Category: Android

LG Nexus 4 – Review

There’s no point beating around the bush; the Nexus 4 is awesome. I absolutely love it. It’s the best Android phone I’ve ever used and, £ for £, most likely the best phone you can(‘t) buy.  There are still a few flaws, and I’ll get to them, but …

Samsung Galaxy SIII Premium Suite upgrade

Then other day we mentioned that Jelly Bean had started to roll out to Samsung Galaxy SIII owners. It has long been mentioned that many of the features from the Galaxy Note II were meant to cross over to the Galaxy SIII. Things like Multi View and Page …

Archos release their new Gamepad tablet

Archos have released the Gamepad, it is available to buy now. The Gamepad has a selection of hardware buttons, d-pads and sticks so gamers should be happy with the physical controls. Archos have also added some level of control mapping to the buttons as well. Where you should …

HTC Butterfly announced

In a surprisingly quiet move form HTC, they have just announced the global version of the HTC Butterfly which also goes by the name of the Droid DNA over in the states. This monster spec phone features a 5 inch 1080p screen with a PPI of 440 which …

Windows 8 gets aped on an Android tablet.. for children

Whilst randomly browsing around I stumbled across this rather interesting Android tablet at ToysRUs. The tablet and the interface is designed for children, and the fairly low-end device has a 10.1″ screen with front camera, WiFi and micro-SD expansion. But I couldn’t help noticing the similarities between this …

SwiftKey Flow beta is now available for Android

Replacement keyboards for Android have traditionally fallen into two types. Annoying swiping ones where you trace the words out with a long continues line and super predictive normal keyboards. (Can you guess which I prefer?) SwiftKey previously fell into the predictive camp and left all of that swiping …

HTC to produce the M7 – a 5 inch high-end phablet?

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 …

Google Now updated with new features

Anyone who is using one of the Nexus phones or a device with Jelly Bean will have noticed the vastly improved search engine found but more important than that is the Google Now service which is a set of cards to help you manage your life with very little work …

Old Handsets…..How many do you have?

Christmas is on the way and it is virtually nailed on that many people will be getting a brand new shiny handset in their stocking this year. The question remains however, what do I do with my old one? I personally can look in various drawers and cupboards …

Nokia Announce the Lumia 620

Nokia have just announced a new addition to their range of Lumia handsets – the Lumia 620. As with the Lumia 610 the new 620 is an entry level device clearly aimed at the younger market. Coming in a range of seven (yes 7) different colours, the entry …

Sony Announce New Xperia E

Sony have today announced the brand new Xperia E handset. Billed as a “No nonsense Android smartphone”, the entry level device sports a 3.5″ TFT touchscreen with a resolution of 320×480 pixels. Running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich the device also has a 3.2 megapixel rear camera. There …

What have I become?

I remember many years ago a phone was a phone, you could text people, you could call people and if you were lucky you could play Snake on your phone too. Jump forward 15 years and we have a totally different world and totally different phones. My outlook …

Google I/O confirmed for 15-17 May 2013

Vic Gundotra has just announced over on Google Plus that next years I/O event will take place between the 15th and 17th of May at the normal location of the Moscone Centre in San Francisco. This is the Google version of the Apple event WWDC for tech fans …

You can get a Nexus 7 for £50, kind of.

  The Nexus 7 is without a doubt one the best tablets on the market and at prices starting from £159 its also quite the bargain. The Times UK are currently running a promotion where if you subscribe to the digital version of the newspaper for a year, …

Nexus 4 back in stock at 5pm

Google has announced that the Nexus 4 will be back in stock and ready for purchase at 5pm UK time today. Hopefully this will be the start of continuous stock. This happened in the US last week with the device quickly selling out and delivery times stretching up …

Orange Partners with Lookout

Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for the security application Lookout. It has today been announced that the security protection software protects over 25 million users every day will be pre-installed on all Orange Android handsets from early 2013. Lookout will be installed on …

Google updates its Android Distribution numbers

It’s that time of the month again. Google has updated its Platform Version page with the latest figures as of yesterday. As you can see, Gingerbread still accounts for just over half (50.8%) of Android devices, this is shrinking however. Meanwhile Jelly Bean is growing and is up to …

Gmail udpate brings pinch to zoom and swipe to archive/delete

Google have just released the latest version of Gmail for Android onto the Google Play store. Those of you with Android 4.2 will already be familiar with the major changes it brings, namely pinch to zoom (finally!) and the ability to swipe messages to archive/delete them. The features …

