Author: Ronnie Whelan

Samsung are ramping up the marketing machine as the Galaxy S4 nears release and, rather than using anti-Apple smeer campaigns like at the launch of the Galaxy SIII, they’ve published some videos demonstrating the software features they feel are the most innovative. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was announced …

Do you have a massive head? When I say massive, I’m talking equine. If a Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 is too tiny for you, and the Huawei Ascend Mate won’t quite do it either, then the Asus Fonepad could be just the phablet you’re looking for. Yes, it’s …

So, You like the Sony Xperia Z, and you would buy one, but it’s just not purple enough for you. You could sign up for a 24 month contract on O2 and get one in purple, but you have commitment issues. Huff, life’s hard… But wait! What’s that? …

The Nokia Lumia 520 is the latest in Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 range. It’s the budget baby of the range with most UK retailers knocking it out at around £150 on pay as you go. However, at the time of writing the Carphone Warehouse has it for £99.95 …

The Facebook phone (aka the HTC First) was announced to the great applause of very few people. However, Android Community have found out something rather exciting about the HTC First – the Facebook Home bit is just a custom launcher that can be disabled in seconds! What’s a …

The BlackBerry Q10 is the brother of the celebrated BlackBerry Z10 and it’s now available to pre-order at Carphone Warehouse. The Q10 is what you might call a more traditional BlackBerry. It’s got the familiar QWERTY keypad taking up half the handset and the screen occupies the rest. …

At Coolsmartphone we realise that our readership are all far too intelligent to be sucked in by April fools jokes (why else would you come to a site with the word smart in the name?), so we’re going to lay this one on the line. 1st April, the …

Apple have become world leaders in marketing and selling their products, with the Apple stores being their crowning glory. But what if Apple stores were for real apple products? Cider, for example. The makers of Somersby Cider decided that it would be a fun idea to find out …

Like Facebook and Android? You may want to put a note in your diary then, because on 4th April there will be an event to announce… well, something. All we know is that it’s apparently going to be Facebook’s “new home on Android”. As with most marketing these …

It’s emerging that huge amounts of Three and O2 customers are getting calls from a strange phone number: 0088213300744 Details are sketchy at the moment, but it seems that the number originates from Bangladesh, and some people are claiming it’s a call back scam that will charge you …

Most generic car kits just aren’t man enough for the Samsung Galaxy Note II, so Kidigi have addressed this with a nice, meaty dedicated kit. Kidigi are a specialist third party mobile technology accessories company from Hong Kong that caters for most popular handsets (they even do Blackberry …

Ever found yourself in a shower with a hot model and really wish you had a smartphone with you to tweet the moment? No, me neither, but just in case you do T-Mobile have the answer. T-Mobile CZ have finally proved beyond doubt that tech can be sexy …

My first fumble with the BlackBerry Z10 hub was uninspiring, but what about the fancy new keyboard? A revolution of data input, or a typo waiting to happen? BlackBerry are pushing this hard as one of the must see features of BB10, so today I’ll adjust the anglepoise …

So you’ve taken the plunge and bought yourself one of the brand new BlackBerry Z10 phones. Looks good, eh? The last thing you want to do is damage it. What better than the official BlackBerry Z10 flip case? BlackBerry (don’t call them RIM!) have gone all out with …

In the first of my series of spotlight features I’ll be looking at the new BlackBerry Hub and how it works in BB10 on the Z10 that Vodafone have kindly leant to me. First Boot BB10 is a gesture based operating system, that’s explained when the phone boots …

The Android lover’s eyes widened with expectation; what had once appeared to be a repulsive idea now seemed intriguing, daring, exciting even. Be gentle with me Mr. BlackBerry, it’s my first time. BlackBerrys have never appealed to me. Even in their heyday, when every third person was tapping …

Last week LG announced that they would be updating their Optimus L Series of budget Android smartphones, citing their worldwide popularity as the reason for the investment. I have to admit that I was surprised in December when LG announced sales of 10 million L Series handsets. After …

Bog off! Yeah you with the Samsung Galaxy phone, you heard me. Bog off to your local O2 store and grab yourself a couple of clip-on flip cases. Samsung do some great accessories, and one of my favourites is the flip style case that replaces the battery cover …

Factory images for Nexus devices are very important things, not least because they are the purest form of vanilla Android in the known universe. If you’re an end user who doesn’t want to wait for the over the air update you’ll want them, purely so that you’re the …

Any Hootsuite users out there just dying to have a widget for their Android device? Well, you’re in luck! Hootsuite is a very popular social media app that combines Twitter and Facebook feeds, giving you centralised control over both of your cyberspace social accounts. One of the main …

