Category: Features
Last night I was chatting to someone about Gionee. We saw them at Mobile World Congress a few years back. They do some very nice phones, but you won’t often see them on the streets of the UK. They have a decent presence in places like India, Thailand, …
Over the years I’ve grown to love the Huawei and Honor handsets. Right now I have the Honor 9 and it’s a fantastic device for the money. Great camera, great performance and great looks. Love it, I really do. Trouble is, there’s one thing it won’t do. For …
Right, here’s what you need to know. You can pop over to Banggood and get one of these for £155.13. For your money you’re going to get a 5.99″ 1080×2160 Full HD screen (18:9) with a 403 ppi pixel density. You’re also going to get a dual 16 …
We have had something very special arrive at Coolsmartphone Towers today. At least, it’s something that I have been looking forward to for a few weeks. Today we’ve got one of the boldest new phones to come out this year (IMHO). Yes, it’s the Razer Phone! You’re obviously …
I won’t say anything just yet. I’ll just put some pictures into this article and you can tell me whether they look familiar. Seen that one before? Perhaps someone you know has seen it. These will scare and no doubt trick a lot of people into installing junk …
Update: According to TheBestVPN, the most secure and reputable VPN is ExpressVPN. You can read their ExpressVPN review here. Right. Let’s be honest. People don’t want to pay for WiFi. Get to the airport and, if you connect and find there’s some insane pricing structure, you’ll probably decide …
Good morning everyone, and welcome again to my quest to get rid the home phone. Having a phone at home can, for some, be a necessary evil. You may not use it, but it’s usually given to you even if you only want broadband. The thing is, when …
Fancy the Pixel 2 or the Pixel 2 XL? Well, if it’s size you want, the Google Pixel 2 XL has a bigger 6″ screen and a higher price-tag t’boot. £799 will get you a 64GB version, and it’s £899 for the 128GB model. It’s got a pOLED …
A short while ago I had Virgin Media broadband installed at home. Like many, I had a TV, phone and internet package. I wanted better broadband speeds, and I got it. However, the TiVo box wasn’t something I “connected” with. There’s definitely some odd and grating design decisions …
Looking for the iPhone X prices? Need to know just how much you need to put aside for that early Christmas present to yourself? Well, a contract deal will ease the pain a little, and we’ve already had a look at the Vodafone iPhone X pricing. However, there’s …
Huawei are now the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. The latest data from market research firm Counterpoint Research shows Huawei overtaking Apple to become even bigger. This result is from strong sales in June and July, which have allowed the Chinese manufacturer to inch past Apple into …
On a recent trip abroad, which happened in an EU country after the big “roam like home” rules applied, there was a definite split between the age groups on phone usage. Some mom’s and dad’s in restaurants still hunted for the free WiFi, but elsewhere on the beach …
A little story for you. It’s about eBay. At times, I really hate using it. My old phone, an LG G4, was recently sold on eBay and I’ve had some “issues” with the transaction. This has happened in the past, and I’m sure there’s some of you out …
Last week I asked our 10,000 Twitter followers and 40,000 weekly readers to help by donating a bit of cash to Edwards Trust. They help parents and carers bereaved, or about to be bereaved, of their son or daughter. They also support children and young people who are …
Today is June 15th 2017. This article, though, will be ignored by many. For reasons I can’t quite understand, it’s difficult to get clear and concise information across to some. I noticed this at the airport recently. We’d just landing at BHX (Birmingham Airport) and, despite standing next …
Smartphones seem to be getting ever-more expensive. It’s something that has created a new breed of manufacturers that are actively targeting the market with well-spec’d handsets at a competitive price. However, many people are still going for the leading and the most well-known brands. Samsung, Apple, LG, Sony …
Today, here in the UK, it’s time to vote. Have you decided which party you’re going to vote for? If so, how exactly did you come to your conclusion? Perhaps now, more than ever, your decision won’t have been made after reading the manifesto of each party. If …
Wikipedia lists glass as ‘a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usage in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optoelectronics’. Here’s a further list of some things that are made of glass: Light bulbs Drinking vessels Spectacles Greenhouses Ashtrays Smartphones …
For those who aren’t based on the UK, the artist simply known as “Banksy” is an anonymous activist who displays street art and political messages in graffiti across the country. His stenciled images usually attract high valuations too. Just a few hours ago, Banksy shared this tweet. He’s …
Now, I’ll admit, I’m a penny pincher at times. If there’s a cheaper way of doing something, even if it’s a bit geeky, I’ll give it a go. Stick with me on this one, because it involves something that Virgin have just announced which I think is a …
