Phones

Adding to its range of smartphones, Sony has released its Xperia L3 model. As is often the case, my review sample of the smartphone handset has been provided by Vodafone for the purpose of this review.

Samsung is one of the largest brands and certainly one of the companies that bring new things to the market. Here a slim sleek and powerful offering that will do everything you want and never look out of place even in a boardroom.

Another new phone company to the UK, freak UK weather and a taxi drivers protest caused gridlock in the part of London where the launch was due to take place so my first contact was when their latest offering the RX17 Pro arrived on my desk. So all I know is what I discovered during my testing as well as what is shown on the OPPO website.

With awards aplenty on offer, Huawei led the way at accepting the applause.

Recorded messages are increasingly being used as a scammer's opening gambit to deprive you of money.

Certainly not ‘just another new phone’ this offering is an ‘Adventure’ offering badged Land Rover. While you could use this on your daily commute it would not be getting anywhere near what this off road offering has to offer you.

Announcements regarding new products can often result in follow-up news concerning additional offerings from third parties.

Having recently told you about another SmartPhone from this company, here – their latest – has landed on my desk. Anything designed by Phillipe Starck is always eye catching; an early DAB radio was his work and still sits on my bedside table in daily use.

Continuing my look at various handsets, it is the turn of a Huawei offering.

It is not often that I review the same phone twice; however a lot has changed in this offering since my initial review last May. So it’s probably best to call this a new phone that just happens to have the same name as an earlier version.

This is an Android phone produced by Google. It is not a cheap phone as the Google Pixel brand only seems to do quality offerings and it is also no surprise to me that is was one of the first to get Android 9 as its operating system.

Adding to the list of available smartphones, Xiaomi offers its Mi family of devices.

With a good looking appearance, this next handset does have some faults.

To me anyway this is a totally new Chinese phone company, I first heard of them a few weeks ago when I received an invite at short notice to their new UK store at Westfield shopping centre, which due to conflicts I could not make, however I was sent their latest phone the Mi 8 Lite. Looking at their website sees they are far more than just a phone company as they are big – like the world’s fourth largest - in Internet, Connected Homes and Software.

Early in 2018 One Plus 6 had a worldwide launch for their flagship new phone in the Olympic Park in Stratford, here a phone from OnePlus 6 with an added ‘T’ that has a lot of the features but at around half the price.

With its new UK store and plenty of new products, Xiaomi has been busy of late.

A smartphone costing under £60 is the subject of this next review.

A trip to London’s Excel saw the world launch along with about 2000 others from around the planet of the latest flagship phone from Huawei, the Mate20 Pro. Apart from being that bit faster, larger screen and better featured this offered new features including AI effects as well as having no less than three Leica cameras in a square section on its rear.

As well as offering its customers a full range of popular handsets for their communication needs, Vodafone has also developed its own range of handsets.

When it comes to Huawei handsets, you can never really complain that you are spoilt for choice.

The HTC U12 Life is a smartphone with a 6 inch 18:9 screen and dual camera that sits in the middle ground between the premium products and the real budget phones.

With a choice of colour schemes, this next smartphone has excellent photographic options.

Recently, on a visit to Vodafone’s Newbury base I was introduced to a new initiative from the company.

Doro have been selling their phones in the UK for many years, not only do they do home phones but they also are the premier manufacturer for those with disabilities be that sight or hearing, now they have moved into SmartPhones that look normal but can still offer help but you no longer have a phone that looks like it’s for someone who has a disability.

The Alcatel 5 is a mid-range smartphone with a 5.7 inch 18:9 display that has a reasonable range of features and ticks most of the boxes and so will be an attractive proposition for those on a budget.

While modern SmartPhones can take excellent images and videos one thing that a decent DSLR camera often has is a good optical zoom, here is a kit that can give your SmartPhone the ability to get great zoom for your images.

HTC has just announced, at a “media pre-briefing” its latest super-budget phone. Scheduled to be available late September / early October this 6 inch 18:9 FHD+ (1080 x 2160) phone will have a retail price of £299 which places it firmly on the middle ground between the premium products and the real budget phones.

The Alcatel 3V 5099D is a 4G LTE smartphone with a 6 inch screen which is competitively priced and offers a range of features comparable to those of the premium brands.

Maxcom are quite a new phone company to arrive in the UK, they have been in Europe for some years. While this is not exclusively an older persons phone it would certainly be useful to allow someone to keep their independence and as it has an emergency call button on the back providing the phone is within reach, then help should come when needed.

The Huawei development team has obviously been hard at work of late as can be seen by the release of the company’s Honor 7S model.