Huawei Ascend G330 now available for Pre-Order

The Huawei Ascend G330 has now appeared at TalkTalk. The device from the chinese manufacturer, which boasts a 4 inch display and Ice Cream Sandwich, is exclusive to TalkTalk and is available free of charge on tariffs starting at £10 a month. The phone certainly looks interesting and …

Choose when and where to send texts – ZMS

It’s 20 whole years since the first text message was sent and, despite data-enabled phones and always-on email, we’re still sending a huge amount of texts. Tech start-up “inZair” has just launched an app called ZMS. It’s completely free and available for both Android and iOS. The texting …

GoNote Android Netbook going cheap at Misco

You may remember a few months ago we and a few other sites published info about the Ergo Electronics Android powered Netbook. It never really materialised, but strangely UK retailer Misco have some in stock and they’re classed as open box already. Upon further poking around they have …

Huawei blow hundreds of people away

Huawei have decided that the best way to promote their latest 4G handset is to make Santa look like he’s already on his sleigh. If you’re looking for mobile phone deals then the Ascend P1 LTE is a handset we reviewed some time ago and it’s rather epic. …

Sony Xperia T has its price reduced over at Expansys

The Sony Xperia T hasn’t really made a huge impression on the market. Packing some serious high specs it seems to have just passed most of us by. As a result retailers have started to drop the prices to shift units. Starting with Expansys. They are currently selling …

LG Nexus 4 – Initial Impressions

Having finally got my hands on a Nexus 4 yesterday (massive thanks to Dan!) I wanted to write down some quick first impressions before I do a full review. Screen Wow! What an upgrade. So much sharper than the Gnex. Everything looks crystal clear. The improvement is just …

SwiftKey Flow keyboard to go into public beta testing

If you don’t like the stock Android keyboard you download one to replace it. Easy. But which one? Not so easy! Whilst there are dozens to choose from, the two leaders by a long way are SwiftKey and Swype. Both offering different methods of fast input – until …

A Smartphone for less than £40 – Grab a bargain Now…..

Smartphones are now available in all different shapes and sizes, from high end to mid range to low end. Along with this variation in range is a large variation in price but one thing that is certain is that you will be shelling out an awful lot of …

Deadmau5 Lumia event – Official video

As you know, Nokia recently held an event down in London with Deadmau5 providing the tunes. We posted this video yesterday, but it turns out that it was actually ripped from the live feed. So, Nokia have sent us the top-quality official one along with a full press …

Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing revealed

Over in the US pricing for the Surface with Windows 8 Pro has been announced. The 64GB version will be available for $899 and the 128GB version will sell for $999. It’ll be available in January, although when we checked the UK site is a little more…. errmmm.. …

Windows Store surpasses Mac Store app levels

We here at Coolsmartphone have a long tradition of bringing the latest mobile tips, news and reviews to you – 10 years, in fact. Recently, with the introduction of Windows 8 and, a bit further back, Ubuntu 12.10 and OSX 10.8, the mobile and traditional computing worlds are coming …

TV Catchup Now in Microsoft Apps Store

TVCatchup, the service that enables you to watch live UK television on your computer, phone or other devices connected to the internet is now available to download from the Microsoft Apps store for Windows 8 and Windows RT. The app, also available on iOS and Android is a fantastic …

Angry Birds Star Wars updated to get the Hoth levels

A few weeks ago I was a little upset/disturbed/excited about the Angry Birds Star Wars game being released. After playing it for a few days I realised that only two world’s were included in the initial version. The Hoth levels were coming soon and the Jedi levels were …

Lumia Deadmau5 gig – Missed it? Watch it all here

Exactly a year since the last event, Deadmau5 once again pounded London with some tunes to promote the new Lumia handsets from Nokia. This time the venue was Flat Iron Square in Southwark and again a hi-tech light show accompanied the tunes. This is all to promote the …

Microsoft claims Windows Phone sales up 300% …but of what?

  Microsoft’s resident megaphone has been spouting again, this time to the annual shareholders meeting, where the larger than life CEO announced that Windows Phone sales are up 300% from last year. That sounds a good tag line, but as Microsoft never announced any sales figures for Windows …

Nokia Lumia 820 In Stock at Expansys

The Lumia 820 is the only one of the top end Nokia offerings that is available anywhere other than at EE stores and as a result stocks are rather low in most retailers. One retailer that has managed to procure stock and will have it available from tomorrow …

Christmas Gift Guide Part 2

  Christmas is nearly upon us and sometimes it can be a struggle to find a present to give for that one particular person. As mentioned in our first Christmas Gift Guide, we have teamed up with some of the leading retailers in the industry to bring you …