Category: General

EE offers up BT Sport to mobile customers

Building on their previous offer, EE are now making it even easier to get your sport fix. Customers on pay monthly plans can now just text “SPORT” to 150 to get six months of free access to the BT Sport App. Once you’ve got that, you can watch …

OnePlus3 soon available in Gold

There is no denying it OnePlus have definitely hit their mark on the fourth attempt at a phone. This time they promised a flagship killer and according to most reviews (including rather excellent one that can be read here), they nailed it. If there was a fly in ointment at …

Jide brings Marshmallow sweetness to Remix OS

We here at Coolsmartphone towers are big fans of Jide and their Remix OS. For those that have only just come across this, this is a desktop-friendly Android OS with windows and toolbars providing a full desktop experience. It is one of a number of Android x86 projects, …

BlackBerry announce their second Android device

BlackBerry, one of the past greats of smartphones, have just announced the DTEK50. This will be their second device running Android after the (also appallingly named) Priv. The Priv was a first for the company – it was the first to run Android rather than its proprietary BB10. Whilst it …

Three launches the bare Essentials

Going abroad is great. Using your phone as a hotspot is great too. However, if you don’t want to use your phone on holiday and don’t often turn it into a portable WiFi hotspot, there’s no real need for you to have a chunky plan which includes these …

Charity update

Hello all, hope you’re well. For the last few days I’ve been up on the Lake District. Not for a holiday, but for a rather grueling bike ride up 30% hills and a lot of very rugged mountains. It was a combined 20,000 foot climb in wind and …

Superbook – making your Chromebook redundant since July 2016

We have long been dreaming of the ability to make your Android phone more productive here at Coolsmartphone Towers. Today that dream came a bit closer to reality with a Kickstarter project called SuperBook, from the team behind Andronium OS. Here is a video of what it can …

Corning announce Gorilla Glass 5

Following on from, (what I always though strangely named) Gorilla Glass 4, Corning has officially announced Gorilla Glass 5. The company states that this latest generation of its strengthened glass will survive up to four times better than competing glass designs.  Corning says that in tests the new Gorilla Glass 5  was …

EE goes half price on Juice

It’s that time of year when every PR agency up and down the land is trying desperately to link their thing with Pokemon Go. Today it’s EE, who are dropping the price of their Juice Power Tube to half price in EE stores as people “continue their quest …

Argos to stock Anywhere SIM

Are you sick of coming up against a mobile signal black spot (first world problems and all that)? Take my house for instance, upstairs I get a 4G signal giving 40Mbps download speeds, go downstairs Nothing,  Nada. Well this is where Anywhere SIM may be the answer. It’ll …

VR on the iPhone with the Amir VR Glasses

When it comes to mobile VR, Android based devices such as Gear VR have grabbed most of the attention recently. As regular readers and listeners of the Coolsmartphone podcast will know my devices of choice are iOS based, so I was keen to see if there was a VR …

Mini Nintendo!

We keep getting this stock image. I’ve perhaps been looking at it too much. Is that a real hand? Is that a plastic hand? Who knows. It doesn’t look right. It doesn’t look right to me at all. Either way, this is a proper retro gaming gadget – …

Insta360 Nano brings 360 degree video to the iPhone

As listeners to the podcast will be aware, I’ve been looking out for a 360 degree camera option for my iPhone for quite some time…today a new option entered the market as Arashi Vision announced the Insta360 Nano which  is presented as the worlds first HD Apple MFI approved camera …

Gaming on the go, with some augmentation

You’ll definitely have heard of Mobile Bingo Sites and addictive games like Pokemon Go lately. It’s a simple idea though, and one which many of you will be a little confused by. Augmented Reality is at the heart of this particular app, and the game has a simple …

BBC+ app launches

Today the BBC have launched a new app on both IOS and Android, the BBC+ app. Every day the BBC generates massive amounts of content, be it news, TV programmes or the radio shows, and to be honest all this fantastic content is scattered throughout the internet, and …

Smanos W100 WiFi wireless intruder alarm – Review

In today’s world, pretty much every gadget is connected to the internet. Alarms are no different, and I recently got sent this Wi-Fi enabled Home Security System, from Smanos. Whats In The Box: Upon opening the box I was met with the main control unit. It looks like …

How much data does Pokemon Go use?

Unless you have been living under a rock for a few days you will be aware of the Pokemon Go phenomenon which is taking over the world. Everywhere I go I see hordes of gamers waving there phones in the air trying to collect Pokemon, or gangs of …

Pokémon Go – I’ve never seen anything like it.

