Tag: smartphones

Vertu Ti revealed: prepare to weep at the price tag

The Vertu Ti has been revealed today and whilst the smartphone looks like the Ferrari of the mobile world, it’ll actually cost you the price of  a small car to own it. To be exact, the Vertu Ti has a starting price of a whopping £6,700 and for …

Dell to stop making smartphones

When was the last time you saw a Dell smartphone? There were some. Honestly their were. In recent years we saw the Dell Streak, which I always typed as “Steak” before getting uncontrollably hungry. Tesco were selling it earlier this year for a knock-down price. It had a …

Clove celebrate 20 years – Win stuff!

Two whole decades. 1992 eh? Heck, I wasn’t even born. OK, who’s laughing? The guys at Clove are celebrating the fact that they’ve been in operation for 20 years. You can celebrate too, because Clove are giving away loads of stuff in a daily giveaway draw. There’s 150 …

1.2 Billion sales predicted for Smartphones and Tablets in 2013

Yes, you read that correct…it says ‘billion’. That’s a heck of a lot of devices to be purchased; and to think we at CoolSmartPhone will only account for approximately 50% of that! Let’s get serious for a second. The figure of 1.2 billion smart devices being sold in …

Smartphones – Will we ever get more form factors?

It might surprise you, but I’m a bit simple at heart. OK. Who’s laughing? I have a Samsung Galaxy SII and a laptop, that’s about it. Call it a netbook, call it an ultrabook, whatever, you can get affordable notebooks online pretty easily now and hook up to …

Cleaning out a dirty hole

Yesterday my rather battered Samsung Galaxy SII started doing something weird. It seemed to develop magical powers, and was charging even when it wasn’t plugged in. I plugged and then unplugged it and it seemed to correct the problem but, after a few hours, it happened again. I …

Something PIG is coming…….

Rovio, the makers of the famed Angry Birds series have launched a teaser trailer for their upcoming spin off, Bad Piggies. Angry Birds is one of the biggest games if not the biggest available on mobile and has seen releases across almost all smartphone platforms. The video ends …

Coolsmartphone Podcast – Episode 7

  It’s friday and that means its time for us to share another podcast with you. This week is a veritable variety bag of topics, including the LG Optimus 4x, the Huawei Ascend P1, 4G in the UK, Android Piracy and Dan has an announcement. This week your …

Shortage Continues – Qualcomm

The chip designer Qualcomm has confirmed that they are still struggling to meet demand. Back in April they reported that they under estimated the need. The chips, 28 nanometre ones, are used in the most popular Android handsets including the Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X. This shortage, …

It’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore

It’s official, we’d rather not speak to each other. Head down, umbrella up, we’d rather use text and data than actually talk. The research, by Ofcom, reveals that 58% of people sent texts daily whilst 47% of people make a phone call every day. The average Brit sends …

Opinion: Nexus 7 – Dawn of a new age, or failure of an existing one?

Well most people will be waking up this morning to the news that Ebuyer and Google either are, or will shortly be dispatching Google’s new Flagship Nexus device, the Nexus 7 tablet, running Jelly Bean 4.1 OS. Let’s just run through the key specs of Google’s newest device: …

Nokia – Iceberg, right ahead.

This morning, like you, I read about the Nokia cuts. Nokia appear, in my opinion, to be hitting the same issue that Microsoft and Windows Mobile tackled four or five years ago. Complacency. There was far too much washing about. Nokia were the undisputed king of the mobile …

Lost your phone? Symantec find out what happens next

The people at Symantec decided to do something a bit nuts. They put 50 smartphones around major American cities and equipped them with tracking and usage software. Their “Honey Stick Project” (shouldn’t that be Honey Pot?) found some pretty interesting, if not unsurprising results. The phones, by the …

Do Budget Android Phones Need a non-Crash Diet?

Android phones have grown from an interest to a bit of an obsession with me, but that’s not the only way they’ve grown recently, and I’m a little worried that all this excess is going to harm our cute green friend. I’m a proud owner of a Samsung …

Don’t know how to text? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one

We get a few press releases and research results posted through our door here at Coolsmartphone towers. This one flashed up on our radar and well, we figured it was worth telling you about. The Geek Squad asked 1,837 people about their mobile phone usage and found that …

Just what is Mobile World Congress?

I know, for the tech-hungry phone lovers out there this might seem like a weird question. In just a matter of days you WILL see an explosion of Twitter hash-tags (#mwc #mobileworldcongress) and more news items per hour than at any other time of year. Put simply, Mobile …

Editorial: What’s “Nexus” for Smartphones?

OK, ignore the pithy title a second and let’s be serious. What is next?  Where do we go from here? Let’s look at the background. Apple and Google have created and sustained the smart phone market respectively, since it’s coming-of-age era around a 5 years ago.  We can …

New iPhone launch – how was it for you?

So, the wait is over and Apple have finally announced their latest object of desire. Months of increasingly fevered speculation had us gadget freaks desperate for news of the iPhone 5/4S/4G or whatever it would be called. Rumours about a new shape, aluminium body, bigger screen… all were …

Do you still wear a watch?

