Tag: travel

European travel made easy with QDOS – all the power you’ll need

If you’re travelling to Europe this summer, QDOS has you covered for all your power charging needs. Whether you’re traveling alone, in a couple or with the kids, don’t waste precious packing space with multiple chargers that you could end up leaving or losing. PowerSnap with Stand Price £39.99 Available: QDOS website …

Swytch electric bike swapping kit achieves huge sales

Remember our story on the eBike conversion kit? It’s basically an Indiegogo project which delivers the bits you need to easily switch a normal push bike into an electric one. The guys tell me that the kit will go on general sale in April next year and prices …

Did you relax on holiday? Many are still glued to their phones

Here in England we’re starting to see the onset of Autumn, with leaves only clinging on and the weather turning a bit cooler.  Our suitcases are still cluttering up the house though, because many of us will only just be returning from our summer holidays. But, is it …

Electric scooter sellers! eBike stores! Get in touch!

I have a long story which I won’t go into right now, but let me tell you this. In two weeks I will no longer have a car. This will make the Coolsmartphone Podcast, recorded in the car, a little difficult. However, it does at least give me …

TravelCard Charger – Review

Last weekend I went camping and, without doubt, the portable charger was definitely a key piece of kit. However, remembering to bring one of these with you is a challenge, so this – the TravelCard – can sit in your wallet or purse ready for you to use …

Bored whilst travelling? Your phone can do much more

I went to Reading recently. Reading. It wasn’t that thrilling. The Holiday Inn is nice enough, but apart from the local Aldi and a business park, there wasn’t really anything to do. So there I was, in a hotel room, watching the free TV channels and getting bored …

Where’s the place you don’t get a signal ?

Ok everyone. I’m going to ask you a question. Name me one place where you regularly have signal problems. Not a geographic spot, but a place. Yes, it’s a train. Trains are a pain in the backside. On journeys to London it’s fairly usual to hear someone say, …

Three team up with easyJet for stress-free travelling

Three UK have announced a partnership with easyJet to to give customers a well deserved and time saving upgrade to their travels. No one likes the stress of waiting in line to check in for a flight, only to have to wait ages the other end for your …

Syncwire 4-port mains charger – Review

You, my digital friend, look like you need something that will charge four of your things all at the same time. From a wall. This, right here, and for £14.99 as I type from Amazon, is the Syncwire 4-port mains charger. It’s designed to be used in the …

Do we still need travel agents?

A few years ago you’d walk into a travel agents, grab some super-slippy brochure and you’d have to decide – based on just a few professional photographs – where you’d like to go on holiday. The orange-faced travel agent would perhaps tell you how she’d been to that …

EE scrap roaming fees in tariff refresh

EE have today become the latest UK network to announce roaming changes in Europe just in time for summer. It comes just after Vodafone did the same thing in April and about 9 months after EE launched an inclusive EU roaming package. The UK’s largest network has confirmed …

dodocool 4-Port USB Charger – Get a discount with Coolsmartphone

Yesterday we took at this dodocool wall charger. It has 4 USB outputs and you can still use the electrical socket you plug it into because it passes through an international socket. The only minor issue is that, here in the UK, it’s a bit upside down. That’s …

aLLreLi 4-port Travel Wall Adapter – Review

You’re about to go on holiday, you’ve got everything – the sun lotion, the wet wipes (is that just me?) and your gadgets. Wait though, what about those travel adapters you bought? You put them in that “special place” didn’t you? Are they in the bottom of the …

Euro Data Pass ditched, Travel Data Pass appears instead

Using your phone abroad is still something we have to think about ahead of our flight. Operators like Three have their Feel At Home service and other networks have packages and bolt-ons or a certain amount of roaming minutes and data included. EE have today unveiled the Travel …

Using your phone on holiday. Top tips.

Honestly. I’m no good at the Search Engine Optimisation business. I’m writing this during the last few days of August. It’s when most of you guys are returning from holiday but here, here I am writing an article on how to prepare for a holiday. That’s a bit …

iClever 6-port USB Charger – Review

Charging your devices can lead to tangled wires and multiple chargers dotted around the house. During the last few months we’ve seen a lot of chargers with multiple USB sockets because, quite simply, people have more gadgets. This one is from iClever. It’s the 6-Port USB Travel Wall …

Coolsmartphoner Travelling: Singapore

Here at Coolsmartphone we love our mobile devices, and when travelling want to keep using them. What’s the point of having a wonderfully powerful smartphone if you can’t use it to post pictures of your meals from distant lands? Apart for social media bragging while travelling, smartphones can …

Skyscanner, who are they and what do they do?

