Category: General
In case you had somehow failed to notice, the World Cup kicks off in Brazil later tonight, with the start of 64 games over a month in 12 different cities across the country. World Cup Scheduler is an app that keeps you up to date with who is …
Remember those mini satellites we told you about? They’re about the size of a shoebox and whizz around space with fairly standard (compared to other satellites) technology inside. The company responsible for them is called SkyBox and Google were sniffing around them last time we covered the tech. …
You may remember us talking about a smartphone projector some months ago. For really not-that-much-money you it’ll project the image from your smartphone screen onto your wall. Just before I went on my little bike ride the buys from Luckies of London delivered us a review unit, so …
There is something incalculably exciting about OS updates. Often they will fix as many things as they subsequently break. Sometimes, like the previous WP 8.1 update, massive changes are effected, as the battery drain issue that many people had suffered from (myself included) since upgrading to 8.1 was fixed. Within the …
Google Now keeps growing for strength to strength with yet another ingenious feature added, it can now alert you when it’s time to get off your bus or train. If you are using public transport and you open Google Now you may find that it offers you an …
If there’s one thing that you can be certain of in the mobile world, it is rumours. Almost as exciting as watching the final few minutes of transfer deadline day and hearing about whispers of players being spotted in local kebab shops, rumours of mobile phone updates, releases …
Google is rumoured set to reveal a new extension to the Android Location Services called Nearby, with the goal to provide increased accuracy for your smartphone to know your exact location and to know what’s around it. The Nearby application will use Bluetooth and audio clues to pinpoint …
Amazon the online retailer has announced a 20% sale off its entire line of Kindle Fire HDX tablets here in the UK. This means you can pick up your own Kindle Android tablet from just £159.20 (7-inch, 16GB, Wi-Fi only). Spec’s Include. A HDX display. 2.2GHz quad-core processor. …
Are you like Ronnie and I? We are owners of Chromebooks. Back in May, we were promised the ability to view offline any movies or television shows that had been rented or purchased from Google Play. On Thursday there was an update to ChromeOS that now allows this feature, along with …
During a developer session on “Designing Accessories for iOS and OS X” at Apple’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), Robert Walsh, manager of platform accessories at Apple, announced the new Lightning headphone module. This, of course, means that those “Made for iPhone” headphones really won’t connect to …
A new smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Huawei has been briefly spotted on the AnTuTu benchmark listings carrying the model number H60-L02. Rumoured Spec’s include 4.9 inch 1080p display. A 1.3 GHz Huawei Kirin octa core chip. A13-megapixel rear camera. A 5.1-megapixel front camera. 3GB of RAM. Android 4.4.2 …
It has been recently reported that the LG G3 was outselling the Samsung Galaxy S5 in South Korea, well now we’re learning exactly how well. According to a new report, over 100,000 units of the smartphone have already been sold since its launch in the region on the …
Over the past few months the internet has been rumouring the existence of a Amazon phone, to join their line up of e – readers, tablets and now set top boxes. The phone is expected to feature multiple front-facing cameras for a 3D user interface that reacts to …
My history with Windows Phone has been a colourful one, starting with the rather unique Dell Venue Pro, then moving onto the tiny little Nokia Lumia 800, then what I thought was huge at the time HTC Titan and then the HTC 8X and then it was Nokia …
There is nothing worse than a badly scratched phone, it looks horrible and reduces your resale value immensely, so having a screen protector is a great investment. I have tried Zagg Invisible Shields but I’m not a fan of the feel of the original ones, although the HD …
UK network Three have just announced an additional 5 countries have been added to their great roaming service called ‘Feel at Home’ If you did not know about the service before now, it lets you take your UK allowance of calls, texts AND data abroad to certain countries …
OK, I’m going to take some airtime and abuse my position just one last time. Don’t turn off just yet. I’ll make this brief for you. Later today I’ll be heading for London. I’m not attending a fancy press launch with miniature food, no. I’m going to get …
If you want more people viewing your adverts content then one rather expensive solution is to whack a load of satellites into orbit so that a stack more people can get online. Here in the UK we’ve had satellite internet access for some time, and those living “out …
I have, I’ll admit, mentioned this before. However, on my travels I’ve seen a number of mobile phone masts and have taken a pretty un-cool fascination with them. Unless I’m going mad (which is possible), they’re getting slightly smaller and, in towns especially, cleverly hidden. I know, I’ve …
I recently received the Acer Z5 budget smartphone through for review, and despite there being a dual-SIM variant, this is the single SIM version. After unboxing my first impressions were… “Hang on, someone has put a Nexus 5 in here by mistake!” Good Points Good feel in the …
