BlackBerry Priv gets 24K gold treatment

You can now get BlackBerry's debut Android smartphone gold plated for a more premium look. Karalux - a company based in Vietnam, where the Priv set to go on sale this weekend (December 5) - will get the job done for you. "Unlike the previous generations, it is a little bit more difficult to disassemble BlackBerry Priv," the company said. "Karalux engineers took nearly 2 hours to 'operate' its details, and spent 4 more hours with more than 10 different procedures to complete the first gold-plated BlackBerry Priv in Vietnam." As for the price, users in Vietnam can get their device gold plated for VND 8 million ($355), while both phone and gold-plating will cost VND 25 million ($1111). On the other hand, international customers will have to pay VND 30 million (around $1350) for each gold-plated unit. Source 1...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_priv_gets_24k_gold_treatment-news-15256.php

The Pirate Bay remains accessible in Sweden... at least for now

While notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has been blocked in several countries around the world, it will remain accessible in its home country of Sweden, at least for now that is. A Swedish court has ruled that it can't force ISPs to block the website. The ruling came after the court observed that under the Swedish law, ISPs can't be held responsible for what users do on a website. Also, no fines can be imposed on them in cases like these. As for the case in question, it was brought by several music and movie studios - including Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film, and the Swedish Film Industry - who want local ISP Bredbandsbolaget to block the website. For those who aren't already aware, The Pirate Bay has been used to distribute copyrighted material. The decision by the district court is likely to be...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/the_pirate_bay_remains_accessible_in_sweden_at_least_for_now-news-15255.php

Vivo Y51 and Y51L receive TENAA certification

After the Y37A and Y51A, two more vivo smartphones have been certified by the Chinese regulatory agency TENAA. These devices carry a model number of Y51 and Y51L, respectively. Specs-wise, the Y51 is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU, and sports a 5-inch (960 × 540 pixel resolution) TFT display. It comes with 2GB RAM and 16GB expandable internal memory. In terms of camera, the device features an 8MP rear unit and a 5MP front shooter. Weighing in at 157 gms and measuring 143.8 × 71.7 × 7.52 (mm), the handset runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. Color options include white. The Y51L, interestingly, comes with a similar design and exactly same specs as that of the Y51 (except that it runs Android 5.0.2 out-of-the-box). So the main difference between the two smartphones isn't exactly clear at this point. In case you aren't already aware, vivo is expected to unveil the X6 flagship today. Source 1 (translated) | Source 2 (translated) |...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/vivo_y51_and_y51l_receive_tenaa_certification-news-15254.php

Best Apps and Games of the Week

Opera Max Opera Max is a data compression app for your Android phone. The app monitors all the data going through the device (except for the encrypted stuff) and then compresses it to reduce data consumption on your end. This previous worked on web pages and even videos but now the app has been updated to even support audio streaming apps, so you can now stream music without having to worry too much about data consumption. Price: Free Download: Android Reeder 3 Reeder 3 is a brand new version of the popular RSS reading app for iOS. Version 3 brings new design, support for iOS 9 split view, 3D Touch support, Instapaper as a sync service, font options for article viewer, iPad Pro support, and more. If you are into RSS a lot, this is one of the best apps you can get on mobile. Price: $4.99 Download: iOS Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes It's Star Wars season and EA has dropped a new Star Wars game on the mobile platform. It's not exactly the first person shooter that is Battlefront but more of an RPG, but with Star Wars characters. You play on either the light or the dark side and unlock characters as you progress and form your team. You can unlock additional abilities for characters as you play and use it in the turn-based action gameplay across various locations. The game is free and available on both iOS and Android. Price: Free Download: iOS • Android Snowboard Party 2 Snowboard Party 2 is here with new events, new venues, and new tricks. There's now a new time attack mode where you have to get to the end of the track as quickly as possible while executing tricks to go faster. There are now 21 unique locations to play with 16 riders and 80 outfits, 50 boards, and 150 level objectives and achievements. There's even a multiplayer mode and the game has full support for a controller. If you liked the original, you will like this even more. Price: $1.99 Download:...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/best_apps_and_games_of_the_week-news-15253.php

