Category: General

Vodafone get the exclusive on the Sony Xperia E1 in purple

The Sony Xperia E1 was one of those phones that Sony announced before MWC, it’s a pretty basic model with a loud speaker on the back and a Micro SD slot, so it’s ideal for those kids who listen to music on the back of the bus. Well …

Planning on buying an S5? Have a nose at these

Samsung are trying to grab a bit of the HTC spotlight today by announcing a range of rather nice accessories for the new Galaxy S5. The handset itself will be available to buy on April 11th, so it looks like the new HTC One will be getting a …

Downloads to possibly increase in price?

How many people paid attention to the budget last week? I mean fully because if you didn’t you might have missed this little bit of information, I know I did.   One of the leading accountancy firms in London reported that one of the changes in the budget last …

Co-founder of Wikipedia invigorating charitable MVNO

Continuing very much with what appears to be his personal modus operandum, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has recently taken a strategic stake in The Peoples Operator mobile virtual network operator business and been appointed to the board of the company as Co-Chair. This should mean he will ignite the fledgling companies …

Ovivo goes pop. Where should you go now?

If you don’t like paying much money then Ovivo were ideal. Some of their plans cost absolutely nothing per month, but just recently Ovivo unexpectedly went pop and their customers were left with no service instantly. So what now? Well, we’ve put some options together for you. They’re …

The demise of storage cards. I don’t want it. I don’t like it.

Yeah, yeah. Cloud storage. Bla bla bla. I’m one of those annoying people who actually prefers having a massive 32GB microSD card in my phone. Sure, if my phone goes missing I’ve lost everything, but I’ve got something physical and heck … I just don’t like change sometimes. …

Wanna be part of the madness?

We know you love technology, we know you love your smartphones, your accessories and everything in between. How’d you like to cover it? To add your opinion and post your thoughts on the latest games, apps and mobile happenings as they occur? Coolsmartphone is on the hunt for …

Ovivo Mobile shuts down. What happened? What now?

We’ve mentioned Ovivo Mobile quite a bit here at Coolsmartphone.com and we were big fans of their business model, even though it didn’t seem to work out in the end. Things seemed to be going pretty well. You pay up-front for the privilege of having an Ovivo SIM, …

EE customers still suffering after big outage – Update

Following the signal issues for EE customers last night, it appears that some customers are now getting service again. The classic “turn it off and on again” advice seems to be working for others. Twitter users in particular seem to have been annoyed by the EE response, which …

EE seems to be a bit busted

I could’ve come up with a more eloquent title for this post but hey, it’s a lot better than some of the posts flying around Twitter right now. The EE Twitter crew say that .. There seems to be some Gremlins in the system – we’re aware of …

Ovivo shuts down

Ovivo Mobile, the MVNO that offered free minutes, calls, and data for absolutely nothing per month, appears to have closed its doors in the past couple of hours. In a statement posted on its website, the company said: Dear OVIVO Customers, We are very sad to announce that …

A smartphone projector on the cheap

The Samsung Galaxy Beam is quite a cool phone. It’s got a built-in projector so you can project your favourite football match, TV show or movie onto the wall. However, if you want that functionality you’re going to have to switch phones, and that’s a whole expensive business …

Are you brand loyal?

How many of you lovely readers have a favourite manufacturer or always upgrade to the next iteration of a range, be it the latest iPhone or the latest Galaxy? If you do, then you are one of a number of loyal upgraders. In the case of the iPhone …

Pebble Steel – Review

The original Pebble was one of the first SmartWatches that actually got my attention, up until then SmartWatches were just trying far too hard. With devices like the Sony Liveview being flawed by horrific software and driver issues. What Pebble were offering seemed to fit a lot of …

WhatsApp – Highs and lows in one month

Not that we wouldn’t pay attention to one of the most popular messaging mobile applications in the world today, but there’s been a lot more attention placed upon it recently since Facebook snapped it up. Those who were concerned about privacy have been trying out a number of …

Grab our weekly audio snacks

Each week the Coolsmartphone crew sit down, huddle around and share a big bag of Cheesy Puffs. It’s a bonding session. Perhaps even a therapy session in a way, and it’s all recorded onto this D90 cassette. When we’ve all shared our pain, our joy and all those …

Galaxy S5 – I love gold! Exclusive to Voda

If you’re waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S5 and want to “stand out from the crowd” a little, Vodafone have a little something for you. They’ve got the exclusive on the gold version of the new Samsung device. You’ll be able to pre-order the gold S5 and the …

Rumours may be true: Performance Boosting Thing in Android 4.4.3

When we first heard it, we were blown away by the audaciousness of those GooglePlex dwellers. Its long been a bone of contention between the Android faithful and those who prefer Apple’s way of doing things, but when the rumours of PBT were posted up on the code.google …

Ravpower Lister Series Power Bank RP-PB08 – Review

The Ravpower RP-PB08 is a small portable battery backup pack for charging phones when away from mains sockets. I carried one with me for a week to see how it performed with a variety of phones, and these are my findings. Good Points Size Charge level indicator Torch …

Vodafone cry foul play over Rootmetrics results

Rootmetrics, a company that gives supposedly unbiased data reports about the mobile industry, recently voted EE the best mobile provider in the UK. Vodafone, unsurprisingly, disagrees. However, rather than just grumbling into their morning coffee, management have released a statement on the company forum lambasting Rootmetrics, saying that …

Huawei to launch dual boot Android and Windows Phone in Q2

“I like the Windows Phone platform, but I couldn’t have it as my only phone”, is something I hear all the time. Unfortunately there’s a lot of merit to that statement and, even now, I agree. Huawei has heard our gripes and is doing something about them. Sort …

Safeguard your kids with this rather colourful mobile

My initial thoughts on this were a little negative if I’m honest. Kids all-too-quickly get their hands on phones and, before you know it, your five-year-old is sending emails and offering web design services. This toy-like mobile only allows incoming and outgoing calls to four designated numbers and …

HTC Desire 816 confirmed for UK.