Samsung seem to be on a wearable trend at the moment, with recent leak, and of course the release of the Gear 2, Gear Neo and Gear Fit. Now Samsung have announced the Simbad, which is best described as a cross between the core in a Sony Smartband …
Following on from the Oppo N1 with its gigantic 5.9-inch screen and a 206-degree rotating camera, today the company has unveiled a mini version of the N1 … called… errr… the mini. Now for a device named “mini”, a 5 inch screen device perhaps isn’t the first thing …
After many leaks on the internet, the HTC M8 Ace has now appeared on HTC China’s website. If reveals the handset in several colours including red, blue, black and white. Making it out of reduced costs but does give the Ace a seamless look, similar to last year’s …
Now, you look like the sort of person who needs a Sony 64GB microSD card. The Class 10 card is now down to £19.99 at Carphone Warehouse , down from £39.99. There’s a stack of other ones if you fancy something a bit smaller. Hmm.. that article came …
I promised myself I wouldn’t mention any more Kickstarter campaigns. However, it’s Friday and it’s pretty much the weekend so here goes. I could witter on about the battery on your smartphone and how it’s just not as good as you’d like it to be, but … you …
It’s nearly the weekend, so we’ll let this one through the official Coolsmartphone “stuff that we should publish” filter. It’s a shaver. Yeah, I know. Put this against your ear and it’s not going to be a great smartphone. However, thanks to the Apple-esque addition of the letter …
Driving is a pretty dangerous pastime. You’ve got to watch out for truck drivers watching movies on their laptops and other drivers texting and fiddling with GPS apps while trying to negotiate a roundabout. When you get into town there’s pedestrians crossing the road without looking up from …
ITV have added a free streaming app for Windows Phone. The ITV Player version 1.0.0.0 is available now and has live TV from ITV1, ITV2 ITV3 ITV4 and CITV. You can watch previously aired programmes too, and these are available for up to 30 days. The app also includes …
The BBC have announced a major update to the iPlayer app for Windows Phone. This update swiches to and adaptive bitrate player to better handle varing connection speeds. The have added the ability to watch programs with subtitles and at last LIVE TV! You can get the app …
Are you one of the lucky few (thousand) people off to the Glastonbury Festival this year? How are you planning on keeping your phone charged in the muddy campsite after filming 64 of your favorite bands and uploading them to YouTube? A backup battery is a good idea, …
In a recent application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Samsung have given some hints about what they think a new smartwatch could look like and how a user could interact with it. The answer to the design at least, is very similar to the …
My recent charity cycle ride (feel free to donate) was all “on road”, so a quick check of Google Maps would let me know where the next turning was. Now, if you’re planning to go off road then you’re going to need something a bit better. Finding your …
I love it when you guys email us. Do that more. Go on, give us a nudge on the contact form. If you have anything we should be talking about here, give us a yell. Szuting Chao has given us an email because he’s seen the HTC One …
Recently we brought you the news Three UK have launched a new 4G dongle and a 4G Mifi device. These will allow customers access to mobile internet at speeds up to 50Mbps download and upload around 20Mbps on the new 4G network. We now have one if these …
Smartphones. Usually high powered. Usually pretty pricey. Usually they tie you into a long contract where you’re paying a bit more per month for the latest shiny thing. Vodafone got in touch with us to promote their “Affordable Smartphone Campaign”. They didn’t send us any money. They didn’t …
In October last year Virgin launched Smartcall. The app, which you can download for iPhone or Android handsets let’s you use your home Virgin Phone talk plan on your smartphone. It’s effectively the home phone you can take anywhere and works on pretty much any WiFi hotspot you …
The advent of superfast 4G connectivity comes as a double-edged sword. For the customer this is the ideal solution for that traditional “last mile” issue. For the provider, you have to provide a service which is priced to discourage it being used as an always-on fixed-line broadband replacement. …
EE as a brand have been around for 2 years now. They hit the headlines after launching 4G services nearly a full year ahead of the competition. Both Orange and T-Mobile brands have had quite a few devices made for them by manufacturers already, but with 4G being …
The world of music and entertainment has changed significantly over the last decade or so. Before that, we saw vinyl getting replaced by CD’s and then MP3’s. In the last decade people have switched from traditional brick-and-mortar shops to downloading tunes online. However, streaming music services like Spotify …
You could be seeing a 10% monthly price hike on Vodafone soon. It’s not the actual contract cost but the cost of the out-of-bundle charges that are going up. The network will be working out how much costs will increase based on a “three month profile” and will …