I write this from the shiny Coolsmartphone HQ which, as you know, is my kitchen. On Friday afternoon I got back from work to find that my son had downloaded Pokemon Go. He’d seem it on TV and got it. He’s a bit young and I didn’t want …

Cook via your smartphone with some tasty Tefal tech

Cooking. It’s not exactly exciting is it. I mean sure, if you’re Gordon Ramsay and you’ve got pots of money then yeah – exciting. However, for me it usually involves getting the timing all wrong and having an over-cooked chicken next to raw potatoes. Tefal, yes Tefal – …

giffgaff serve up summer deals on the latest smartphones

Head over to the Apple website and a 64GB iPhone 6s will set you back £619. The 128GB one will cost you £699. However, right now giffgaff have dropped the price of this and lots of other handsets. So, head over to their site and you can get …

A walk-around from MWC Shanghai

My final bit of coverage from MWC Shanghai is a walk around the show halls. The venue itself is nearly purpose built for hosting large scale events, of which MWC Shanghai has ambitions to become one of the bigger events that the Shanghai International New Expo Centre (SINEC) …

Filming a concert? Yeah, don’t go mad with that

If you’ve been to Glastonbury or a big concert recently, you’ll have noticed the eagerness of some to capture the moment. Some go to extremes – filming entire songs and suppressing their own enjoyment so that they can hold their precious phone stock-steady instead. It can look strange …

How to download Pokémon Go on Android in the UK now

OK. It’s turned into a dream for the PR company this one. Everybody seems to be talking about it, even here in the UK where you can’t actually download the thing just yet. Pokémon has returned and the ’90s have come back too (Robot Wars was on TV …

Tesco puts a Rocket in your pocket

Want 4G data on Pay As You Go? Tesco Mobile is going to deliver with their new “Rocket Packs”. They’ve been announced just weeks after the virtual mobile network announced a money-saving scheme which reduces mobile bills if you watch some ads. Now they’re offering 4G data on …

EE TV – On test

The boys from BT.. sorry, EE.. sent me one of their clever TV boxes recently. You can’t just go out and buy one of these things, you have to have an EE Broadband package too. There’s full details here. You basically plug this into your rooftop aerial and …

Controlling my home from my phone

We’ve seen a number of companies approaching us lately who want us to promote their smart gadgets. A lot of these gadgets now relate to the “Internet of Things” or a “Smart Home”. Whilst they’re all great, you can find that they’re a little disjointed – using their …

Vodafone help you keep in touch while you get drunk

Honestly, at times I despair. Vodafone think that I’m going to post an article on this site purely because they’ve mentioned the words “beer” and “pub” in their press release. Disgraceful. I do like beer though. I like pubs too. Gahh… they’ve got me. OK, short version. You …

Lumsing Quick Charge 2.0 USB Desktop Charger offer ending soon

Today, as you’ll know from our earlier news item, is Amazon Prime Day. There’s deals a-plenty over there and we’ve already detailed a number of them. In addition, we’ve got to let you know that our deal on the Lumsing 5-port desktop charger that we reviewed last month …

Get on your back. Let me put this on your face.

Where do I start with this one? The picture alone is enough to give you an idea of the madness. It’s a “Cardboard Home Cinema” and, because it’s not the actual size of a real cinema, you basically lie on the floor and stare at your phone. Yeah. …

Amazon Prime Day is today

Amazon Prime Day, the day of deals exclusively for members of Amazon Prime, is today. Amazon Prime already gives you great benefits, like Amazon Prime Music streaming service, Amazon Instant Video with quite a selection of movies and TV shows as well as free next day delivery on …

Get BT Sport for free on EE

So it begins. With BT firmly in charge of the EE ship, we’re now seeing the first push to offer BT services on the network. Soon it’ll no doubt be BT supplied TV, home broadband and home phone instead of the current EE equivalents. Until then, we’ve got …

LeEco Le Max 2 unboxing – MWC Shanghai

As you may know, I was recently out in Shanghai and I was lucky enough to be given a Le Max 2 from LeEco for me to use as my own phone. So in the way of a true tech blogger, I decided  I would share the unboxing …

Vodafone – 10GB SIM-only for just £11.59 per month

I’ve reached the end of an EE SIM-only deal that I took out last year. It should’ve been £20.99 but I managed to get it down to £16.99 per month for 4GB of data and enough minutes to keep me waffling to the missus. However, that deal is …

The Beast is out!

Last week we told you about the fantastic Iron Maiden game, Legacy of the Beast. The wait is over! The game now be download from Google Play and Apple iTunes official from now (5th July, 4pm BST). James Hursthouse, CEO of Roadhouse Interactive comments, “As a lifelong Maiden fan, I …

A blast from the past.. a Gionee Flip Phone – MWC Shanghai

Whilst I was walking through the halls of MWC Shanghai I came across the Gionee booth. We’ve had some dealing with Gionee before on the site including a demo in Barcelona. They also brought a couple of phones to the UK under the Kazam brand. Unfortunately that partnership …

Remix Pro 2 in 1 Hands on – MWC Shanghai

Jide Tech recently announced that they were making a follow up to the Remix Ultra Tablet. This was funded through Kickstarter last year. I was very lucky to find one if these devices at MWC Shanghai on the Qualcomm booth. The device I found was all setup for …

Curve, One Card To Rule Them All – Review

If you carry more than one payment card, you need Curve. Curve combines all your cards into a single card controlled with an app on your smartphone. The London based team behind Curve wanted to transform the way we manage and spend our money and set up at …

ZTE Axon 7 hands on – MWC Shanghai

They only announced that this would be available the other day, but us being eager beavers here at Coolsmartphone (and with me being in Shanghai), I thought it would be worth a visit to ZTE. Before we get into that though let’s see what this thing is all …

Phones that will revolutionise mobile gaming

Every year mobile gaming becomes more involved and sophisticated with new games, better ways to play them and even greater connectivity with friends through social media. And, as this march of progress continues, the technology to play the games on moves forward too. At the forefront of these …