Category: Gadgets & Tech
Over the next few weeks you’ll be seeing more from our “Gift Guide” series. We’ll be covering the best accessories, gadgets and smartphones to stuff into the stocking this festive season. First, gloves. Gloves are great. They’re obviously practical at this time of year. Winter is on the …
Regular as clockwork, the utility companies have ramped up their prices. With Christmas round the corner and your wallet becoming emptier by the day, it’s time to look at some money saving tips. We’ve already covered many ways of cutting your gadget expenditure. You can buy a cheaper …
Hello weekend people. I’ve been told this morning that a couple of videos I uploaded this week were a little corrupted. I’ve now re-uploaded them, and I firmly blame a combination of bad weather, a droppy WiFi connection and wholesale gas prices. First, our look at some of …
Today I received an email. That, in itself, isn’t remarkable. I get a few. However, this one was from the Police. Luckily it arrived to inform me that a number of bikes had been stolen from the local area. This, in fact, was the second such email and …
Mobile Choice have an awards event every year to celebrate the best of the industry in different categories from best handset to best network. Winners of these awards are usually quick to include the prize in their advertising or PR information so these results are a pretty big …
One device that is hotly anticipated here in the UK that has been available in the US for months is Google’s Chromecast. The media streaming device that connects directly to your television’s HDMI port and is controlled by your Android, iDevice or Chrome browser has been generally …
You may not remember the first ever iPhone commercial. After all, it was 6 years ago. It featured scenes of people using various telephones in movies and TV shows. At the end the first ever iPhone is displayed with a catchy strapline. Matthew Panzarino (@panzer), remembers this well …
The Xperia Z Ultra is a great bit of kit but with the giant screen I am worried that I will break all that lovely glass in my bag or pocket (yes you can put this beast in a pocket). So the first thing I did after getting …
Imagine the scene. You work for Volkswagen. You work on the Service section. You’re not the guy who sits in the showroom with the badge that says “Service” on it. Oh no, you’re not that guy. He’s the guy that gets to sell “Service Plans” and sells £17 …
Do you remember back to when you were a kid and you used to watch Knight Rider? Remember looking wistfully at the Hoff’s watch communicator that he used to talk with Kitt? I did anyway. Now we’re getting a step closer to this becoming a reality. I present …
Today I nipped to the local Three store to obtain a SIM card,. While there I was just making general enquiries about the Galaxy Note 3, the guy serving me said that the Samsung retail rep was in the store and they should be told release dates today. …
OLED (Organic LED) televisions with curved screens were first demonstated at CES in 2012 and the technology has hit the market this year for anyone with curved walls to buy. Samsung have confirmed that they will be releasing a smartphone based on the same technology with a plastic …
Amazon has announced two new Kindle Fire HDX tablets, one with a 7-inch 1920×1200 screen and another with an 8.9-inch 2560×1600. These screen sizes and resolutions are enough to give Google’s Nexus tablets a run for their money, and their 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 SoCs and 2GB of RAM …
There is, if we’re honest, a bit of a problem with phones now. They’re all a little bit too good. Personally, sitting here, apart from making me a cup of tea or driving me to work, I can’t think of much else that I want my phone to …
I can’t believe it’s been nearly half a decade since I got my hands on the the HTC G1, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Today marks the 5th anniversary of Android. The initial release was on September 23rd 2008 and we covered the launch and the new …
A fake Apple advert claiming the new iOS7 software makes iPhones and iPads waterproof has apparently fooled some users into destroying their devices. The “advert” circulating on social media sites claims that updating devices with the operating system installs a “smart switch” that cuts off the phone’s power …
If you intend buying a shiny new iPhone 5s and want it to look really old then it’s simple. Just post it to me, I’ll scratch it to flip, crack the screen, install loads of apps and send it back. The best bit? I only charge £400 for …
Looking through the crowd funding site Kickstarter I think my prayers have been answered with the Everdock. Well-made and nice-looking, universal docks that work with a variety of devices are hard to come by. The folks at FUZ Designs are hoping to solve that problem with EverDock. The …
Sometime ago I bought myself a shiny new retina display iPad, lovely I thought, that was until my wife saw it. ..I no longer have a retina iPad. Then Apple released the iPad mini. Great, I thought, I’ll treat myself, plus it will be easy to pop in …
A lot has been said about the digital library that has just opened up in Bexar County, San Antonio. There’s no real books and no encyclopedias. It’s more like an Apple store and is equipped with hundreds of 3M Cloud Library e-readers, 48 iMacs and 200 Nook e-readers …