Those of you who are regular listeners to the CSP towers podcast will no doubt have heard of Skyscanner and its resident mobile guru Matteo. Although it sounds from his name that he would be a resident of warmer climes, he actually harks from my neck of the …

Power Cube – Tidy up your cabling nightmare

I’m always the guy who packs a 4-way extension lead in my bag when I travel. If you’re going abroad it means you just need one adaptor plug and it makes things a little tidier and more central. This, the Power Cube (£27 from Littlewoods) takes things a …

Rail Travel. There’s still some challenges.

As promised, I’m writing all the Coolsmartphone content this weekend on my phone. It’s part of #acerliveblog2014. There’s a number of challenges facing rail commuters still, even in our modern world of 4G communications, HD video and on-demand content. It’s not always the trains themselves though. On the …

Blogging like a train!

This weekend we’re doing something a bit different. It’ll involve one phone, a few battery packs and a lot of train journeys. From Friday all of my posts, pictures and updates across the weekend will be created and sent purely from my phone. We’re going to see if …

Seasonal Cities – Your New Travel Companion

City Guide Books are big business and an almost essential purchase for those visiting a new place on vacation. However like all paper based products they have one major downside, in that they are only as up to date as on the day that they were printed. Therefore …

Traveling on the bus does have benefits

Public transport is my thing. I use it to get to work and to see friends. In a way I quite like it, because instead of being one of those people texting while driving (and believe me. I see this a lot from up high in the buses), …

Vodafone launch WorldTraveller, but…

If you’re a regular reader then you’re probably already aware of the Three Feel At Home service. It costs nothing if you’re a Three customer and it automatically lets you use your bundled data, minutes and texts in 16 different countries just as if you were back in …

What is in my bag? Huawei Paris event edition

Today I embark on a brief sojourn to Paris for a the Huawei press event. I thought I would enlighten you as to the kit I intend to use for the trip. As this is a reasonably short trip I don’t need to be hugely weighed down so …

Easily find your way around new places with WAM

I was trying to think of a whitty and informed intro to this post, just as a way to show how this app – called “WAM” (short for World Around Me”) – helps you find your feet in foreign or new places. Luckily, they’ve sent us this rather …

Globalgig – Cheap data when you go abroad? Yes, really.

Bear with me on this, because this thing could just blow your mind. Well… if not it’ll at least rock the mobile market a bit. Imagine you’re about to travel abroad and want to use your phone or MiFi out there for keeping connected to the web. You’re …

Waze the social sat nav app gets more features in new update

Yesterday Waze the free social sat nav and mapping app had a bit of an update adding more features to the app. So what’s new in this version? What’s in this version: ✓ See friends driving to your destination & everyone’s ETA ✓ Send a pick up request …

App Review: Image It

“Image It” is an interesting application that claims to ‘break the language barrier’ using images. It is an interesting concept I have to agree; recently on a trip to Brussels I took a taxi from my company office to the Eurostar station, well tried to. Even the word …

Three Euro Internet Pass Review

It has been a while since we reviewed a mobile service however as I am a Three UK customer and jetting off to Madrid and Austria for 11 days, it seems like a good opportunity to review a service that I will be using daily and that is …

Orange Travel Angel saves you from big bills

In our recent podcast we were discussing roaming packages and data. It’s a problem that face when they go abroad – that bill shock. A lot of changes have been made recently to ensure that prices are reduced and are more reasonable when you go on holiday. However, …

Triposo launches new travel app for iPhone

Triposo has been around for about a year now on both Android and iOS platforms. It’s a useful app to have installed on your phone when you go on holiday and offers you a lot of information about the city you are in. The main great thing about …

Navigate and stay informed with Waze

Available for absolutely nothing, Waze is an Android / iPhone / BlackBerry / Nokia application which works by sharing data between users. By sharing and collecting information on progress by other users it’ll help build a picture of road conditions. Their Live Map shows some of the reports …

Travel SIMs – XXSIM offers free incoming calls

We all know the story by now. You go abroad, you use your mobile, then you come home and collapse in shock when the bill arrives. If you’ve got an unlocked handset there are ways around the “roaming shock” by using roaming or travel SIM cards. There’s a …

Coolsmartphone Recommended Android App – Triposo

Triposo Travel Guides have guides for various cities around the world. I first found out these guides in a post Andrew Fraser wrote about his trip to Italy. These travel guides all contain information and maps of the relevant cities that is stored on the device. You can …