Category: General
Today I received an email. That, in itself, isn’t remarkable. I get a few. However, this one was from the Police. Luckily it arrived to inform me that a number of bikes had been stolen from the local area. This, in fact, was the second such email and …
Recently GiffGaff experienced an outage which knocked out calls and texts on their network. Customers, for a number of hours, couldn’t make or receive calls or texts and there were a number of irate posts on Twitter and the GiffGaff forums. After fixing the issue and telling their …
To the average person Xaiomi would mean nothing but a bunch of letters that shouldn’t be put together. Surely it’s just a word designed to hurt your tongue> But Xaiomi, a Chinese Manufacturer of some truly wonderful handsets, just announced they have sold out of their latest and …
The Galaxy Round & the LG Flex. Is it me or does it seem that over excited employees at Samsung & LG who cracked the curved screen conundrum have released seemingly “pointless” handsets? In my head it’s a battle of two warring nerd’s hell-bent on outdoing each other! …
It’s a fight we have daily. Power, we just need more power. So, as a little taster for our upcoming Coolsmartphone Gift Guide, here’s the Eton BoostBloc6600. It’s basically a block that you charge up and then you carry it round. Slap a couple of cables in and …
I’ve grown fond of Otterbox over the years, having found them years ago whilst looking for a rugged case for my Dell Streak 5. Fast forward a few years and Otterbox are one of THE names for mobile phone and tablet cases, with many different designs and colours …
TVCatchUp is a popular website and app that allows users to watch 57 channels live on computer, tablet or mobile, or rather it did. The broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 took TVCatchUp to court for copyright infringement dating back to 2007. The judgement has just come …
It’s at times like this that I feel humble. Y’see, it’s you lot that keep us here. It’s you guys that keep us posting this stuff. Reviews, covering product launches and keeping up to date with all the latest information, it’s not easy and it’s quite time-consuming too. …
Independent retailer Carphone Warehouse has today launched the “vivid blue” version of the HTC One in the UK. The Blue HTC One Mini is also up for pre-order. Carphone, which has exclusivity over the blue HTC One in the UK, and prices are set at £489.95 SIM-free, also …
A mere 34 months after the launch of Motorola Xoom, Twitter have finally released a tablet friendly version of their Android app. Tragically, in its current guise, it’s exclusively a Samsung tablet app. It’s a state of affairs that highlights everything wrong with Android on tablets, …
BT and EE have today announced that EE are to provide MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) services for BT. BT, who exited the mobile space some 10 years ago with the sale of their BT Cellnet network to O2, have already won a license for a 4G network …
LifeProof have until now just focused on the Apple market with cases for the iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5 and a few iPods but now they have extended their range to include the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4. The cases are advertised as having 4 proofs: …
Ofcom has published a consultation on greatly increasing annual fees for the 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum bands in the UK to bring them more in line with the additional bands auctioned for 4G coverage. This could see rises in the amounts that networks pay to run their mobile …
The updates just keep on coming from Google. Along with the Quickoffice update, Google Maps is now undergoing a staged rollout, this time to version 7.3 The update contains a few UI changes and several under the hood fixes. Firstly, the notification window now has more detail than …
A short while ago we reviewed the OTONE Soundship Micro. It’s a Bluetooth speaker which also acts as a stand. Connect it up and boom, your tunes come out while you charge. However, there’s a bigger unit. A mothership if you will. OTONE call it an “intergalactic Soundship” …
The summer, at least here in the UK, is well and truly over. I’ve had to stop sitting around in my garden wearing just shorts, especially now that the police have told me that my front garden isn’t the best spot. It’s too cold, and it’s getting dark …
Mobile Choice have an awards event every year to celebrate the best of the industry in different categories from best handset to best network. Winners of these awards are usually quick to include the prize in their advertising or PR information so these results are a pretty big …
If you are a fan of BlackBerry devices and want to get your hands on their latest flagship, listen up. Vodafone have just put the Z30 on sale here in the UK. The Z30 is the largest phone BlackBerry have made and comes with a 5″ display, 8 …
So, thanks to you lovely people we’re pretty much there now. Only £40 stands between us and our spanky new server. We’ll be announcing the winners of our prize collection tomorrow, but I just wanted to say another rather massive thank-you to those who’ve chosen to donate and …
One device that is hotly anticipated here in the UK that has been available in the US for months is Google’s Chromecast. The media streaming device that connects directly to your television’s HDMI port and is controlled by your Android, iDevice or Chrome browser has been generally …