I tell you what we need right now. Another smartwatch. Oh yes. How about a watch made by … a car company? Hehehe… yeah. I’ll bet that’ll be really tacky and cheap. I bet it’ll just be a bad design with the car logo wedged on. Hang on, …
Cars are becoming more clever by the day. Head-up displays, 3G connected satellite navigation systems, Bluetooth connectivity and even self driving vehicles. As with our smartphones, we are demanding more and more from our vehicles and the onboard computers are only too happy to oblige. From the PS3 …
Venture Beat have leaked pictures of a prototype of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Gear smart watch. Leaked specs for the watch is said to be about 3-inches diagonally, with an OLED display and a 4MP camera and speakers built into the strap. On the function side, the watch is …
Selling for around £137.34 from places like Ali Express, this is the Bluebo Beast B6000 MTK6589T. Yes, it does look a lot like a Samsung Galaxy Note. In fact, in the hands-on I was quite surprised at the build quality and speed of the device. It’s slightly thicker …
Here at Coolsmartphone Towers emails zip back and forth like ants in a jam jar. A good 80% of those are from fellow writer Ronnie Whelan boasting about how good the display on his latest Oppo is. Well, Mr Whelan is about to be silenced as LG have …
“I’m a huge fan of your site”. Always a good start that. Well done PetziConnect. They launched an IndieGoGo campaign and had a goal of $30k. They’ve blown past that now and are at nearly $59k. What is it? Well, it’s a magical doo-hickey that’ll let you interact …
When the Beats audio first starting appearing in HTC kit we saw, and still do, a lot of promotional material from HTC about the new sound technology. HTC at one point owned a 51% share of Beats, but that dropped down when Beats bought back 25%. A reported …
Earlier in the week we posted an intriguing article about a pair of clip-on 18MP optical zoom Sony camera attachments for mobile phones. We spoke about them at length on the podcast and couldn’t decide whether they were practical, silly, a hoax, or all three! Today we’ve got …
Sometimes, just sometimes, PayPal decide to do something a little strange. Sometimes it seems that they’re gone to the Google School of Customer Service, where either no emails are responded to or rules are suddenly enforced that no-one was really aware of. Sadly this story involves those GlassUp …
We had a question from a reader why no-one seemed to be covering a transparent phone which promised to also allow the owner to build their own phone by selecting the processor, screen size, memory, camera almost as if you were building your own PC. Somewhat intrigued by the …
Come Padawan. Let me talk to you about something. Phones, as you’ll probably know, are ruddy expensive. I know you really, really don’t want to, but whacking a cover on your device is the best way to protect it. But hey, it’s boring isn’t it? A little bit. …
Back in July we reported that the people at Ubuntu, the open-source operating system alternative to Windows or Apple, had launched a crowd-funding campaign (via Indiegogo.com) to create a new mobile phone called the Ubuntu Edge. This phone would showcase the newly developed Ubuntu phone OS and dual-boot …
Wireless charging up until now has been one of those things that always seemed rather expensive to try out, also only a few Nokia Lumia models and the LG Nexus 4 were able to join in on the wireless charging fun. Over the years Samsung keep saying that …
Are you after a professional quality smart camera? Well the world’s first mirrorless Android powered camera with interchangeable lenses, the Samsung Galaxy NX, now has a price in the UK. I suggest you sit down… £1299.99 If you go to Jessops or Wex Photographic Warehouse werbsites and hand …
The day has arrived….. That magic day when you get your hands on with the object you have been lusting after since it was announced in all the glitz and glamour that go with product announcements. This device which is very firmly in the Phablet range with a …
The Ubuntu PC operating system has been around for a good while now, the free computer OS that is open source and helps make cheap pcs possible, especially for developing countries. They have been working on a smartphone OS for some time and now that work has been …
Let’s be honest, times are hard. The next smartphone you buy will probably be bought in one of two different ways. You’ll either get an unlocked phone or you can get a contract handset and sign up for two years or so. Getting out of that contract, by …
A case made of bamboo. It’s not something you hear of every day, but that’s what he people from The Snugg have loaned us. It’s currently £29.99 or $29.99 (don’t get me started on that currency conversion) and here’s a look at it. First up. Yes, it’s very …
A survey of 2,000 Americans has revealed that our TV viewing habits are definitely changing. The “Television and Advertising Survey” shows that more than a third (34%) of TV “viewership” is on a mobile device now. It also shows that 47% of Americans now watch TV programming on …
Batteries in phones are still a massive weak point in mobile phones and in Bristol they’ve started to really take the p*** with their new invention – a charger powered by urine. It all works by using microbial fuel cells which, when peed on, produces enough charge to …