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium battery life test

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is quite special because of its 4K display, but most of the time it turned out it runs on an upscaled 1080p interface. We know Sony for its optimizations and we've seen Xperia phones does impressively in our battery life test. Yet the hot Snapdragon 810 isn't lightweight on the battery at all. So what's going to be for the Z5 Premium then? The Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is powered by a beefy 3,430 mAh battery, sealed-in, as expected. It's 500 mAh more than the battery unit in the Z5, which scored 73 hours, so we are hopeful. The first test is about 3G talk time endurance and the Z5 Premium lasted north of the 20 hours mark. JRGRAPH_EXPANDABLE_VERSION = true;.jrGraphContainer { background: none !important; border-bottom: 1px solid #eee !important;}.jrGraph { padding-left: 0 !important; left:96px !important;} Talk time Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro 33:20h Huawei Ascend Mate2 4G 33:19h Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ 30:29h OnePlus 2 30:29h Motorola DROID Turbo 30:09h Microsoft Lumia 640 XL LTE Dual SIM 29:46h Microsoft Lumia 640 XL LTE 29:46h Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Dual SIM 29:46h Microsoft Lumia 640 XL 29:46h Samsung Galaxy Note5 28:34h HTC One (M8) for Windows 28:34h Nokia Lumia 1520 28:34h Samsung Galaxy Note 4 28:31h Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet LTE 28:25h Samsung Galaxy S5 27:37h Sony Xperia Z1 26:53h Samsung Galaxy S6 active 26:29h Samsung P6800 Galaxy Tab 7.7 25:45h LG G3 25:38h LG G Pro 2 25:37h LG G Flex 25:19h Sony Xperia T2 Ultra 25:16h LG G2 25:15h Samsung Galaxy A7 Duos 25:12h BlackBerry Passport 25:12h Huawei Ascend Mate 25:12h Motorola Nexus 6 25:03h Alcatel Hero 25:02h Oppo N1 25:01h Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo 24:52h Sony Xperia Z Ultra 24:23h Apple iPhone 6 Plus 23:49h LG AKA 23:20h Sony Xperia Z3 23:13h Microsoft Lumia 640 Dual SIM 23:09h Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE 23:09h Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE Dual SIM 23:09h Oppo R7 22:58h Samsung P6200 Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus 22:42h Motorola Moto E (2nd gen) 22:36h Sony Xperia Z2 22:13h Sony Xperia C3 Dual 22:11h Meizu MX4 Pro 22:09h Yota YotaPhone 2 22:09h Samsung ATIV SE 22:05h Xiaomi Redmi Note 21:41h Samsung Galaxy Note Edge 21:39h ZTE Axon Pro 21:23h Xiaomi Mi 4i 21:02h Meizu m2 note 20:55h LG Optimus G Pro E985 20:45h HTC One M9 20:44h Sony Xperia Z1 Compact 20:42h Sony Xperia Z5 Premium 20:27h Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 20:24h Motorola RAZR i XT890 20:07h Huawei Ascend Mate7 20:06h Samsung Galaxy A3 20:04h Samsung Galaxy E7 20:04h Samsung Galaxy A3 Duos 20:04h Oppo Find 7 20:03h Samsung Galaxy S5 Active 20:01h BlackBerry Q10 20:00h OnePlus One 19:56h Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 19:55h Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 I9200 19:54h Sony Xperia SP 19:49h Samsung Galaxy S6 19:48h Samsung Galaxy S6 edge 19:48h Sony Xperia T3 19:48h HTC Butterfly 2 19:23h HTC Butterfly S 19:14h HTC Desire Eye 19:11h Oppo R819 19:03h Asus PadFone X 18:45h Xiaomi Mi 4c 18:31h Xiaomi Mi 4 18:15h Samsung Galaxy Note 3 18:12h LG G2 mini 18:11h Oppo Find 7a 18:11h Samsung I9505...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z5_premium_battery_life_test-news-15252.php

