Category: Android

Fancy more than just another Android keyboard? Try Redraw Keyboard

If you’ve got an Android device, then you’ll probably know just how easily you can swap keyboards. The latest Google keyboard comes with a raft of Emoji icons, so that you can convey your emotions in a text, a WhatsApp message, or a Facebook update. However, there’s only …

More LG G6 details emerge – focus on audio

We already know that one of the big announcements that will be made at MWC in a few weeks’ time will be the LG G6.  The G5, launched a year ago, was initially lauded for its novel module design, but that praise was short-lived and the phone sold …

On Tinder? Swipe right on Honor…

Honor are a brand known to be “For the Brave” and to deliver great value devices to the “Digital Natives”. Feeling brave and/or very millenial? Well, if you’re Italian (and in Italy) there’s a fun Honor event happening… on Tinder! Yes that’s right, you can now swipe right …

MWC – Vernee rolls out the mighty Apollo 2 plus much more besides

OK, OK. I’ll mention these guys. They’ve emailed us quite a bit over the last few months and it’s safe to say that these emails are a little … umm… “strange”. They keep emailing us with “leaks” from upcoming phones, but it’s their own press team who are …

Lenovo Yoga Book – Review

Intro I love tablets. I love the idea of carrying something thin and light around that has enough computing power in it to keep me up to speed with all my musings on this very site. I also love being able to just pull out something from my …

Help us get to Mobile World Congress 2017

Mobile World Congress is right round the corner now and we’ve got pretty much everything nailed down in terms of meeting the relevant people and seeing the latest gadgets. Our plan, as usual, is to grab the latest and most interesting gadgets – putting them live on the …

Strava Launching Standalone Smartwatch App

I would consider myself a pretty fit person, in fact fitness tracking is my number one reason to have a smartwatch strapped to my arm. Although no one has managed to get all of the features completely phone free yet, and running with a phone strapped to your …

Honor 6X Launches on Three UK

How does £16 per month sound for your next smartphone? The Honor 6X has now arrived on Three UK and, if you’ve already seen our first impressions, you’ll know what it looks like. It comes with a dual 12+2 megapixel rear camera for wide aperture range, an 8 …

Win yourself a MEEM cable!

Unbelievably it’s been more than a year since we reviewed the MEEM cable. As you’ll have seen in the review, MEEM is a revolutionary product that anyone with a smartphone or tablet NEEDS in their life. What’s worse than losing your phone? Yep, losing all those pictures, contacts, …

Android distro numbers: Nougat more than 1%

The Android distribution numbers for February are out! Some of us get excited by these numbers, and the accompanying green graphs. Key takeaway this month? Nougat is now more than 1% of devices that connected tot the Google Play Store in the seven days to February 6th 2017. …

Lenovo Yoga A12 announced officially.

Those of you who have been following my Yoga Book reviews may be interested in learning that it’s a product line that Lenovo are continuing to work on. This was confirmed with the announcement of the new Lenovo Yoga A12. This is essentially an entry level Yoga Book …

Artificial Intelligence is becoming cleverer than you

With intelligent digital assistants invading the home, it’s becoming fairly normal to have a conversation with an Amazon Echo, Siri or Google Now. Believe it or not, they’re becoming more intelligent too. You might not think it, especially when you’re in the middle of an argument with your …

Firefox OS dies off

Way back in 2013 (was it really that long?!) we got our first look at the ZTE Open, a smartphone running on a whole new operating system from Mozilla – Firefox OS. Today, just four years later, the entire connected devices division have been laid off and the …

Fancy a ZTE Blade A512 ? It’s now available on Vodafone

Got £79 and fancy a ZTE device with Android 6.0 and a 13 megapixel camera? Powered by a quad-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, this is the ZTE A512 and it’s now available on Vodafone Pay As You Go. It features a 720×1280 pixel screen, Android 6.0, 16GB of …

The new Kyocera rafre KYV40 – A phone you can wash

Let’s be honest, there’s a few places where we use our smartphones quite a bit, and it’s always where we’ve got some “down time”. The smoking shelter outside of work (which has now changed from a horribly smelly place into a huge air freshener thanks to the vape …

Tesco Mobile slash the price of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

With Mobile World Congress just around the corner and a raft of new handsets about to be announced, it’s a good time to check for deals on the handsets that are out there now. Tesco Mobile have just been in touch and they’re offering a pretty good deal …

New Chromebooks released – for the education market.

Yeah, Yeah. A couple of Chromebooks, but who cares, they’re for the education market. Why is this a thing? You’re probably right in your thinking. If you were going to get a Chromebook and money was no object, you might decide to grab the Chromebook Pixel, or even …

Fancy a flying tripod?

