Author: Iain McLaren

A month ago we reported that the Motorola Moto G would shortly be coming to Vodafone and it would be costing less than £100.   We have now had word that it is available at the price of just £100 when bought with a £10 top-up or “Freedom …

A year ago today Phones 4U stopped selling new O2 connections, a year later on and the trial separation appears to have turned into a full divorce with Phones 4U no longer selling O2 upgrades or pay as you go. Neither party seems to be too upset with …

Whilst Sony did announce the new Z1 compact, they have also continued the trend of CES 2014 by announcing more wearable tech to go with their Smartwatch 2. The new Smartband and Core are similar in idea to the LG Lifeband but aren’t just about fitness and like the …

LG today announced a pair of wearable technology; the Lifeband Touch and the Heart Rate Earphones.   The Lifeband Touch is a wearable band that clips onto your wrist in a similar way to the Jawbone Up or Nike Fuelband. It is designed to monitor the users activity …

Hands up who washes their hands after using their smartphone? What about, who uses an antibacterial screen cleaner or wipe on their smartphone or tablet? Anyone, anyone at all? Given that the average smartphone has more germs on it than the average toilet seat it might be worth …

Nvidia have started CES a little early by announcing the K1 family of chips for mobile devices. However, they won’t just be in mobiles, they will also be appearing in 4K TVs, consoles and cars (more on those later). The K1 is Nvidia’s attempt to reclaim lost market …

It’s an often discussed topic as to whether iPhone users are more intelligent than other smartphone users, or the opposite as they need a simpler phone. Well now there is “proof” – iPhone users are more intelligent. Now before you all head straight to the comments section to …

A few days ago I wrote about the JellyBean 4.3 roll out for the Sony Z1 and Z Ultra. One of the new features are the Xperia Themes. These will allow an extra level of personalisation to your handset by creating unique custom interfaces. Whilst the 4.3 update …

Samsung and LG seem to be having a competition at the moment to produce weird and wacky phone designs, with the LG Flex and Samsung Galaxy Round leading the race at the moment. Samsung’s next step is to patent the design of a folding dual display smartphone, which …

Sony announced a while back that the Z1 and Z Ultra would be getting the upgrade to Android 4.4 KitKat early next year and that there would be an intermediate update to JellyBean 4.3. The time for the 4.3 update has now arrived and it is starting to …

Samsung seem determined to make a Galaxy device for everyone, a perfectly good business model, but in the process of doing so seem to come up with some very strange names – the Core Advance? Is it a core phone or an advanced phone? Anyway strange names aside …

A common bugbear among mobile users is that you can have all the free minutes in the world but it still costs you money to phone an 0800 number, so this and broadband are the often the main reason people keep a landline. With 4G on the rise, …

Tiny Run Seasons is a seasonal version of the Android game Tiny Run. It is in effect a racing game except instead of driving something you are running. In this seasonal version you play as Santa running along snowy levels in a race against such characters as Bruce, …

It was hinted at a short while ago (here to be precise) but it is now official, Spotify users can now stream music for free on the iOS and Android apps, but not Windows Phone yet. This now brings the apps in line with the desktop version of …

Sky Go is a free app that allows you to watch the channels you pay for on the go via wifi or 3/4G, previously the only tablets it had been available for were iPads. Now Sky have released a new version of the app specifically for Android tablets …

Having a locked phone can be rather annoying, not only do you often have bloatware to contend with, it can also be tricky if you want to swap to a different network at the end of your contract. You’ll also have problems if you want to sell the …

Are you one of those people who simply must be able to get online to read email? Or send a tweet? Is the mere thought of having no data coverage your worst nightmare? If so then the Be-Bound app, available on Android. might be just the thing. The …

Nokia music is a free music streaming service that allows users to either choose a pre-created playlist from a wide range of themes and musical styles. You can also create one of your own by selecting up to 3 artists and letting the app then choose similar artists …

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star is a game developed by NimbleBit and Disney Mobile and published by LucasArts. It is a business simulation game, based on Tiny Tower a previous hit for NimbleBit. The Emperor has tasked Darth Vader with constructing the Death Star, according to his nefarious …

A recent survey done by CIRP (an American research company) has found that more and more users are switching from Android to iPhone and more people are upgrading from iPhone to iPhone than a year before.   Last year 55% of iPhone buyers were upgrading from a previous …

