Category: Mobile News

Honor 20 Pro – First Impressions

Now, normally this is where I would be talking about the unboxing of a new phone and would introduce you to video where I do just that. However, in the case of this phone, I’ll be doing something more. The reason is quite simple. It has been done …

EE named as best mobile provider 2019

Rootmetrics, a US based company founded back in 2008, has one sole purpose – to provide mobile network performance information. Today they have published the results for 2019 testing of the UK networks. By using a batch of store-purchased Samsung Galaxy S9  smartphones, the testing itself was conducted …

Huawei provides words of reassurance for device users

Even if you aren’t a follower of all things interesting, technological and mobile, there’ll little chance that you aren’t noticing the ongoing spat between China and the U.S, with Huawei phones using Android being a casualty. Huawei has been going from strength to strength over the past few …

Honor juggle their marketing messages

There has always been a perceived notion amongst the older generation that young people use their phones too much. On the flip-side, the younger generation seem to think that the older generation don’t use them enough due to lack of understanding. This, as with most perceived notions, is …

StorySign from Huawei gets a new Story added

Last year we talked about an app that had been developed by Huawei and the British Deaf Association called StorySign. This is an app that helps young children to read stories via the use of sign language which is provided to them via an Avatar called Star which …

More Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Leaks Emerge.

Yet more leaked images have emerged of the highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Note 10, and these latest renders have come from Steve Hemmerstoffer and 91Mobiles. Looking like a change in direction for Samsung’s Galaxy Note lineup, the upcoming flagship ditches the horizontal camera setup found on previous devices …

Honor 20 Pro – Hands on

So, the launch has happened and it’s now time to get up close and personal with the Honor 20 Pro. Now, before we get into this fully, I would like to thank Ricky West from TechTalk. He has provided us with the close-up shots of the device. I …

Honor 20 Pro announced

Today we have had the pleasure of being in London again. This time Honor have announced their very handset. This phone is actually part of a new collection of phones called the “Honor 20 Series”. Within the series, there will be a Pro version, a Standard version and …

EE – Down for whatever

If you’re an EE customer then you could be having problems making and receiving calls right now. Problems appear to have started at 8 this morning and have progressively got worse as the day has gone on. EE have just added this update to Twitter… https://twitter.com/EE/status/1130811180723970048 …which has …

Honor 20 Series live stream

We are on the ground at the Honor 20 Series launch event and will be doing our best to update you as we on our Twitter account. However, as is the case at the major event’s reception is normally patchy at best. If you want to follow along …

Huawei update the P30 series

I have been testing the P30 Pro for a few weeks now and in that time I have been very impressed with the phone. In particular, what the camera can do. There was, however, one piece of the phone that wasn’t yet available despite being shown off at …

giffgaff wins recommended Which? Provider yet again

It’s the 7th year running for the network, which is only 10 years old, and they’ve won the “the Best Mobile Network” award. A lot of “virtual” network operators have claimed the top spots, with Utility Warehouse and Plusnet Mobile coming second and third respectively. They’re closely followed …

Smartphone usage is on the up, but people are cutting back

Are you showing signs of addiction? Well, even if you class yourself as a “moderate” user, you’re probably using you phone more than you think. Recent research has shown that those classed as a “moderate” user will touch their phones on average 2,617 times per day. I know, …

New mobile phone detectors deployed by police

Using your phone whilst driving? Perhaps you have a cheeky look at it when you’re stuck in traffic or in a long tail-back? Well, beware, because the police are now starting to roll out automatic systems which will attempt to spot your phone usage and then flash a …

Is the death knell sounding for Google Play Music ?

On 30th April this year, Google is planning to close down the “Artist Hub” of the Google Play Music service. “What’s the Artist Hub?” I hear those of you who use Google Play Music ask. The Artist Hub is a tool that allows smaller/independent artists to stream and …

Pixel 2 & 2 XL official sales cease

If you are hankering after last year’s Google flagship from official channels i.e. Google’s own page, well it appears this can longer be done. If you pop over to the Google Store and search for either the Pixel 2 or the Pixel 2 XL, the devices are no …

When a mobile number for your business isn’t enough

Want to get your floor tiled? Or your bedroom wallpapered? Perhaps you want to have some other work done around the house? If so, you can look out for a local trader. There’s plenty advertised online, in local leaflets and – if you see van outside a neighbour’s …

Getting calls from 0300 200 3842 today?

