Category: Android

On the way to Scotland. How about a battered … Galaxy S8?!

I’m on a charity cycle ride right now, heading up to Edinburgh. From England up to the top of Scotland, it’s going to be one very punishing trip. It’ll be my second time to Edinburgh, and I learned quite a bit about the place last time. I visited …

Doro 8020X Overview

If you’re of a certain age the Doro handsets will definitely appeal. They’re simple to understand, easy to use and have an intuitive method of getting tasks done. Some of their line-up, like the 6050 we looked at yesterday, are more simplistic. Other handsets pack further features, such …

Phew. New Nuu A3L for you.

Want to spend less than £75 on your next smartphone? Well, you need to be looking at something like this, the A3L Smartphone from Nuu Mobile. You can put two 4G SIMs in and there’s a 5″ 854 x 480 display. It measures in at 143.8 x 71.8 …

How to unlock Samsung Galaxy S8

How to Unlock Samsung Galaxy S8 If you’ve got one of these sexy new handsets then you’ll have probably gone with a contract deal that has tied you to one network. Some people, though, don’t necessarily want to use the Galaxy S8 on the network they purchased it …

OnePlus 5 – Thoughts from others.

As the live event happens and we start to turn our attention to the new, shiny Oppo OnePlus 4 5 and we begin to longing to get hold of one to review for you lovely readers. Until we do manage to get our hands on one. Here are some video …

OnePlus 5 launch event. Live

Join us for the latest handset by OnePlus. They’re broadcasting the event live, so we all get to enjoy the reveal of the OnePlus 5 together …

The P10. I actually need to keep this one.

Some people get final demand letters. Others get bailiffs. I get emails asking for phones back. See, if you write for a site like this you’ll get very expensive phones sent to you, but you can’t keep them. You have to send them back. It’s no surprise really, …

HTC U11 – Photo special

HTC have dropped out of the limelight of late. Vodafone don’t seem to be ranging any of their handsets and Three are all out of stock of the HTC 10. Whilst playing with their U Play and U Ultra it occured to me that both handsets had pretty …

Time-killing apps for your holiday

Go on, have a look on iTunes and you’ll see over 2 million apps now. That’s a pretty massive selection, and means that everyone in the Republic of Macedonia could have one app each. At the top of the app charts you’ll find a constantly shifting set of …

RCA Android tablets launch in the UK

Following the successful launch of its 2-in-1 affordable Windows notebooks here in the UK, premium audio and video manufacturer Venturer (both of which I have reviewed here and here) have announced a new range of Android tablets under the RCA branding. RCA is a name new to us …

Return of retro gaming!

Right, I will come right and say this I am old. I can remember a time before the internet, before mobile phones and before the home computer had been invented ! I remember when gaming well that was something you did outside with your mates. I have been …

Archos announce a new smartphone line-up

Here comes the summer! Yes, it’s actually properly .. here! To celebrate, ARCHOS have sent us a box filled with ice-creams and lollipops revealed a new range of smartphones. There’s two “Diamond” handsets and two “Sense” phones. First is the Diamond Alpha, which is, according to the company, …

Vodafone Smart N8 now available

Vodafone have today launched their latest own-vranded smartphone, the Smart N8. In a time where you don’t need to spend a fortune to get a great feature-packed device, Vodafone have been producing some of the best for a while now. This is the latest in the range and, …

Honor 9 Official! (In China…)

Honor, Huawei’s brand for the “Digital Natives”, announced their latest flagship in China. The Honor 9 is now official in their home country, with a shiny metal and glass body, dual cameras and familiar chipsets… Here is the full specifications from what we have learnt so far: 5.15″ …

Strava. Huawei. Sort this out. Now.

Remember my old story about getting Strava working on Huawei handsets? It involves disabling the sometimes over-zealous power management on your Huawei phone. Why do this? Well, if you’re running Strava (the running and cycling recording app) on a Huawei phone then the battery control software will see …

Sunnycam Xtreme 1080p HD Video Glasses – Review

You have to be a little careful when describing this particular product. They are a pair of sunglasses with a hidden camera at the front. It sounds a little dodgy if you put it that way. The camera is noticeable, however many won’t spotted on a day-to-day basis. …

EE get the exclusive on the silver Galaxy S8 and S8+

We’ve seen both the Galaxy S8 and the S8+ side-by-side and we’ve covered both in great detail here. If you’re after either, but you want the Arctic Silver one, only EE will be selling it. There’s a bit of a wait if you want this particular shade though, …

Moto Z2 Play and new Mods announced

We recently brought you the review of the Moto Z Play, a mid-range device that stood out from the competition thanks to its fantastic battery life.  Moto have since announced the 2017 iteration of the device, the Moto Z2 Play.  The new phone is an updated version of …

Support for Skype to end for Windows Phone users on July 1st

This will probably only be affecting three or four people, but it’s yet another step in the road for the removal of Windows on a phone and Microsoft support for the Windows Phone operating system or MS-provided apps. Thurrott is reporting on this Skype support page which details …

Peli Case for your​ S8/S8+

The new Galaxy S8 and the S8+ handsets are gorgeous. There is no denying that. There are countless blogs and reviews attesting to this. However, this beauty does come at a cost. In testing by the fine people over at SquareTrade it was discovered that the S8 and …

DOOGEE Mix shrinks the bezel. Cheap too.