When the 3G licences were dished out way back in 2000, the networks agreed that they would cover 80% of the UK population, this was then raised to 90% in 2010. The deadline for reaching this target was June 2013, however whilst o2, Three and EE managed this …

At the recent Unpacked 2013 event Samsung announced that the Galaxy S4 would be getting an update to Android Jelly Bean 4.3 in October and it has now started to roll-out around the world. Whilst Samsung don’t release an official changelog for their updates users who have been …

TVCatchUp is a popular website and app that allows users to watch 57 channels live on computer, tablet or mobile, or rather it did. The broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 took TVCatchUp to court  for copyright infringement dating back to 2007. The judgement has just come …

LifeProof have until now just focused on the Apple market with cases for the iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5 and a few iPods but now they have extended their range to include the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4. The cases are advertised as having 4 proofs: …

The Note 3 is a very impressively specced handset with a 2.3GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 processor and 3GB of RAM so you would expect it to be towards the top end of all the various benchmark applications and it does. However it appears that like with the …

The idea of a Humble Bundle is that you can buy 4 games for however much you want and choose how to split the money between the developers and charity. If you donate more than the average (currently $4.52) then you get 2 free games as well. The …

In a somewhat interesting turn-up for the books, it appears that the European version of the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 will only work with European SIM cards. Clove have posted a picture of the sticker that appears on the box of the phones that they have in …

On Wednesday I took a little trip to London town for the launch party for the Sony Z1. The event was held at Sushisamba, which is on the 39th floor of the Heron Tower and provides some spectacular views, especially as the sun set. This meant a quick …

The Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence has resigned today. He will leave the post in November to be replaced by Jeroen Hoencamp. Guy leaves to become president and CEO of Rogers Communications, the Canadian media company. Jeroen is currently the enterprise director at Vodafone UK after joining the …

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a hands on event with the new Nokia Lumia 1020 at London Zoo. After a brief explanation of how the pro cam app worked and the capabilities of the device, it was onto the more important …

Along with the colourful iPhone 5C Apple also announced the premium iPhone 5S. The iPhone 5S packs the same 4″ retina display as the 5 and the new 5C in a premium finish in 3 different colours; gold, silver and space grey.   Inside the 5S runs a new …

The worst thing about phone contracts is having to have the same phone for 2 years whilst there are constantly new ones being released. O2 have their refresh tariffs to allow you to change phones mid-contract and now EE have launched Swap. Swap allows users with eligible handsets …

BBM should hopefully be available for download on iOS soon. I say hopefully as it was submitted two weeks ago and the current turnaround for app approval is only about 4 days. The news came out when Alex Kinsella, a senior strategic account manager at Blackberry tweeted:   …

When I first saw this headline I had an image of the back of the new iPhone changing shape and trying to kill people like the T1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Apple have actually held the patent for LiquidMetal for ages but only used it for the …

Tesco have a great deal on the black Nokia Lumia 820 at the moment – down from £299 to £199 sim free. You can also use the code TDX-MJGQ for an extra £20 off which brings the total down to a bargain at £179! The 820 is in the …

The Amber update is a Nokia exclusive update on top of the GDR2 software release from Microsoft for the Lumia range of Nokia phones. The update has the following extra features: Glance screen to check notifications, time and battery (not on 520 or 625) Flip to silence FM …

We had a question from a reader why no-one seemed to be covering a transparent phone which promised to also allow the owner to build their own phone by selecting the processor, screen size, memory, camera almost as if you were building your own PC. Somewhat intrigued by the …

Specs for a new Nokia, allegedly to be called the Lumia 825 have surfaced on the internet. The device is powered by a quad core Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz processor, which implies it will be released after the GDR3 update; the current software only supports up to dual core. The other …

Sony make a lot of the cameras on their phones, but now they have gone a step further with lenses that clip onto various phones. There are two lenses rumoured which are both G lens branded; this has become synonymous with quality in the digital camera world. The …

A few weeks back I got my hands on a Sony SBH-20 stereo Bluetooth headset, and after using it for a little while I decided to jot down my views onto paper (or rather type them onto a laptop). Key features: Small unit with controls and built-in microphone …