Category: General
Otterbox make some pretty solid cases, I’ve bought no end for various phones that I wanted to protect. Today Otterbox have announced that they have become a member of SMAPP. That is short for Samsung Mobile Application Partner Program. That basically means that Samsung and Otterbox will be …
Yesterday we took a look at the Ovivo Mobile offering. Grab a SIM card for £15 and they’ll dish up 150 minutes, 200 texts and 500MB data on their Freedom Plan and you pay a big fat nothing per month. When you’re browsing you get an advert pop …
Although I technically use three different operating systems, long before Android was a powerhouse, I ended up going all in with Google. This means it both helps and hinders when it comes to picking my five favourite apps that I always install. 1. SwiftKey As it’s so easy …
We’ve had an email from Co-operative Funeralcare. I couldn’t quite figure out how their services related to the smartphone world, but it turns out that they did have something quite interesting for us. They’ve conducted research which actually shows that up to one in six people have either …
For training purposes or just to be generally nosey….. Here at Coolsmartphone we’ve been contacted by copluk. They wanted us to review their call recording app – “Free Call Recorder – ACR“. It is available for free from the Play Store, then you have the option to pay …
During our continuing look at virtual network operators, we featured Ovivo. They operate on the Vodafone backbone and have a rather unique proposition which has just been boosted with an extra data allowance. It’s simple really. You buy an unlocked phone, then you pay £15 for one of …
You may not have heard of Tizen, but you should take notice, because it could well be coming to a phone near you soon. Tizen is a new(ish) open source mobile OS. Unlike Firefox and Sailfish this one has big backing, and could threaten the top four operating …
There have been several solutions to getting a proper game controller to work with mobile devices; most have been pants. The MOGA is the latest player on the block, and it’s now available for pre-order in the UK (with a provisional release date of 14th June). There are …
Over a week ago we reported that the HTC Facebook phone – the “First” – had vanished from the “Coming Soon” section of the EE website. We reached out to EE about this and, at the time, they told us that they still intended to range the handset …
You may have seen stories about the recent Orange customer who received a rather substantial bill. His Business Sense 1500 plan covered 10 phones and had bills of around £300 per month. Alan and Carolyn Mazkouri, from Swansea, have been with Orange for 15 years. However, one day …
On Voda? Waiting for 4G? Looks like you’re going to wait longer. The network wanted to get the 4G network started up either this month or next, but now it has been pushed back until September. This is almost a year after EE turned on their 4G network …
Fancy saving some money? Who doesn’t eh? Right now Three have chopped down the cost of the Sony Xperia T, Nokia Lumia 620 and Samsung Galaxy Ace. It’s purely for this month, but you can get all three on Pay As You Go and ther Xperia T is …
Bank holidays seem to make people gather in groups. Big groups around the country, be it country parks, beaches, the capital city or just down the pub. But where is our favourite place for the bank holiday? Well that’s quite a hard one to quantify, you’d need to …
Welcome back to our irregular look at the various MVNOs (virtual networks) here in the UK. You know what they say, you get nothing in this world for free. Well… perhaps from that nasty rash I had from that girl the once. Ooh.. But what about a free …
Flickr the original photo sharing website has had a bit of an upgrade during the night, as part of Yahoo’s new direction Flickr has had a refresh and the main selling point here is a whole Terabyte of storage. That’s a whole lot of photos, Flickr have actually …
This afternoon Jolla are meant to be announcing the first Sailfish OS device and in true new phone style the details have already appeared online. The phone intriguingly is a phone with a replaceable backplate that changes the whole theme of the device. Interesting. At the moment it’s …
Before Nokia went all in on Windows Phone to save itself from the burning platform it found itself on, it had pinned itself on another platform that was far too many years in the making: Maemo, which turned into MeeGo and after a long and winding road we …
A video call isn’t, despite what Apple might tell you, that special. I remember my mate showing me a 3G video call on the Three network a decade ago so being able to see the person you’re calling isn’t a big deal. Well, unless you’re on top of …
I’m sitting outside right now. I’m sitting in the sunshine on a beanbag. It’s not something I do very often but I think I’ll start to make a habit of it. There’s a back-story to this though, and sadly it involves my rusty garden furniture getting thrown away. …
So, if you want a cover for your phone you could always have a cool, fashionable leather case or perhaps a nice pouch. Or… Or you could have one of these from Amazon. They are, it has to be said, a little weird. Want a phone cover featuring …