Check out the new phones of the week

You know the week was busy in the mobile realm when there are more than a couple of freshly announced devices for us to add to the database. If you were too busy to keep up with the news, don't worry, here's a quick roundup of the new tech you might have missed. First, of course, we start with the big announcement, the handset that we have all been waiting for, ever since we first caught a glimpse of the ambitious Kirin 950 SoC - the Huawei Mate 8. The new flagship offers a spacious 6-inch FHD IPS display, 4000mAh battery, always-on fingerprint reader and is available in 3GB/32GB, 4GB/64GB, and 4GB/128GB variants. But the star attraction is undoubtedly the aforementioned Kirin 950 chipset, which finally promises to end the OEM's long and unfortunate streak of underwhelming hardware with its four high-power Cortex-A72 cores, clocked at up to 2.3 GHz and the additional four power-saving Cortex-A53 ones, working at 1.8 GHz. Moving on to Xiaomi, which announced a pair of new devices sharing one common trait - exception value to price ratio. First up is the Redmi Note 3. With a 5.5-inch 1080p display, MediaTek Helio X10 processor, fingerprint sensor, 13MP camera, 2GB RAM and 16GB storage or 3GB RAM and 32GB. It is said to go for only RMB 899 ($140) and RMB 1099 ($172), respectively. Then there is the all new Mi Pad 2 tablet with an all-aluminum body that is only 6.95mm and weighs just 322g. It runs on a new 14nm Intel Atom X5-Z8500 64-bit processor with 2GB RAM, is equipped with a 7.9-inch 2048x1536 pixel display. The slate will be available running Android or Windows 10 for as low as RMB 999 ($156) for the 16GB model and RMB 1299 ($203) for the 64GB model. Granted, these Xiaomi prices are for the local market, but even then, they seem like insanely good value. LG also has a new addition to its lineup - the Ray. It is a budget-friendly device, with a 5.5" 720p IPS display, MediaTek MT6592M chipset, 1GB of RAM and an impressive 13MP plus 8MP camera setup with a price tag of about $232/€215. Last, but not least, Microsoft has a new featurephone in its ranks - the Nokia 230, available in both a single and dual-SIM variant. .news-item .n-left { float: left; width: 25%; text-align: center; } .news-item .n-right { float: left; width: 75%; } .news-item a { padding-bottom: 0; padding-left: 0; } #review-body .news-item .n-right h2, .reviews-item .n-right h2 { clear: both; padding: 0 0 3px 0px; font: 400 19px Google-Oswald, Arial; margin-top: -4px; } .n-right p { margin-top: 25px; line-height: 155%; } .news-item { padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-top: 1px solid #ccc; } .news-item p { margin-left: 0; } .n-right h2 .phone-name { display: inline-block; width: 325px; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: text-bottom; } .n-right h2 a { text-decoration: none; color: #000; } .flat-button{ text-align:center; text-decoration: none !important; font: 400 22px Google-Oswald,Arial !important; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-size: 150%; padding: 20px 60px !important; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; -moz-border-radius: 5px; border-radius: 5px; margin: 10px 0; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; -ms-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; -moz-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; -o-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; color: #fff !important; } .flat-button-1 { background: #0CADA7; } .flat-button-1:hover { background: #0A948F; color: #666666 !important; } .flat-button-2 { background: #FF7E47; } .flat-button-2:hover { background: #EE7440; color: #666666 !important; } .n-right .rank-info { display: inline-block; font-family: "Google-Oswald",​Arial,​sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 100; } .n-right .rank-info .current-rank { font-size: 23px; } .circle { background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #8fb28f; border-radius: 50%; height: 23px; width: 23px; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 10px -1px 10px; } .arrow { width: 0; height: 0; border-style: solid; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 10px -1px 10px; } .arrow-up { border-width: 0 15px 25px 15px; border-color: transparent transparent #0cada7 transparent; } .arrow-down { border-width: 25px 15px 0 15px; border-color: #ff7e47...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/check_out_the_new_phones_of_the_week-news-15248.php