Author: Coolsmartphone Staff

Acer Iconia A110 – N7 beater?

Acer’s A110 tablet could be an interesting alternative to the beloved Nexus 7 tablet. The spec is identical with a 7″ screen, Tegra 3 CPU and Jelly Bean confirmed to be on the way. With 8GB and priced at £179 at launch it doesn’t look too different. Where …

Apple Tried To Settle With Samsung Before Going To Court

One of the many repeated mantras surrounding lawsuits is “why do they not just settle”. IN the case of Apple vs Samsung it’s been revealed that Apple did at least try but Samsung did not agree with the terms. The proposed settlement can be seen here To break …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 9

After a day’s delay we finally managed to record this weeks episode. This week we discuss more about Apple vs Samsung, YouTube being removed from iOS 6. James’ has been trying Chameleon launcher and we also chat about the upcoming Galaxy Notes 2 & 10.1 This week your …

New iPhone Nano SIM rumours

With a potential announcement only weeks away, the New iPhone (don’t call it 5!) rumours are hotting up. The latest one is that Apple’s latest and greatest will feature the new Nano SIM standard. Leaked pictures obtained by French site nowhereelse.fr appear to show a smaller SIM tray …

Samsung Galaxy S2 – Jelly Bean Alpha CM10

Ever since Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) was announced, I hoped it would be successfully ported to my beloved Galaxy S2. There are rumours that Samsung is working on an official version, which could be out by Christmas. If you cant wait that long, the amazing TeamHacksung Devs over …

Podcast Delay

Those of you who have been listening to the podcast for a while will know that we normally record on a Thursday and publish on a Friday morning but unfortunately, due to team availability this week we have to ask you to wait a little bit longer for …

YouTube app will not be part of iOS 6

Apple released iOS 6 beta 4 to developers this afternoon and in a move that may not be overly surprising, the YouTube app has been removed completely.  To say relations between Apple and Google have been strained recently would be an understatement. On stage at WWDC Apple announced …

Galaxy S3 to get Jelly Bean in September?

    A post over at Sam Mobile claims to have learned of the timescales Samsung currently have in mind for updating devices such as the Galaxy S3 and S2 and also the Galaxy Note. The post gives the following timescales Galaxy S III – End Q3 begin Q4Galaxy …

Samsung posts demo video of the Note 10.1

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 was originally announced back at MWC and seems to have been stuck in perpetuity ever since. Well, Samsung has now posted a video on one of their official YouTube channels which demos the features of the Note 10.1. Sadly the video is computer …

New Nokia Windows Phones coming in September?

Rumours are doing the rounds that Nokia may be about to launch not one but two new Windows Phone 8 devices in the month of September. The handsets are rumoured to be the Lumia 910 and 920 and will have multi core processors and high resolution screens, as …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 8

Many are hailing this as our best episode yet, granted those are the 4 people that were actually on the podcast but its still a valid opinion. This week we discuss the Circus that is Apple vs Samsung, What we’d like to see in a new iPhone, more …

Android 4.0 growing faster, Jelly Bean just getting started

As you can see from the data above, Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich is gaining pace in its install base according to Google’s report of how the different Android versions are divided. It is now on a total of 15.9% of devices, making it the 2nd most installed …

Apple Prototypes Revealed

Apple vs Samsung (or Samsung vs Apple) kicked off this week and its proving to be a hugely interesting affair because of the evidence thats being shown. The Verge have a man inside the courts reporting back and they have managed to get their hands on a raft …

Open WebOS will not support any existing devices

The Open webOS project have announced on their blog that their upcoming open source version of webOS will not be compatible with existing devices. This has come as a shock to the small but dedicated community who have supported webOS through difficult times and were looking forward to continued …

iPhone Event September 12th?

The New iPhone will be announced on Wednesday September 12th and will be available to buy on the 21st, at least according to Rene Ritchie over at iMore. Before last year, Apple typically held an event in the 2nd week of September to launch new iPods but last …

Alleged assembled ‘iPhone 5 pictures’ surface.

TheVerge have posted pictures of an alleged iPhone 5, courtesty of one of the suppliers, ILabFactory. The device has all the features of the leaks we’ve seen previously, the centered FaceTime camera, the smaller dock connector, and the longer screen which will hopefully take it up to at …

HTC Desire HD – No Ice Cream Sandwich: HTC Explains Why.

