Pre order the Samsung Galaxy Alpha even though it doesn’t exist yet

It’s Friday night, what would be an ideal activity? Pre ordering a phone that doesn’t officially exist yet. And that phone is the much hyped premium material Samsung Galaxy Alpha. Which we saw leaked the other week. Well anyway Mobilefun have opened up pre orders for the Galaxy …

Cat Phones, now available in your high street

If you get a posh smartphone and then hide it away inside a massively rugged cover, Cat Phones are probably worth looking at. We’ve already thrown one in the bath and the people who make the phone even drove a honking great digger over lots of B15 handsets. …

EE roll out 4G in 250th town

EE have announced their 250th town in the UK now has 4G coverage with the Cornwall area now being included in the 4G rollout which has now hit 0ver 73% population coverage. EE is still plugging away switching as many sites as on as possible to allow even …

The Standeazy Review

Has it really been two years since we took a look at the original Standeazy ? Apparently it has. Luckily some things haven’t changed. The new version is still the size of a credit card and I’m still dashingly handsome, which is good. The older version of the …

I get a lot of requests to post stuff. This one is for free.

People often ask me to post stuff here. I get a lot of very random emails from companies from Shenzhen in China especially. Usually they start with “Hello friend, battery supply we can. You buy we price good. You review?” However, my mate wanted me to mention something …

A big thank-you

Remember earlier in the summer when I kept posting about my charity bike riding? If you missed it, I basically had too much to drink and kinda agreed to get fitter and do some mental rides to raise a bit of cash for charity. After riding a mountain …

Shamu – maybe the next Nexus to make a splash

Its that crazy time of the month – no, not that one, the other time. That time when Apple rumours start to go into overdrive and both Nexus and Galaxy Note stories spring up from almost nowhere… Almost nowhere. The Information ran a report stating that the new …

I got told off..

This weekend, following quite a bit of advertising by the company, I gave the Music Magpie app a try. The company buy DVDs, CDs, games and electronics plus clothes, but their app lets you snap barcodes and you get an instant price on your stuff. So, armed with …

Podcast 103 – is cheaper better?

Welcome to another episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast, joining me this week were John and Khellan. John is new to the podcast and also new to the Coolsmartphone team we thought we’d get to know him first. Then tackle the big topics of the week. The “big” topics …

Samsung Galaxy S5 mini and Young 2 to arrive in the UK in days

The Samsung Young 2 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini are due to arrive here in the UK very soon indeed, so if that Galaxy S5 5.1″ screen is too much, you can have a slightly smaller one instead. Sasmsung tell us that the shrunk-down version of the …

Watch out, I have a Ninja in my pocket

This is an £8.99 metal credit-card-sized ..err.. card which has 18 different uses. A lot of those 18 are screwdrivering and nut tightening. In our tests it screws and tightens my nuts fine. Not a problem there. It’ll also open letters, which is probably ideal for those people …

Wait (W8) One Mate (M8), a new HTC Windows Phone is on its way

Some good news and some bad news here folks. First the good: Last week I bemoaned the lack of any alternatives to the monster Lumia 1520 or Glance-less Lumia 930 for top end WP 8 phones.  Clearly someone was paying attention as it would appear HTC are about …

Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 coming next week

One thing that Microsoft was certainly guilty of in the past but has since remedied is the speed by which it offers updates to its mobile phone OS. Windows Phone 8.1, released as a developer’s preview just a few months ago, has undergone a series of small revisions that fixed various …

Get the kids out for summer – AA Days Out Guide

Here in the UK it’s the big summer holidays. The kids are off school and the teachers are taking a well-earned break from their 200 days at work. With the sun actually appearing in the sky and kids wanting to play out, it’s a tough time for parents, …

Three WiFi calling app now on Android too

Just yesterday we revealed the new app from Three which lets you make and receive calls over WiFi. It’ll use the same minutes and texts from your bundles, and it’s so great way to fill gaps in coverage or use your phone abroad. Yesterday the iOS version of …

Cortana to speak with a British accent

A week ago we reported that the developer preview for Cortana in the UK should be heading to these shores in the next few weeks. It has now been confirmed from two Microsoft employees that when she arrives, she won’t be voiced by Jen Taylor, the actress who …

O2 Lumia 1520 Cyan Upadate now AVAILABLE

Despite what the Nokia Availability site  says, the Cyan Update for Windows Phone 8.1 is out now on O2 at least. Since early July I have been using the “Settings & Phone Update” option to check and this morning it paid off. After a small Nokia Update I was …

EU delivers pre-emptive slap for purchasing in free Apps

When is free, not free? Or free, kinda, but not quite all the time. Except… mostly. Yep, we’re talking about those apps and games which are built around the freemium model. There’s more than one way to build a freemium app. The first way is to build a …

Bayan Audio Soundbook X3 Review

Well, this is a weighty thing. You may remember our review of the original Soundbook we looked at about a year ago. The first thing I noticed with this particular model was the weight of it. It’s something that isn’t mentioned in the specs, but after sticking it …