I was out for most of this weekend. Being the geek I am I noticed what phones people were using as I visited shops, a restaurant and a few pubs. There’s a lot of HTC Desire and HTC Wildfire phones out there, but I noticed something else too. …

Notsocoolsmartphones?

My 18 months contract with Orange for my HTC Hero expired last month and for the first time ever I’ve plumped for a 12 month SIM only deal. My Hero, great phone as it was, only lasted me 7 months before I caved in and bought a HTC …

The battle of the smartphones – Nielson figures revealed

Stats from number-crunchers Nielson show a rather huge jump in Android Smartphone OS share. It now has 22.7% share against Windows Mobile, which was around 19% at the start of this year but - according to these October details - has a 14% share now. W...

Upcoming reviews – Video highlights..

We've got a number of reviews coming in the next week or so but, with the videos already recorded, we thought we'd give you a little look at what's ahead. Today we've spent our final day with the Herotab M802 / aPad MX515 with a special close-up tour …

A day in the garage

Something weird happened today. I had two hours - two whole hours .. free. To be honest I'd forgotten what it was like. I dropped our son off at pre-school, came home, made a cup of tea, then somehow ended up in the garage. It's a mans domain …

Business is key for HTC

HTC UK have just launched HTC Business. There's a new team and a new website dedicated to supporting smartphone use within the business environment. It's fair to say that a number of recent HTC devices have been aimed squarely at the consumer market, ...

Is Android Too Broken Up?

There is no doubt that the iPhone changed the mobile phone market and gave birth to a real downloadable application store which is something others had either not launched yet or launched but not really had much success with. Android is in reality qui...

20% Off T-Mobile PAYG Today!

T-Mobile UK are having a special 20% off day today when you order online between 10am and 10pm.  This is the perfect time to bag yourself a bargain.  Some of the best offers are: Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro £183.99 (Was £229.99) ...

HTC to launch online app store?

Another app store? Really? Many of you will already have seen some Android handsets packing two, sometimes three different app stores. More choice must be a good thing, especially if you're using a HTC handset. Word has it that HTC are planning to lau...

Mobile phones in use back in 1928 ?

Now hitting over 2 million views, this Charlie Chaplin boxset will no doubt gain extra sales after this strange scene appeared on the internet. It's part of some “behind the scenes” footage and appears to show someone talking on a mobile phone.. i...

Android and Windows Phone reveal app numbers

Windows Phone 7 apppears to have broken the 1000 app mark today. Meanwhile, Android has hit a similar - if not much bigger - landmark. Google themselves now confirm 100,000 apps, a number which you may have seen some months back. That, though, was a n...

HTC Android and Windows Phone arrivals

A number of phones have appeared recently so we'd just like to bring you up to speed on availability. Firstly, the HTC 7 Mozart is now available to buy on the Orange online store. It's the new Windows Phone 7 device from Orange we'll be reviewing, plu...

Book train tickets from your phone with Raileasy

I've made quite a few trips down to London over these past few weeks and booked a number of trains. Usually I find a computer, check the timetables, find the best fare and then book online. However, Raileasy have now made things mobile with the additi...

HTC win big in T3 Gadget Awards for 2010

The T3 Awards have been announced and, after more than three quarters of a million reader votes, plus expert judges, HTC have emerged as winners in a number of categories. They bagged "Phone of the year" with the HTC Desire. "Tech brand of the year" a...

Android still on the up – Microsoft and Apple slide

The comScore report is out today and shows how things are shaping up in the US. Last year we saw Apple overtake Microsoft and now, just nine months later, Android has too. Google have experienced a 5% jump in smartphone market share between April and ...

The Windroid – Get the best of both worlds?

Android or Windows Mobile? Well, if you don't mind having a dabble on a Chinese import site, this may solve your problem. For £153.78 you can get the Windroid Phone, which has a 624MHz CPU, 3.2" 240x400 pixel screen, GPS, WiFi, microSD and woah.. a...

HTCSense.com and stuff we heard today

HTC announced their new user website today too. I'm going to call it a "phone control portal" because that's pretty much what it is. Log in and, if you lose your phone, you can locatr it, send a message which will appear on the lock screen, wipe it …

HTC Evening event expands

The rather large HTC event kicks off tomorrow morning but, if you're in town there's also a party in the evening which isn't just for press. Now, due to my globe-trotting lifestyle (pah!) I'll not be in London that long but there seems to be quite a n...

T-Mobile/Orange Roaming From 5th October

The new joint venture company combining Orange and T-Mobile UK, Everything Everywhere today announced the launch date of the combined network roaming agreement which will allow customers of both groups roam on each other's network. From the 5th Octobe...

HTC F8181 – Brew-based handset on the way to AT&T

Whilst we're not really "into" the Qualcomm Brew-based phones, they're helping to bring Smartphone-like functionality top more people with the help of a bargain-basement price. The HTC Smart was rolled onto o2 here in the UK after a big announcement a...

Boot time compared – see the results

Here's an interesting test, and one which becomes even more interesting when you consider that the Windows Phone 7 device shown here isn't using final software. Pocketnow turn on four phones - an iPhone, Nexus One (Android), HTC HD2 (Windows Mobile 6....