Your weekly fix of mobile, tech & telecom news
Electric cars were supposed to be the planet's get-out-of-jail card, but the truth about their batteries, tyres and hidden emissions is far murkier than the adverts suggest. Worse still, the connected tech packed into every modern motor is quietly adding to its carbon bill. Here's what UK drivers need to know.
Researchers have developed a microchip that turns an ordinary smartphone into a medical diagnostic lab, letting users test for conditions at home in minutes. We look at what the tech actually does, when it might reach British bathrooms, and whether your NHS GP should be worried.
Apple TV+ rarely makes headlines the way Netflix does, but Apple's latest streaming push could reshape what you watch on your phone and in your living room. Here's what it means for UK viewers — and whether it's worth your monthly tenner.
WiFi calling promises an end to dropped calls in signal-starved homes, but our tests across basement flats, rural cottages and Victorian terraces reveal a postcode lottery. Here's how EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three really stack up when your bars vanish.
Flagships now cost more than a month's rent and the 'revolutionary' improvements are measured in millimetres. We crunched three years of price rises against real-world gains and reached an uncomfortable conclusion for the phone industry.
When the nearest usable signal was a fifteen-minute drive away, the residents of one Cumbrian village stopped complaining and started organising. Their story — involving femtocells, a parish council email campaign and a very patient Ofcom case officer — is a blueprint for every UK blackspot.
Your PS4 is only half the story — the right extras can transform your setup from basic to brilliant. We've rounded up the accessories genuinely worth your money in 2025, and the ones you can happily skip.
Cracked your screen? Knackered your battery? In Britain, getting your phone fixed can cost almost as much as buying a replacement. But a growing movement — backed by new legislation — is starting to crack the manufacturers' stranglehold on repairs.
Every autumn, millions of UK smartphone owners install the latest iOS or Android update and swear their phone feels clunkier than before. But is that sluggishness real, or are we being nudged towards a shiny new handset we don't actually need?
You signed up for unlimited data. You're paying a premium for it. So why does your Netflix buffer every evening and your Spotify stutter on the commute? The answer is buried in the small print, and it's costing British consumers dearly.
Every ping, every location check, every silent refresh happening behind your screen has a price — and over the course of a month, it adds up to something worth paying attention to. We've crunched the numbers on background app activity and found that the average UK smartphone user is effectively subsidising a second phone's worth of data and battery drain they never asked for.
IP68 ratings look impressive on a spec sheet, but how does a flagship smartphone actually hold up after twelve months of British drizzle, bag-bottom grime, and the inevitable pavement encounter? We've been putting premium handsets through the kind of real-world punishment no lab test replicates — and the results are not what the marketing departments would have you believe.
Your phone proudly flashes '5G' in the corner of the screen, yet pages load at the speed of a wet bank holiday weekend. We investigate why millions of UK customers are paying premium prices for a network experience that feels suspiciously familiar to 2012. The answer lies in a technical distinction the networks really don't want to talk about.
When serious criminal cases involve encrypted smartphones, it throws a spotlight on a corner of the mobile market most people never knew existed. We look at what these devices actually are, how they work, and why law enforcement finds them so difficult to crack.
You plug your phone in at 100%, wake up eight hours later, and it's already down to 78%. No calls, no streaming — so where did that charge go? We dug into the murky world of background network activity, firmware scheduling, and carrier-side processes to find out who's really responsible.
Think you know which apps are eating your data? Think again. We ran a month-long monitoring exercise across the most popular UK apps and the results — particularly for a handful of household names — are genuinely eye-opening. Here's what's quietly burning through your allowance before you've even opened the app.
Millions of Brits hand back old smartphones every year believing they'll be responsibly recycled or refurbished. The reality is considerably grimmer. We trace the journey of traded-in devices from UK high streets to overseas dumping grounds — and identify which retailers and networks are actually doing it properly.
Millions of UK commuters are shelling out for 5G tariffs every month, yet the moment they board a train or step onto a bus, that blazing-fast connection disappears entirely. We dug into Ofcom data, spoke to frustrated commuters, and crunched the numbers on just how much this phantom service is actually costing British workers each year.
Mobile number portability promised British consumers the freedom to switch networks without losing their phone number — a genuinely radical idea when it launched three decades ago. But in 2025, a combination of deliberate friction, opaque processes, and regulatory gaps means that promise has been significantly hollowed out, and the people paying the highest price are often those who can least afford it.
The refurbished phone market in the UK has exploded well beyond second-hand iPhones, with a dizzying range of grading systems, retailers, and warranty promises now competing for your attention. We've cut through the confusion to explain what those condition grades actually mean, which UK sellers are worth trusting, and how to make sure your consumer rights have your back if things go wrong.