Author: James Pearce

MWC – Hands on with the Archos 50 Diamond

This afternoon I went to visit Archos, I’ve owned a variety of devices made by them over the years and I think I have found the next device for my wish list and no it’s not just because it’s yellow. The Archos 50 Diamond is a great looking …

MWC – An afternoon trying to find the Asus Zenfone Zoom

The Asus Zenfone Zoom has a lot of people interested, it’s an Android device with an optical zoom lense and it looks rather like that Nokia phone we all know and love. The only problem was when I arrived at the Asus stand I just couldn’t find it. …

MWC – Archos invents “Fusion Storage”

Now and again in life you read something, you just think “Wow that’s really quite cool!” well today was one of those days. Earlier today Archos sent out a press release talking about their new method of unifying the internal storage on their devices with the micro SD …

MWC – Hands on with the Huawei Ascend G7

Huawei recently announced the Ascend G7 and I managed to grab a quick hands on with it today, it is a rather fancy all metal budget device from Huawei, spec wise it’s quite mid range. 5.5 inch HD IPS display, 720p resolution. Measuring in at 7.6 mm thick. …

MWC – Microsoft announce the Lumia 640 and 640 XL

Earlier on today we were at the Microsoft event where Stephen Elop and co announced the Lumia 640, the 640 XL and a bluetooth keyboard that actually works with Windows Phone. At the time details about the devices were sparse. We’ve since had the official press release and …

MWC – Doro Liberto 820 Mini

Doro make a range of devices that are really easy to use, aimed at the elderly or technophobes. Today they have announced the Doro Liberto 820 Mini is the “stylish” compact sibling to the company’s hugely successful Doro Liberto 820 model that launched in Q4 2014. Spec wise …

Podcast 130 – Mobile World Congress late-night special

Recorded way after 1AM at the Coolsmartphone Barcelona HQ, this is a special Mobile World Congress edition of the podcast. We recorded this after an extremely busy Sunday (March 1st) and is “recorded live” without any Skype calls because …. we’re all in the same room! Me, Leigh and …

MWC – An evening with Mozilla and Firefox OS

Picture the scene, on top of a great big hill in the sun Mozilla unveiled the latest devices to run Firefox OS and amazingly one of them was a Smart TV made by Panasonic, yes a television running a Web based OS. They did have five new phones …

MWC – Acer announce a range of new devices

Today Acer announced a range of new devices. They announced the Liquid Jade Z, the Liquid Z220, the Liquid Z520, the Windows Phone based M220 and the multi OS Acer Liquid Leap+ smartband. They decided to make the event open to the public and they chose the smallest …

Karbonn Titanium S6 – Review

Karbonn are another of those companies you might not have heard of, they are an Indian firm that have been making phones for about five years now. They have recently been named as hardware partners for Google and the Android One project and also Microsoft with Windows Phone. …

A Huawei Android Wear watch appears

Huawei haven’t really made any inroads into the wearable market, bar a fitness band we haven’t seen any hint of a watch. That’s about to change, an advert has cropped up online that shows an Android Wear device on a man in a suit, he’s no doubt scared …

What’s in my bag (James) – MWC 2015

The time has finally come, I’m due on a plane tomorrow heading to Barcelona. Yes it’s finally my turn to go to MWC. Somewhat naively I’ve packed a lot of stuff, I’ve got a couple of bags full of gadgets to help capture the excitement of the few …

Podcast 129 – MWC preview

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast. Joining me this week was Ian. This weeks topics revolved around MWC, Pebble and their new watch, Ian and his Huawei Ascend G7, me and a new Nexus 5, the amazing S-Pen functionality of the Galaxy Note 4, lots of …

Podcast 129 – Listen in live

Hello there, welcome to the “listen in live” page for our podcast. Joining me this week should be Ian, topics this week will hopefully be about MWC, what we’ve all been up to this week, Pebble Time and Ian and his Huawei Ascend G7. To listen in live …

Pebble and Windows Phone

The reaction to the announcement of the Pebble Time has been nothing short of amazing. Support has far exceeded the expected financial target and even amongst those who write for this site, a generally unexcitable bunch, there has been widespread enthusiasm and buzz (evident in the number of …

Xiaomi Mi4 FDD-LTE – Review

Some of you may have heard of Xiaomi, they are the third largest phone company on the planet. The problem is that they are huge in China and India, Europe not so big. You may also have come across Xiaomi with the Miui software, which started life as …

Podcast 128 – Is Project Ara the most exciting thing ever?