It really wasn’t that long ago that we posted an article about scammers and how easily they can trick you into parting with your money. Last time it was a London number masquerading as HMRC, and in June last year we captured the recording of the call in …

Over a half of Brits getting disturbed at night by cold-calls

Having trouble sleeping? Well, I’ve recently had a few calls at night. It does tend to make you jump out of your skin at first. A call, in the middle of the night, is usually a sign that something is wrong – perhaps a member of the family …

More time with the Mate X and 5G news

I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get a little bit more hands-on time with the Huawei Mate X. I thought I would take some time to give you my initial thoughts. Before I dive into that first thoughts I must remind you that …

Manchester becomes the UK’s first 5G-connected airport

If you’re heading to Manchester Airport soon, check out the new Vodafone 5G trial area. You can test the new lightning speeds by grabbing a film or TV box set using the 5G technology. Further locations are coming soon, but if you’re at the airport you can now …

1TB Storage chips produced by Samsung

Samsung have announced that they’ll be offering the world’s first 1TB eUFS (embedded Universal Flash Storage) solution for phone manufacturers, with mass production already underway. This means that phones will soon be able to have one terabyte of storage with a single flash memory chip. That means no …

Unlimited Everything for £20 a month – on Three

During the Black Friday sales last November, I managed to bag a cracking SIM only deal from mobile provider Three. The deal is you get unlimited calls, texts, data and tethering for just £20 a month, and now the deal is back for an unspecified amount of time. This …

Huawei are playing with the power of AI again…

Last year we reported that Huawei was using the AI technology that they had developed for the Kirin 970. That time around they were using the AI to help a car recognise and then take action to avoid the objects. We were able to actually see this in the …

Essential Phone Discontinued.

News has arrived here at Coolsmartphone Towers, that according to Essential’s website and other stores that typically sell the Essential Phone, the device was showing up as “sold out.” ‘Strange,’ we thought, ‘maybe the Essential phone has had an upsurge in popularity’, but no. Essential has confirmed the …

The landline and text messaging. Both officially dying.

A weirdly intriguing set of stats from Ofcom have just landed and it confirms a lot of our suspicions regarding how people live and work with mobile technology. First, let’s have a look at the amount of outgoing calls that people are making from that funny phone-shaped object …

Samsung unveils the 8nm Exynos 9820 Chipset.

Following on from Huawei’s release of its latest 7nm Kirin 980 processor, Samsung has announced its own flagship chipset for 2019, the 8um Exynos 9820, with the Galaxy s10 being the first device to have this new chipset. The Exynos 9820 has a dedicated neural processing unit or …

Asus bring the thunder, ROG Phone launches in the UK

So in the past year we have seen a new catagory of mobile users emerge. They are not power users, or camera geeks but the do share alot of the things that these users demand. That is first and foremost power. Power for multi-tasking and switching between apps …

Samsung reveal a foldable smartphone

If you’re a sci-fi fan like me, you might have seen HBO’s remake of WestWorld, in which the staff at the park have mobile phones that fold out into a tablet to control the features of the park. Well, today phone giant Samsung has showcased a foldable smartphone …

WhatsApp Messaging Service – Ads Are Coming.

Now Facebook-owned WhatsApp is one largest messaging platforms in use, touting an eye watering 1.5 billion monthly users. Its usage is near-ubiquitous in markets like India and Brazil where it is used for everything from delivery tracking to payments. Here in the UK it’s becoming an incredibly popular …

Xiaomi lands in the UK with something special. Meet the Mi MIX 3.

Xiaomi today unveiled the Mi Mix 3 — the third iteration of a bezel-less designed phone, kicking the notch display into touch. Wait.. Xiaomi? Don’t know them? Well, you might not be overly familiar with them yet, but they’re the world’s fourth largest smartphone brand and they are …

BlackBerry launch the KEY2 LE. Available today.

Remember our review of the BlackBerry KEY2 ? Well, now you can get a slightly cheaper version of that with this new 32GB single-SIM KEY2 LE model. It’s available to buy from the BlackBerry website for £349, which is over £200 cheaper than the £579 price-tag for the …

Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro now official

Here in London Huawei have announced three new devices which will be on sale shortly. All offer an interesting set of specifications. To give you the maximum amount of info in the quickest time, here’s a video showing my favourite – the Mate 20 Pro… The Mate 20 …

Samsung reveals the Galaxy A9… with 4 cameras on the back

On the front of this fairly normal-looking handset is a 24 megapixel f/2.0 selfie camera. That, let me tell you, is where normality ends camera-wise. On the back, there’s not one, not two or three, but four cameras. The first lens is ultra-wide, a bit like a dash-cam, …

Zapp i300 electric scooter to be unveiled later this month

So, this is a British company and they’ve nudged me quite a few times. They’re called Zapp and they’re working to launch the UK’s first electric scooter. We’ve managed to get a teaser video to show you a sneak peek… They tell me that the i300 “re-thinks how …

OnePlus 6T to be revealed October 30th

  Today Chinese phone manufacturer OnePlus has announced that the latest device in there line up the OnePlus 6T, the new device is rumoured to have a under display fingerprint reader and a much smaller teardrop notch than the latest iPhone and the upcoming Pixel 3XL. The 3.5mm …

We’re in the EU but “Bill Shock” continues..

As Britain limps in disarray towards a badly-handled Brexit, we still have a few more months being part of the EU. It means that we can fly to France, Spain, Germany, Cyprus, Greece or Sweden and make calls, text or browse just like we were back in the …

EE switch on their first live 5G site

Moving from 3G to 4G now seems like a distant memory. Indeed, on the very, very odd occasion that I do drop to 3G I suddenly think… My God! 3G is terrible. How did we cope with this?! But wait, forget about 3G. We’re using 4G and already …