Author: Coolsmartphone Staff
The Android Market has hit a new milestone of achieving 400,000 active applications, reports Distimo. It is still playing catchup to the Apple App Store but it is certainly gaining pace and I imagine will continue to do so – there’s only so many apps that can be …
In another ‘Xmas terrific deal’ shock, Orange have reduced the price of the original Motorola Defy to just £99-99. This seems to be out of stock on-line, and therefore in store only, but definitely worth checking out if you’re after a cheap Android handset. Leigh reviewed this handset back …
So, after this post from Leigh, some of you might be considering purchasing this phone. We have one of these in the house, so I thought I’d share with you my first impressions. The phone seems to be a slightly remodelled version of the LG Optimus 7. A …
Further to our article about the Nexus S price reduction, I finally got my handset yesterday and immediately set about trying to update it to ICS. To cut a long story short, it’s not as easy as just going through the settings menu and requires a little manual tinkering, The …
We like free stuff at Coolsmartphone so don’t forget, Apple’s 12 days of Christmas starts today with free videos and music available every day until 6 January. Get the app from the app store if you haven’t already for a great Coldplay freebie! http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/
Christmas has come slightly early for Android bargain hunters. Carphoneware are currently selling Samsung’s first Nexus device sim free for £199.95. For that you’ll get a handset with a 1Ghz hummingbird processor, 4″ Super AMOLED display, 16GB of inbuilt memory and, most importantly, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. …
The guys over at Orange have kindly lent us an Orange Barcelona to review. The Orange Barcelona is a low priced Android handset in the candy bar format with a hardware keyboard and touch screen. Think Blackberry (or just look at the picture below). The spec highlights are …
I am a huge fan of hardware QWERTY keyboards in mobile phones. My affection towards such devices started with the i-Mate K-Jam (better known as the HTC Wizard) back in 2005. It iterated through many different handsets ever since, up until the HTC Desire Z which I currently own. …
Microsoft have just released an updated app for ‘SkyDrive’ available for your iOS device or your Windows Phone 7. Not really sure why they have released a seperate app for WP7 as you could already access all your Skydrive docs from your Office tile, all be it the …
Microsoft has released Lync 2010, its unified communications platform for Windows Phone 7 and is now available to download on the Zune Marketplace. Lync is the new collaborative working tool and looks set to roll out on other platforms pretty soon too. Link – Microsoft Lync
Expansys have dropped the price of the Jil Sander Windows Phone AGAIN to £199-99. Quite a bargain for a handset that runs the rather excellent Mango update I’m sure you’d agree. We’ve been speaking with Expansys to get a review unit for you as soon as possible. It …
MoTweets – Panoramic Software I always like to use generic software whenever possible. So, when I switched over to WP7 from the iPhone, I started using the official Twitter app. It soon left me very frustrated because I couldn’t find a way to “Reply to all”, which I …
Rumours (and video evidence) are popping up all around the internet regarding an issue in the Mango flavour of our beloved Windows Phone 7 handsets. Users could experience a denial-of-service to their text messages. The issue can be triggered by messages received from Facebook chat or Windows Live Messenger and …
O2 have now announced a new leasing service for it’s UK customers. This service is available from O2 retail outlets and through their customer services and offers customers the chance to lease a new smartphone for 12 months for £55 per month. The service includes: 750 Minutes of …
Remember this? The original, laser-disk arcade game first appeared in 1983, the same year as the first Star Wars arcade game and as Nintendo produced the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom. It was about the same time that I fell in love with arcade games; shortly after I got a …
Installation: this is just a matter of going to the marketplace and downloading the app as normal but once installed you won’t find it listed as initially you have to access it via the Xbox Live tile, but once there you can pin it to your start screen. …
Major Nelson has just announced that the Xbox companion is now available to download for your Windows Phone. Look out for the review shortly. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/b057fbe2-ceb1-470f-a7fe-09c862ca6dd9?wa=wsignin1.0
Just in the process of downloading an update for the Lumia 800 but can’t find out what the update does but I am assuming this is the improved battery performance. Will let you know how it goes. Update 1: Have run the phone for a day now and …
Amazon’s Fire Android tablet has been a hit in the US, but we are still waiting for it to hit the UK. According to the Gadget Show website though, we might not have long to wait. A “source inside Amazon” has said the tablet will come to the UK …
I’ve been known to frequent a few pubs in my time, so when word came through of the Good Pub Guide’s new app I was keen to give it a whirl. Created by the makers of the well-established and bestselling Good Pub Guide book, the app contains all …