You may not remember the first ever iPhone commercial. After all, it was 6 years ago. It featured scenes of people using various telephones in movies and TV shows. At the end the first ever iPhone is displayed with a catchy strapline. Matthew Panzarino (@panzer), remembers this well …
The Xperia Z Ultra is a great bit of kit but with the giant screen I am worried that I will break all that lovely glass in my bag or pocket (yes you can put this beast in a pocket). So the first thing I did after getting …
I’d like to say a massive thank-you to everyone who’s donated so far. It’s warmed the ‘ole cockles and we’re already in the final few days of our donation drive by the looks of things. We’re trying to buy ourselves a powerful new server which will keep the …
Three have just sent out a press release confirming the latest Nexus 7 tablet is now available in the UK via their network. This is the WiFi model costing £199.99 and can be paired with either a PAYG or Contract MiFi for browsing access. Wait, you want to …
So, following the GiffGaff failure yesterday, now the parent network – O2 – has failed. It seems to have kicked off earlier today and, 11 hours later, there still appears to be people who are experiencing problems. The status page currently states that, as of 8PM… We are …
I’m a bit of an OtterBox fan. I like to have my latest device protected. By protected I mean really protected, I usually choose an OtterBox case happy in the knowledge it will be nice and solid. Well today OtterBox have announced something new and a bit different. …
Got GiffGaff? Got cheap data? Well, unfortunately that’s all you have as I type. The 2G side of the network seems to have failed, with calls failing to connect and text messages popping up with a failure message since around 4PM today. The GiffGaff Twitter guys have already …
Google has announced an update to the stable channel of Chrome for Android which brings gesture support to the browser. According to the latest Google blog post, in Chrome for Android, you’ll be able to: Swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch tabs. Drag vertically down …
I shouldn’t really say broadband should I? I mean, any sort of stable connectivity would be a start. Perhaps even the ability to make a call that lasts more than 20 seconds? That’d be good. Today the Department for Transport has announced that 70% of rail passengers will …
Imagine the scene. You work for Volkswagen. You work on the Service section. You’re not the guy who sits in the showroom with the badge that says “Service” on it. Oh no, you’re not that guy. He’s the guy that gets to sell “Service Plans” and sells £17 …
Back in August the BBC launched the CBeebies app on iOS, Android and for the Kindle and now the same app has been released for the Windows Phone platform. The app which is completely free of in app purchases has since kept my little one occupied with its …
We’re over half-way to our goal now and, again, I must thank everyone for helping towards our new server. Coolsmartphone has been going for well over 10 years now and we’ve grown to be more than just a “blog”. We have a dedicated team of knowledgeable writers and …
Your phone camera, let’s face it, is pretty fantastic. It’ll let you take photos at any time and you never have to worry about going home to get your camera, because it’s always with you. If you’re anything like me you’ll probably have already filled up your phone …
If you’ve bought one of those shiny new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 handsets you’ll probably want to protect it. These cases are now available on Mobile Fun and include this case with funky laces. Look at that! It’s like having a foot against your head (and believe me, …
Imagine the scene…. Your boss strolls around the corner and tells you that you are needing to go on a top secret mission to some war torn part of the world and that he is going to want you connected the whole time so he can ring you …
Do you remember back to when you were a kid and you used to watch Knight Rider? Remember looking wistfully at the Hoff’s watch communicator that he used to talk with Kitt? I did anyway. Now we’re getting a step closer to this becoming a reality. I present …
Well, we kinda knew it was on the cards, now it has indeed happened. HTC has sold the remaining shares in Beats Electronics. Bloomberg reports that the deal is expected to complete in the fourth quarter and will raise $265 million for the rather battered HTC. HTC originally …
I want to say a big thank-you to everyone who’s donated towards the cost of our new server so far. You’re all amazing, and we’ve already got £116 in donations. There’s still a long way to go though, and we need £699 for a more powerful server to …
Now, if you’re in the cool gang and follow us on Twitter, you’ll already know that we’ve had a full hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. You’ll also know that it’s popped up on Three already, but we’ve now got the official press release, which is brimming …
Morning all. Hope you’re all well. Recently we’ve struggled somewhat with the increasing amount of visitors on Coolsmartphone. After the issues last year we, thanks to your help, moved to a new co-lo provider with ample bandwidth and we’ve recently increased capacity, but the outage during our live …