Yesterday HTC gave more information as to why the Desire HD (or HTC Ace) will not be included in the HTC’s round of updates to Ice Cream Sandwich. The Desire HD was launched in October 2010, and originally had Android 2.2 Froyo, which was later upgraded to 2.3.5 …

Samsung “Inadvertently” Removed Universal Search on UK S3’s

Recently Samsung issued a software update for the Galaxy S3 in both the US and the UK that removed the “Universal Search” functionality on the handset. This was reported to have been in response to ongoing litigation with Apple involving this feature, despite the Galaxy S3 not being …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 7

  It’s friday and that means its time for us to share another podcast with you. This week is a veritable variety bag of topics, including the LG Optimus 4x, the Huawei Ascend P1, 4G in the UK, Android Piracy and Dan has an announcement. This week your …

Boxcar acquired by Kwaga

Another day, another popular app iOS app being acquired. Today it’s the turn of Boxcar, the push notification app that became popular a few years ago as a central notification app, before the days of notification centre. The service was most commonly used as a supplement to apps …

[GUIDE] Hacking the Nexus 7 – Rooting and Flashing Roms

ROOTING There are a lot of all in one tools around that you can use to root your device but I find it more helpful if you do it manually, this also helps you get a better understanding of what is going on in the process. Admittedly it’s …

[ROOT] App DataSync

For those of us lucky enough to own more than one android device, you’ll love this app What does it do? Its like TitaniumBackup where it will take a backup of not just your app/game but will also save the data of said app/game So what’s the difference …

LG Optimus 4X HD Review

Quad core phones are the new benchmark in Android at the moment and LG have just launched the Optimus 4X HD. The specs are impressive, Android 4.0 Quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, with 4.7” 1280 x 720 Screen 8.9mm thin 8-megapixel camera, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, 21Mbps HSPA, 802.11 …

Google buys Sparrow

iPhone and Mac users may already be familiar with Sparrow and their apps for those platforms. Originally Mac only, Sparrow came to the iPhone  back in March and has quickly gathered a following as the go to email/Gmail app for iOS. The buzz seems to have caught Google’s …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 6

It was difficult but we managed to tear ourselves away from our Nexus 7’s for an hour to bring you another podcast. As well as the Nexus 7 this week we also discuss a potential 7 inch iPad, the ZTE Grand X, Apple not copying the Galaxy Tab …

Coolsmartphone recommended iOS app: Defense Zone HD

The tower defense genre is a well established one in gaming, and there are plenty to choose from on the App Store. But a star in the field is Defense Zone HD, from developer Artem Kotov. While the gameplay follows the standard method of defending against increasingly tough …

Gear4 StreetParty Wireless Bluetooth Speaker Review

If you’ve been reading our reviews recently then you’ll know we have tested a few speakers but none of them as yet have been able to become my own personal”Daily Driver” no pun intended. Recently I have ben testing the Gear4 StreetParty Wireless Speaker, a bluetooth speaker with …

Nexus 7: first impressions

You know what they say about third time lucky. Having made and then cancelled orders with Google and Currys, I decided to try my luck with Ebuyer yesterday afternoon as they were advertising the Nexus 7 as in stock and ready for delivery today. Roughly 16 hours later …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 5

We’ve reached our first milestone episode, number 5. This week we discuss how much the smartphone industry has changed since the introduction of the iPhone, 5 years ago. The rumoured Amazon Phone, the ZTE gaming phone, the ouya Android console, the Nexus 7 and much more. We most …

Opinion: Nexus 7 – Dawn of a new age, or failure of an existing one?

Well most people will be waking up this morning to the news that Ebuyer and Google either are, or will shortly be dispatching Google’s new Flagship Nexus device, the Nexus 7 tablet, running Jelly Bean 4.1 OS. Let’s just run through the key specs of Google’s newest device: …

App Review: CamCard for Android

Ever wanted to look awesome, professional and geeky all in one? CamCard is the app for you! Scan business cards that you’re given and store them directly as new contacts, or share that information with colleagues. In essence it’s a platform that allows the scanning of Business Cards …

Gear4 IceBox Edge iPad Case Review

I’ve been on the lookout for a case for my iPad 2 that looked good, didn’t add too much bulk or weight and would stop the back from getting scratched when I put it down on my wooden table. I’ve been using the Gear4 IceBox Edge for the …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 4

You can now start your weekend off the right way by downloading episode 4 of the Coolsmartphone Podcast. This weeks is a mixed affair where we discuss Google I/O a little further, talk about our experiences with Jelly Bean, rant about patents and deliberate over whether the delay …

Opinion: Patents

When you listen to Episode 4 of our podcast later, you’ll hear me rant solidly for about 5 minutes on patents and how they are reported. Today brings a perfect example to illustrate my point. On Tuesday Apple was granted a patent for “wearable displays” and many people …

Deal alert – Samsung Galaxy Nexus £319.99 from Expansys

So you fancy a bit of jelly bean action, eh? Funny how that sentance would have got you sectioned last week.. Anyhow the lovely people at Expansys have the “flagship” Google phone, the Galaxy Nexus at a rather impressive £319-99 with free shipping. Jelly bean will be officially …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 3

Here it is, right on time, Episode 3 of the Coolsmartphone podcast. This week is a Google heavy affair where we discuss the announcements from Google I/O and Ravi gives his hands on impressions of Jelly Bean. We also discuss the Nexus 7, The Nexus Q and lots …

Adobe kills Flash on mobile devices

Although Adobe announced at the end of last year they were not supporting Flash on mobile devices going forward, today they are going a step further and have announced it will be removed from the Google Play Store in August. Jelly Bean is the first version of Android …