So here it is, the Nokia Lumia 800 – the “first real Windows Phone” phone made by Nokia. I’ve had virtually no experience with Windows Phone 7 before and was looking very much forward to the Lumia 800. Is WP7 able to impress me as much as Nokia …
It looks like we could be one step nearer to the whole Apple vs Samsung debacle moving to a close – though not in the foreseeable future… Reuters are reporting that “Apple failed to convince a U.S. judge to block Samsung Electronics from selling Galaxy smartphones and tablets in the U.S. market, depriving …
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has barely been out for two weeks and it already has an overclocked kernel thanks to XDA members franciscofranco and coolbho3000. What makes this even more amazing is that neither of them own a Galaxy Nexus! This is the third iteration of his kernel and it’s stable and fast, …
For those that remember the good old days of the Commodore 64 and Spectrum, the Codemasters classic Dizzy – Prince Of The Yolkfolk is heading to iPhone and Android this December. I personally spent countless hours attempting to get Dizzy to jump from screen to screen and land …
Android software engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru posted on twitter this evening that the factory images for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus are now available for download. What this means is that if you flash a bad ROM onto your device or there’s an issue whilst flashing you can use this …
Ok, so there’s a lot of people that can’t wait for the Galaxy Nexus bug to be fixed so here’s a guide on how to flash the update manually… You will need: – A Samsung Galaxy Nexus – An Unlocked bootloader – A Rooted device To root follow …
One of our readers has just informed us the Gingerbread update is available for the Motorola Atrix, on the Orange network. Time to manually check for updates in settings 😉 Thanks to Andrew Farquhar for the tip.
I previously wrote about World of Goo when it was released on iOS earlier this year. It’s a fantastic puzzler in which you’re tasked with building structures out of cute little Goo balls with the goal being to help your Goos reach the exit pipe for each level. …
Google have just released Google Maps 6.0 onto the Android Marketplace and the standout new addition is the ability to view indoor maps of some malls, department stores and airports. Unfortunately the feature is currently limited to US and Japanese locations however that should hopefully change before too …
Another day, another legal battle over patents, and another one HTC has lost. HTC has withdrawn its appeal against the defeat it suffered to patent company IPCom, meaning it is now open to having to pay IPComs costs, as well as a handset ban on any that involve …
SPB Software, the mobile software development company famed for it’s prevalence on Windows Mobile devices of the past, has been acquired by Russian company Yandex for an undisclosed amount. Yandex is known throughout Russia as the provider of the country’s leading search engine and operates across most of Eastern Europe. SPB …
A while back we talked about the impending trial from O2 around their femtocell technology – well the box finally arrived and I’m going to show a couple of pictures of the mythical beast. Firstly we’ll note that IT IS A TRIAL !… this is not for the …
Just found this quote from Nokia Support on the WMPoweruser web site addressing the reported issues with the Lumia 800 battery life. “We understand that some people have expressed concerns about battery life on the Nokia Lumia 800. Early investigations show that most people are enjoying the full …
The issue of software updates has always been a topic that has raised much discussion among fanboys users and is a stick that iOS lovers have often used to beat their Android counterparts with. I personally believe that for all of Apple’s faults, one area where they’ve indisputably …
After HTC lost its latest court battle with Apple regarding the graphics company S3 that it planned to buy, the deal now looks in jeopardy. Like a lot of Android companies, HTC were looking to bolster their patent portfolio, but the ITC ruled that Apple had not infringed …
A report by the market research and consulting group, Strategy Analytics, shows that China, not the US, is now the superpower in relation to smart phone sales growth. The report goes on to detail that in the third quarter, sales grew by 24M versus the US’s 23M. The …
Google have just given their iPad search app a fairly substantial overhaul. The updated app features a much slicker UI with an integrated browser that slides across to display websites when you click on search results. It’s a feature quite reminiscent of Twitter for iPad. The app also …
A recent report from security giants McAfee suggests that Google’s Android OS is the platform of choice for hackers currently. The report goes on to note that the levels of malicious software or “malware” targeting the Android OS jumped 37% in the 3rd quarter of 2011, and that …
After the apparent lethargy shown by Adobe to support Android 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich) with Flash, it appears that their about turn will be Flash’s swan song on the Google OS. Sources over at Pocketlint have posted that Adobe has confirmed, that whilst it plans to release Flash for …