Liquid cooling? Old news matey. Well for us PC Power Users (loving that term) who are always looking to make our PCs go faster than they’re originally make to do, at the price of heat (and the insides of your PCs don’t like getting all toasty). Liquid cools …
The Vodafone Smart range are at the budget end of the Smartphone market. Not everyone wants the latest and greatest device and not everyone wants to spend a whole load of cash each month either. That’s where the Smart III comes in with it’s basic spec and budget …
Come on, if you have a look in the back of the cupboard I’m sure you’ve got a few quid kicking around. If you can get £32.16 together then you can get a whopping 64GB of storage for your phone. This SanDisk Ultra MicroSD card is class 10 …
Google finally took the wraps of Babel yesterday with the relaunch of Hangouts, a cross-platform unified messaging service to take on the likes of iMessage, Facebook Chat and WhatsApp. Users no longer have to contend with separate Google Talk, G+ Messenger, G+ Hangouts and Google Voice apps. …
Television, the drug of the Nation. Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation. But hey, things are still looking good for the 800MHz tests that are being performed by at800. They’ve moved onto London and have also performed tests across Brighton. Everything so far is looking good, with no complaints …
It isn’t often I laugh out loud at a letter. Especially when it’s two companies arguing about apps and services. Normally the letters between the two are very straight forward and not that funny, but this one is great. Let me set the scene. Google have YouTube apps …
Well, Google I/O 2013 has certainly been eventful so far. Our live blog and resulting traffic knocked the site over but hey, no matter, we’ve seen tonnes of good news. Google+ is to get a stack of new features – 41 to be exact – including a redesign …
Hands up if you use the same password at more than one website. Now keep your hand up if all your passwords are more than 12 characters, contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers and characters. Where did everyone go?! Until recently I used two …
Notes apps, have a look in the play store and there are literally hundreds. Some are good, some are poor and some stand out from the crowd. Evernote is probably the biggest but requires a centrally registered account and, lets face it, isn’t exactly what could be …
I own an LG Nexus 4, so as you could imagine I am always concerned I’ll damage it. Not so much because it’s fragile, but because it looks so nice I don’t want to spoil it. I have a ‘bumper’ for it but it just doesn’t feel like it’s going …
The Cygnett SoundWave Bluetooth speaker is a compact mains or battery powered wireless sound system that comes with the added bonus of a phone stand. I’ve had one on test for a couple of weeks, so here’s how it stacks up. Good Price Phone stand Big sound from …
Three have just announced that the new BlackBerry Q10 is launching on their network. It is also 4G ready for when their network starts to roll out later this year. Costing £49 up front on The One Plan including AYCE data with tethering and 4G later this year, …
Want to bust a 1GB monthly bandwidth allowance in just 8 seconds? 5G could be your answer, and Samsung have now achieved a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps for up to 2 kilometres, roughly 1.2 miles. Using a frequency of 28 Ghz they’ve used “adaptive array transeiver …
I’ve got a couple of annoyances when I browse websites on my phone. The first is the fact that some idiotic person working in Government decided that we should all get warned about cookies. Unfortunately there’s no set way to do this, so various websites have different ways …
I love listening to our very own podcast. Stick in on your phone, stream it through your computer, grab it via your Internet radio. Whatever, it’s your weekly dose of chatter and fun. We cover the stories, gossip and reviews of the past week and it’s so easy …
I’m going to see how long it takes for someone to add a comment stating, “You should’ve know, you plonker”, but give me a minute to explain this one. I’ve been using a Three SIM Zero card for quite some time. They don’t do this particular plan any …
A brand new unlocked Sony Xperia SP, delivered by a sexy blonde from UPS? How does that sound? Sexist? Un-necessary? Yes. It is.. Ohh… awkward. Hmm.. Perhaps I should engage politically correct mode… If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning a Sony Xperia SP, …
I’m reaching the end of my mobile contract with Orange. I’ve been with the company since 1995 and they’ve always treated me pretty well. However, this last year I’ve seen my contract price increase and an increased push to get me onto 4G with EE which, strange as …
With Google I/O just around the corner, you’d think the company would want to keep a lid on its forthcoming offerings but Android Police has to grab a copy of Google Play Services 3.1.36 which seems to be trickling out to devices as we speak. You’ve got to …
Three, already famed for their rather speedy and unlimited data access, are to take the Ascend P2 from Huawei. Now, if you’re a regular visitor (and we hope you are), then you’ll remember that we got a hands-on demo from a rather lovely rep at Mobile World Congress …