OK. I’ve caved. The PR people for DOOGEE have mailed me each and every single day for months now. The daily updates range from orchestrated “leaks” and “rumours”, so it’s difficult to know when an actual handset has been announced because I’m buried in their mails. Today though, …

Smartphones made of glass, lol

Wikipedia lists glass as ‘a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usage in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optoelectronics’. Here’s a further list of some things that are made of glass: Light bulbs Drinking vessels Spectacles Greenhouses Ashtrays Smartphones …

Blackberry KEYone – Pretty Pictures

The BlackBerry KEYone is a device we saw being launched in Barcelona at MWC. I’ve had one for a while and a review is coming soon to Coolsmartphone.com. In the meantime, here are some hands on shots of the device, with plenty of greenery in the background.

Sony Xperia XZ Premium now on pre-order with Three

Want to get a shiny new Qualcomm 835-powered Sony Xperia XZ Premium? If you’re looking to get one with Three, you can pre-order it right now. It’s available to buy from June 2nd. Three are offering the handset on their  “Advanced Plans”, which means that you can get the …

Face off – Huawei P10 Plus and the P10

Yesterday we took a look at the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus and yes, those are the “hot” phones at the moment. You’ll no doubt see the S8 advertised no TV, on billboards and pretty much everywhere else. However, I have a certain love for the Huawei …

Face off – The Samsung Galaxy S8 vs Samsung Galaxy S8+

Hello people. I’ll let you into a secret and I’ll also get some admin out of the way. I’ve borrowed these two phones from the people at O2. Trouble is, I’ve had them for a bit longer than I originally intended, so I have to pimp O2 a …

Nokia 9 Benchmark stats online? Super-fast scores

Over at telefoonabonnement.nl (Google Translate) there’s some interesting news about some newly uncovered benchmark scores. These have popped up on Geekbench and, by the looks of the results, this is going to be one very quick handset. The report shows that it’s faster than a Galaxy S8. The …

Getting your local GP surgery to go mobile too

Our local health centre is seriously under strain. A number of local GP surgeries have closed as doctors have retired and, with more houses being built an no additional infrastructure being put in, there’s a few battered portacabins and an engaged tone when you call up. In 2017, …

Doro 6050 feature phone now available to buy

Remember Mobile World Congress? I certainly do. Let’s be honest, we here at Coolsmartphone don’t have the same budget as The Times or The Guardian, so I ended up stopping in a camper van, parked up in a local street. It was definitely an … experience. However, we …

What is a VPN anyway?

Trust me, it’s not a scary thing. Just recently I had a relative ask why I had two WiFi networks at home. I explained that one was a VPN router, and offered me privacy and security. That, if I’m being honest, made their eyes glaze over a little. …

HTC U11 Launched. Welcome to your new squeezy phone

Got yourself a HTC phone at the moment? If you have then there’s sadly not enough of you. Earlier in the year I took a look at the current HTC phones – namely the HTC U Play and HTC U Ultra. They’re properly gorgeous things. Polished, well designed …

Watch the HTC Launch, live

Here in the UK things will be kicking off in just 30 minutes. However, there’s again no physical launch event and no hordes of reports. Instead, no matter where to are in the world, you can watch the brand new HTC handset getting unveiled here on the HTC …

Latest Netflix update won’t install on rooted devices

Here at the Coolsmartphone newsroom (which to be honest is normally a kitchen) we’ve heard rumours that the latest version of the Netflix app is showing as incompatible with rooted devices. Netflix has just confirmed that with the v5.0 update adds some special.. ahem .. “new features”. They’ve …

FaceApp – Another few minutes of fun

We were big fans of the MSQRD app when it first came out. It’s quite a fun little gadget which, with the aid of your phone camera, puts masks and hats on your face via augmented reality cleverness. Now there’s another one to add to the collection, it’s …

ProBox 2 Air PLUS Android TV Box – Review

Last year I carried out a review of a new Android TV streaming box called the Probox 2 Air. You can view it here, which in summary, I was truly impressed with. Well, I’ve been asked if I wanted to review the latest version of this streaming box – …

STK Arrive in the UK via Carphone Warehouse

I’ve been taking a look at any mention of this company here on the site. The nearest I can find is this review of a battery pack they made some years ago.  STK actually make phones too. Today they’ve announced a partnership with Carphone Warehouse, who will be …

The “i” in Google

Descartes wrote ‘i think, therefore i am,’ or he would have done had he been using Google Gboard for Android with auto-correct turned on. This bug, where the letter “i” for the first-person singular pronoun failed to default to the upper case “I”, has recently been fixed with a …

Honor 8 Pro deliveries delayed

You may remember how excited we were to get our hands on the Honor 8 Pro when it was announced on April 5th. We got to spend some time with a blue one in a pub before the announcement and it won me over. So I preordered one …