The Apple iPhone 5 has been beaten by four Android handsets in a user satisfaction survey run by On Device research. Have Apple finally turned their backs on quality and disappointed their faithful? You see, surveys ask a whole load of people what they think and the truth …

Don’t you love a leaky Korean? Err… That didn’t come out right. Don’t you love it when a Korean website leaks a series of new LG handsets ahead of their planned announcement? There, that makes more sense. LG’s L3, L5 and L7 are quirky little square(-sh) phones. This …

The Xperia Z has swamped the Sony headlines recently, but there are more devices on the horizon. One of which has shown its face on German site Android Hilfe going by the name Xperia SP. Originally known with the working name of C530X, the Xperia SP is photographed …

If you’re an owner of a Sony Xperia T or Xperia V you can look forward to getting an update to 4.1 Jelly Bean this month. However, if you rock an Xperia TX then you’ll have to wait until March, but at least you know it’s coming. A …

Yesterday we saw the Blackberry Z10 and a white Nexus 4. Not to be outdone, Blackberry also gave us a little teaser of the Q10 in white. Take that LG! Whilst everyone else were crowding around the Z10 for their first look, Blackberry CMO Frank Boulben whipped a …

Want a Nexus 4 but don’t want the common old black version that everyone else has? Well, you may be in luck as it looks like there could be a white one on the way! Vietnamese tech site Tinh te has a series of photos which show a …

Virgin Media’s free London Underground WiFi service ends today but those using Virgin, EE, Orange and T-Mobile can stay connected due to wholesale agreements announced in November. As we mentioned earlier, Vodafone have also struck a deal with Virgin Media too. They’ve jumped on the fact that free-to-all …

WhatsApp is a wonderfully simple to use and hugely popular messaging app for pretty much any mobile phone platform. How many people who use it know that they maybe giving out other people’s private data, only for it to be stored on WhatsApp’s servers in a potential breach …

HTC have come up with a novel answer to those people with small phones who laugh at us large phone owners who say that we look like we have tablets on our ears: The HTC Mini. Let me set the scene: I’m a very proud Samsung Galaxy Note …

Huawei are quickly becoming a major force in the mobile world and their latest budget offering, the Ascend G330, has a lot of pressure on it to continue the impressive trend of affordable handsets that punch above their weight. The Ascend G330 is the replacement for the Ascend …

Just in case you’re wondering why we’re running an article on Samsung Galaxy Note accessories, then you need to remember that the original generation Samsung Galaxy Note may have been replaced, but the trusty old behemoth is still selling by the oversized bucket load on some of the …

The popular budget Huawei Ascend G300 has now been replaced with the G330, and I have one for a fortnight to see how it fairs. Huawei are dragging their reputation from cheap ‘n’ cheerful to serious contender in impressive style, not least because the G300 was such good …

When the idea was put forward that we should do a series of posts on what we would like to see in 2013 I realised that there’s been one thing on my smartphone wishlist every year since I can remember: Better battery life I’m no expert in battery …

Do you have a bad mobile signal in the one place you want to use it most? It’s a more common problem than you may think. Whilst networks do their utmost to provide the best service they can, it’s hard for them to legislate for people with basement …

What can you get for £80 these days? The surprising answer is an Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with Play store compatibility from a British brand. Sub £100 tablets are nothing new, but on the whole they’re poorly built, slow and sold under a name nobody’s has ever …

If you’re a Vodafone customer who’s unfortunate enough to live, work or generally frequent a signal blackspot area then you may be interested in one of their signal boosters: the Sure Signal, which has now been redesigned and improved. These are nifty little boxes that plug into a …

Contrary to what we’ve been told about the lack of UK availability, Expansys are now offering the HTC Butterfly for pre-order on their UK website. However, there’s no price, no expected date for stock to arrive, and if you place an order they say that when stock becomes …

Today a nice delivery man came to my work and presented me with an Android powered 7-inch wi-fi tablet in a smart looking box. Was it a Nexus 7? No. Was it a Kindle Fire? No. Did it cost over £150? No. Was I impressed? Yes! He had …

HTC is loving the 5-inch phablet form factor at the moment, what with the Droid DNA and J Butterfly launching in the USA and Far East respectively. But don’t think for a minute that the quietly brilliant Taiwanese company is stopping there. Several sources have leaked information on …

The international version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-i9300) is now receiving Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, in with which Samsung have added a raft of new features, including a few nifty additions, only seen previously on the Note 2. As well as the bug fixes and underlying operating …