We’re all aware of drones. They float around and, based on my experience, seem to fly off into neighbours gardens so that I have to sheepishly ask for it back. Here we have a new idea. It’s a smartphone case which houses a drone. Just snap it out …

More transactions performed on mobile, but less apps downloaded

New figures released by the Gambling Commission show that the amount of bets placed in the traditional local bookmaker is on the wane. Now 33% of all gambling is done online and, despite what the high street in your local town might look like, the report shows that …

First look – The EBox T8 V Streaming TV Box – Version 5

We’ve received another Android TV box to test today so I thought I’d give you a quick overview as it’s an improved version of an already very popular box. This is from EntertainmentBox – it’s the EBox T8 V and is powered by an Amlogic S912 64bit octa-core …

Selling a fully loaded Kodi box – It’s a grey area

Wait, I know what you’re going to say.. Of course it’s not a grey area! If you’re selling a “Fully Loaded Kodi Box” then it’s going to be illegal, end of. Well no, not necessarily, and I’ll tell you why. For most of us, “Fully Loaded” means that …

Lenovo Yoga Book – Unboxing

It’s not that often that a device comes along that is truly a game changer. That is until now.  Today I had the pleasure of unboxing an item that in my opinion is truly groundbreaking, and could potentially change the game in its field. I am, of course, …

A cure for the printing syndrome

Just recently I had to admit to something. Somebody asked me to scan a document at work and email it. I was confronted by a very hi-tech printer, plumbed into our network and equipped with a keypad to navigate around the control panel. After a lot of random …

Samsung Galaxy S8 handsets leaked

The grand-master of the phone leakers, Evan Blass, has just dropped this little nugget on Twitter. It’s the new Galaxy S8 from Samsung.. When I say “it”, there’s actually going to be two phones. Gone are the navigation buttons you’ve grown used to in previous Samsung Galaxy handsets …

Netflix now allows content to be saved to SD Card.

Remember some time ago we brought you the news that finally, Netflix was allowing customers to download some of their content and store it to the device?  The good news is that the latest update to the media streaming app allows content to be stored on the SD …

Buying a phone through eBay? Try giffgaff Marketplace instead

If you want to bag yourself a great smartphone for less cash, you’ll probably know that O2 do their “Like New” handsets. They’re fully checked and you get an accurate description of the condition before you buy the thing. Now O2’s owners, Telefónica, are their other network – …

LG Profits fall again. That G5 wasn’t a monster hit

Somebody recently asked what my main phone was. To be honest I have two – an iPhone 6s and an LG G5. The Android handset tends to win in the daily battle for my trouser pocket, and even though I’ve not made any use of the modular G5 …

How much is the app marketplace actually worth?

Apps. The ones I download are mostly free because, deep down in my heart, I’m tighter than a gnats backside. How do these apps make money then? How do the developers get paid? How do those big TV advertisements appear on TV if we never actually click “Buy” …

The Coolsmartphone Mobile Video Studio

OK. Slightly off-topic today, but the regular readers will no doubt be aware that I film a lot of our product reviews in my car. As an example, my SanDisk iXpand overview or this FM transmitter review. I was even doing this some 10 years ago in glorious …

How app pricing seems to impact app types

If you follow us on Twitter then you may have seen me mention the fact that Kodi is riding high in the Google Play apps charts. It’s not overly surprising though, especially when you consider how many people are buying Android TV boxes or attempting to get around …

Samsung Galaxy J2 Ace announced

The Samsung Galaxy Ace line of handsets has had quite a success since it launched a few years ago, and the brand has been seen on a few models in its time. The latest device to carry the Ace brand is the Samsung Galaxy J2 Ace which was …

Huawei Mate 9 available on Three UK

In my opinion it’s one of the best phones to have been announced last year. Now it’s available on the high street for the buying public. Three and Huawei have just announced that the Mate 9 is going on sale in some of the Three stores and also …

Galaxy S7 edge on Vodafone – New Blue for you

My wife has the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and, quite frankly, I’m surprised that it’s still in one piece. You may remember what happened with her Samsung Galaxy S5, and the plastic construction seemed to cope with the constant drops very well. So, if you’ve had a look …

HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play announced

Fancy a handset that will help you through your day? With artificial intelligence and voice assistants becoming a big thing in tech, HTC have chosen to deliver a new helper in their two new handsets. Called “Sense Companion”, it can advise you to charge up if you’ve got …

I’ve always wanted to be a DJ. Now everyone can have a go.

Back in the day, when we used to have nightclubs and you’d go outside to meet other people instead of “swiping” them, I always wanted to be the DJ. The nearest I got was doing the lights in a local nightclub, and I made the mistake of leaving …

Out of no-where, the HTC Desire 650 arrives

With Mobile World Congress happening next month, the very last thing we expected to see was a new handset from HTC in early January. That, though, is what we have – the Desire 650. There’s a bit of a backstory to this one. It appeared on the Taiwanese …

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 – Now £120.91

Right, first up I should mention that this phone doesn’t have Band 20 on LTE, so no 800MHz 4G. Oh, and it also doesn’t have NFC, so no “tap to pay” magic. However, what it does have is a 2.1GHz Helio X20 deca-core CPU with a Mali T880 …

Coolsmartphone Podcast 192 You might as well drop 5 stars

Khellan and I opened 2017 with a cracking episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast: Coolsmartphone Podcast 192 You might as well drop 5 stars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOoX1EuYtiM We discussed CES, Samsung’s A range, Cyanogen and Lineage, Chromebooks and the Honor 6X. Matteo – @Todoleo Khellan – @Wubanger5 As usual feel free …