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast. Joining me this week were Craig, Garry and Leigh. This weeks topics revolved around MWC, Pebble and their teaser, Craig and his Motorola Droid Turbo, Garry amazingly not buying more tablets in preparation for MWC, Leigh and his LG G3, …

Podcast 128 – Listen in Live

Hello there, welcome to the “listen in live” page for our podcast. Joining me this week should be Craig, Garry and Leigh, topics this week will hopefully be about MWC, what we’ve all been up to this week, the latest leaks from HTC and Samsung, Pebble and Android …

Pebble for Android gets actionable notifications

Pebble have been playing catchup to Android Wear this year, with the latter offering more features. Festive such as actionable notifications, whereby you get an email and you can delete it from your watch. It was the one feature that kept me using Android Wear. During the night …

March of the Droids 2015

Over the years “meeting up” with online acquaintances has become a thing, be it UK based Android fans, Coolsmartphone writers, phone manufacturers, random people you’ve been chatting to on Twitter or heaven forbid Google+ (they say it’s a ghost town you know?). One such meetup that I’ve been …

Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard – Review

The Bluetooth keyboard market has taken off recently, with an influx of affordable Android and Windows tablets, along with the annual iterative updated iPads. Most people I know have a tablet of some sorts. Heck I even now one guy who asked me to fix his “Nexus” tablet …

Sony announce the Xperia E4 and promise endless fun will ensue

Budget phones are just as exciting as flagship phones, with many people opting for a cheaper device as opposed to something over £500. Sony have announced the latest in their budget offering, the 5″ Xperia E4. Key points about the Xperia E4 are as follows: · Sony’s acclaimed …

BQ to sell the Ubuntu Phone tomorrow

BQ are the company who are going to be making the eagerly awaited Ubuntu Phone and they’ve tweeted out this morning that they’ll be selling a limited number tomorrow between 9am and 6pm (CET which means 8am-5pm for us in the UK). If you’re interested I’d suggest hitting …

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro – Review

A few months ago Lenovo announced a range of new tablets, some running Android and some running Windows, yet they all shared something unique. They all have a kickstand on the back allowing you to prop up the tablet in a variety of positions. But the Yoga Tablet …

Ubuntu Phone coming to the UK very soon

We all love a new phone right? We all love fledging mobile OS’s right? We all love web apps right? If you said yes to all three then there is a phone coming out soon that’ll be right up your street. The Ubuntu edition of the BQ Aquarius …

Podcast 126 – I’ve gone and caught Samsung again

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast. Joining me this week were Dan and John, this weeks topics revolved around the latest leaks of upcoming HTC and Samsung devices, me and my Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Dan and his Lumia 930 running Denim, John impressed by …

Karbonn announce the 5″ S6

Karbonn are an Indian phone manufacturer, spurred on by the Android One project they’ve been targeting Europe with their budget phones, distributed handily by Amazon. Today they’ve announced the latest in the range the 5″ S6. It’s available in white or grey. The white has what appears to …

Podcast 125 – and the pink LG flip phone

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast , joining me this week were Dan, Ian and Garry. This week we talked about me wanting a pink LG flip phone, Garry deliberately trying to break his phone with a bottle of Cider, me and my HTC Re, …

LG announce an Android based flip phone

For years I have wanted a flip phone, I used to like the form factor more than any other and my move to Android meant the acceptance of a lack of different forms. Samsung have made a few flip phones over the years and now LG have launched …

How my Xiaomi Mi Band became really smart

I have been a wearable convert for about a year and a half now, be it a smartwatch or a fitness band I usually have one such thing strapped on. I see great potential in these little bits of plastic attached to me, I scour through related forums …

Podcast 124 – The week Dan committed to Windows Phone

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast. Joining me this week were Dan and John, this week we tried to keep our excitement about MWC in check. We discussed the next version of Windows Phone, Dan getting all excited about Windows 10, me and my Xiaomi …

The day has come, Dropbox is available for Windows Phone

I’ve been a Windows Phone fan/user for years now and I’ve often ended up in discussions with Android and iOS users listening to why I should use their favourite OS and not Windows Phone. During that lecture I often hear “big developers like Dropbox haven’t even got an …

Softmaker Office Suite for Android goes free

The hunt for the perfect office suite has been a long one, dating back to Windows Mobile. The hunt for the ideal office suite continues today. I and many others just want to quickly and easily edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files on the go. The problem is …

Fancy a Tesco Hudl 2 on the cheap?

The Tesco Hudl 2 is a great device, for the price anyhow. That price is now starting to drop and you can get one for £99 from Tesco Direct, admittedly it’s a refurbished unit, but it’s still a good deal. Just head over to the Tesco Direct page …

My time with the HTC Desire 816

The large oversized phone market is a hugely popular one these days, some call them “Phablets”, some just call phones, I call them the future. I know it sounds a bit cliche, but I really do like a large phone these days. I have been a large phone …

Podcast 123 – Lollipop on all of our phones

Welcome to episode 121 of our podcast. Where we chat about what we’ve up to in the week from a technology perspective, what we’ve been reviewing and our thoughts on the latest news. Joining me this week was Dan. Topics this week were about Samsung and their latest …

Arctic P614BT Bluetooth Headphones – Review

Headphones or earphones, which are best? Surely that’s one of the big unresolved questions in modern day life, I for one can’t decide which to go with and because of that I have piles of headphones and earphones at home. I’ve been hankering after a pair of Bluetooth …