Descartes wrote ‘i think, therefore i am,’ or he would have done had he been using Google Gboard for Android with auto-correct turned on. This bug, where the letter “i” for the first-person singular pronoun failed to default to the upper case “I”, has recently been fixed with a …
If you were travelling back into work this morning then, if you’re on the train or Tube, I’ll bet you’ve seen someone using a broken phone. Phones, let’s admit, are expensive things. We already pay enough per month to buy the things, so the thought of paying even …
This comes on loan from EE, where it’s available for £40.99 per month with 5GB of monthly data and unlimited texts and calls. Although I’ve perhaps not totally unleashed everything it can do – I’m properly impressed so far. Out of the box, it was the build quality …
I am a mobile technology geek. Along with my Huawei P9 and my Lumia 640 phones, I carry round a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet and an iPad 3. I don’t have specific use cases for each of these devices, but just like to have a range of …
Google defines a fanboy as ‘a male fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, music, film, or science fiction’. To most of us, however, a fanboy is a passionate, perhaps an irrational, but most definitely a misguided fan of a rival mobile phone operating system (could be …
The internet, in our modern world, has become essential. It’s no longer a “nice to have” thing so that you can look things up. Now we’re watching live IPTV, downloading movies, conducting video calls and working from home. And, also, if you are a student you have a …
Yesterday I found a haul of classic smartphones including the SPV E100, E200 and M2000. Not only that, but I dug out the SPV C500 and C600 too. That C600 was, at the time, quite something – it came with an OMAP850 CPU running at 195Mhz and had …
I finally raided my “special cupboard” and look. Look at what greeted me. Anyone remember these? I know some of you might recognise your favourites, but I’m going to start with the oldest one, on the left. It’s the Orange SPV, also known as the HTC Canary. This …
Most phone users have used the Short Message Service at one time or another. Nowadays, we just call it texting people. Then came the promise of MMS (Multi Media Messaging), or picture messaging. That never really took off in the same way as texting people, since the costs …
After returning from the Barcelona madness, I’ve finally got chance to reflect a little on the experience. It’s somewhere I don’t get to see a great deal, and instead it’s the inside of taxis or the rather excellent Metro system which runs through the city that I see …
So, I’m pretty geeky guy with the home automation gadgets. I started off with a Nest thermostat, which a lot of even my non-geeky friends are getting into. It’s a simple and clever way to save cash on your heating bills. Put simply, it knows when you’re not …
My first ever mobile phone was connected to Orange. I stayed as a customer all through the transitional phase as T-Mobile and Orange joined forces to eventually become EE. The new brand seems to have woven its way into our subconsciousness rather quickly, and they have pushed hard …
21/02/2020 – The best solution to finding your local mast is now located within this recently updated article. A lot has changed over the years, and this is now the best place to go. This topic seems to pop up time and time again. Our original story from …
Here at Coolsmartphone we live and breathe mobile, so we figured that being shackled to a LAN connection just wasn’t the thing to do, especially when you’re in Barcelona covering the biggest mobile conference around. So I decided not to spend all my time in a hotel and …
Following on from the EE announcement, we’ve had confirmation that both Three and Vodafone will be ranging the Huawei P10 and Huawei P10+ too. Three have confirmed that they’ll be taking the black and gold models. The P10 and P10+ will be available pricing from March in Europe …
Our house was built in 1975. Heating back then was fairly straightforward, if a little inefficient. For years though, things stayed pretty much the same. Sure, boilers got a bit better, but you’d still have the same pipework and the same radiators. In recent years things have really …
New figures released by the Gambling Commission show that the amount of bets placed in the traditional local bookmaker is on the wane. Now 33% of all gambling is done online and, despite what the high street in your local town might look like, the report shows that …
I’m sure I’ve posted this video before, but it really is interesting. It was filmed way back in 1969 by the GPO (the General Post Office) and shows some of the ideas and expectations of communications in the 1990’s. The Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill shows …
Online retail giant Amazon has decided to do away with any kind of checkout process in a new store. Customers will instead show their phone when they walk in, pick up their goods and just walk off. Grabbing anything off the shelves, stuffing it in your bag and walking out. …
At the last 4G/5G summit hosted in Hong Kong, Mobile chip giant Qualcomm unveiled its latest mid-range chipsets, the Snapdragon 400 and Snapdragon 600 ranges. The Snapdragon 427 replaces the current budget Snapdragon 425, and improvements for the Snapdragon 427 chipset include the inclusion of Qualcomm’s X9 LTE …
