather nice) …
Being married to an Indian woman has advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that the mother-in-law is about 8000 miles away (sorry couldn’t resist a mother-in-law joke!). Another advantage is that when we do have to go meet her I get to experience the assault on …
If you bought a tablet from Tesco then chances are, it could’ve been the Hudl. We reviewed the original Hudl and the Hudl 2. They were good, well-priced tablets. The last one was … Yes. I used the word “was”. Sadly, after spotting it on MoDaCo we’ve had …
A couple of weeks ago we posted on here about Android manufacturers unable to patch devices in a timely fashion, and HTC being unable to commit to Google’s monthly update pledge. This was for a number of reasons, including the costs in developing security patches fast enough to release …
You’ve really got to mention the price in the introductory paragraph for this particular device. For just £50 on Vodafone Pay As You Go it’s insanely cheap. Some of you probably pay more than that per month on a contract. This is the Vodafone Smart speed 6, a …
Who’d have thought it, a desirable Blackberry? Well, that is exactly what has happened with the newly announced Blackberry Priv. This one has been in the pipeline for some time now, and it’s got a few of us at CoolSmartPhone Towers rather flustered. We have written about it …