Following announcing the HTC Desire 816, the Taiwanese company has stated that it has received 450,000 pre-orders in just 72 hours. Now the mid-range device is believed to heading to the UK, with a price tag around £315 (but this has not yet been confirmed). Spec’s incude Android …

Free cinema ticket with Ovivo – Only one week left

If you’re thinking of trying a new network out, we’ve already mentioned Ovivio quite a bit. You pay for a SIM to be delivered and then, on plans like their Freedom 0 offering, you get 250 minutes, 300 texts and 500MB of data to use every month for …

EE customers to receive 4G roaming in France and Spain

If you’ve used roaming data (watch those charges) then you’ll probably be aware that you can get 100MB of data for £3 per day on EE when abroad. Other options include 200MB to use over 30 days, which is £35. Now however, in France and Spain, EE customers …

Threes! Arrives on Android

The smash hit puzzle game that has enraptured iOS users this year has finally found its way into the hands of Android users. Yes, I’m talking about Threes!, the game that appears to have made basic maths cool again. The premise is simple: merge 2 and 1 tiles …

Decisions, decisions…

It has come to that time again, the one that occurs every two years and send shivers down the spine of every mobile phone addict… upgrade time. As yet I haven’t had the barrage of phone calls from my network asking me to upgrade to whatever random handset …

The Garmin VivoFit is now available exclusively at John Lewis

I just don’t get exclusivity deals, in my eyes it only benefits the manufacturer and the retailer, not the consumer and the Garmin VivoFit fitness band is one such tie up. With it being available exclusively at John Lewis. The NEW Garmin vívofit is the only fitness band …

Want to experience a tech show too?

Having just got back from the Mobile World Congress, we’re now hungry for more. What’s next? What’s big? What is just 10 miles from my house? Yep, it’s The Gadget Show Live. Microsoft will be there, as will Samsung, Nokia and Sony Mobile. You’ll also get to see …

O2 deliver free 4G access to some customers

I’ve a couple of questions for you. Firstly, are you on O2? Do you have a package providing 1GB or more of data per month ? If so, you’re in luck, because O2 seem to be delivering access to their 4G network for free if you tick those …

New HTC One/M8: Yes, more leaks

If there’s one thing that’s clear, its that HTC would never be able to run a submarine. All those leaks would have killed them a long time ago. On the other hand, its nice to be able to see the successor to the HTC One just one more …

Z1 Compact coming to Big Red

One of our eagle eyed staff noticed that the Z1 Compact has now been added to the Coming Soon section of the Vodafone blog. Although they don’t have pricing up yet, it will probably be just a matter of time. Personally, it’s one of the ‘mini’ handsets that …

Want a Sony Xperia Z2? Pre-order on Vodafone for a free TV

Now, you have to be pretty quick on this one as Vodafone are restricting the deal to the first 3000 orders only. If you’re looking ahead to the Xperia Z2 as you next handset and want to bag a free TV, Vodafone today have an offer to give …

Screenproof screen protector review

The other day I received some long awaited Screen protectors from a small company called ScreenProof. They are a relatively new kid on the block with regard to screen protection and having used the camera protector on my Lumia 1020 I thought it would be worth trying them …

The next Angry Birds game teased

Seriously, I’m really going to struggle to stretch this post out to any more than two paragraphs. It’s a teaser video for the next big Angry Birds game from Rovio. All we know is what is revealed here, which is the fact that it… A) Involves Angry Birds …

Samsung owes Apple a lot of money

In a legal battle that has been going on for the last 20 years (or so it seems), Apple have been fighting with Samsung about patent infringement in pretty much any court that will listen to them. The original and biggest case is the one that has been …

Giffgaff. 4G. It’s happening

More speed. You want it, don’t you? 4G, yeah. That’s it. You want that in your life, but you don’t want to pay a whole lot of cash for it. Step forward giffgaff, who are about to deliver your 4G fun on a contract-free plan. Their 4G page …

FlightRadar24 – Be a clever plane spotter

Waiting for a friend or loved one to return from holiday or a business trip, you’ll no doubt have checked the flight arrivals page on the airport website. However, with FlightRadar24 you can go one further and, with the paid-for version, you get some very clever augmented-reality functionality …

Android App Review – Recent (file manager assistant)

Naming an app must be a difficult task, if I was tasked to do that I’d be there for weeks thinking and thinking what to call it. So I can entirely understand what the confusingly named Recent is all about. Picture the scene, you have taken a load …

Vodafone launch supersized Red XXL 4G plan

For most people a 1GB data package will suit their needs. Sure, it’s not ideal and I’d much prefer if we could all have unlimited packages, but sadly it’s not the case. So if you’re looking for more data, what options do you have? Vodafone have today launched …