BlackBerry Priv receives permanent price cut in the US and Europe

Good news if you've been eyeing the Android-powered BlackBerry Priv but haven't bought one yet. Starting today the price of a Priv sold by BlackBerry unlocked has just been dropped in the US and Europe. And this is no limited time type of deal - it's a permanent price cut.

That said, it's not the biggest of reductions. In the US you'll save $50 compared to the launch price, while in Continental Europe you'll be asked to pay €50 less than before. The £50 price cut from the UK that we reported on last month has been made official on this occasion too.

So, from today an unlocked and SIM-free Priv will set you back $649 in the US, and €729 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and The Netherlands. And it can be bought for £529 in the UK.

As you may already know, the Priv is BlackBerry's first Android smartphone, with a striking vertical slider design and a full physical QWERTY keyboard. It currently runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop but an update to Marshmallow should arrive in a few weeks - in fact you can already sign up to beta test it.

WhatsApp now offers full end-to-end encryption to all of its 1 billion users

Well, it's happened. As predicted last month, WhatsApp has now finalized its multi-year long effort to bring end-to-end encryption to all aspects of the service, and to all of its users. The number of those, by the way, has grown to over 1 billion. That makes the Facebook-owned app essentially the second most popular social network after Facebook itself, which has around 1.5 billion users.

End-to-end encryption has showed up in WhatsApp for Android back in 2014, but from this point on it will work on any of the platforms on which the app is present (iOS, Android, Windows, S60, S40, and BlackBerry OS). What's more, end-to-end encryption is there for one-on-one chats, group chats, voice calls, voice notes, attachments (think images and videos you share) - in a word, everything.

So you get end-to-end encryption even if you're on an S40 phone talking to someone with an iPhone, for example. End-to-end encryption means that no one except you and the person or people you're talking to can see or hear what you're saying, not even WhatsApp or Facebook. Furthermore, WhatsApp doesn't store your messages on its servers once they're delivered to the intended recipient. This feature makes data requests from governments impossible to fulfill, since by design the company itself can not decrypt your communications.

Because end-to-end encryption is turned on by default, all you need in order to take advantage of this feature is the latest version of WhatsApp installed on your mobile device. Since it may be that not everyone you talk to has the latest iteration of the app, until that transition happens there could still be some unencrypted chats. That's why WhatsApp will notify you when your communications become end-to-end encrypted. This will show up as a notice in your conversation screens, as portrayed in the screenshot you can see on the left in the image above. And you can always check and make sure a particular conversation is end-to-end encrypted by going to its preferences screen (see the screenshot to the right).

The HP Spectre 13.3 is a 10.4mm razor-sharp laptop that you can actually get with a diamond finish

It is not particularly easy to shine at an event like the New York Times International Luxury Conference, but this year HP managed to turn some heads with what it claims to be the thinnest laptop in the world.

At this year's event, hel in Versailles, France, HP showcased the Spectre 13.3, which measures the razor-thin 10.4mm! If you can't put that into perspective, imagine the girth of an AAA battery, or better yet, a stack of eight Pennys.

By comparison, the new MacBook is about 13.1mm thick and the 14-inch LG gram is about 12.7 mm. Speaking of the latter, the HP Spectre 13.3 is just as incredibly light, tipping the scale at just 1.1 kg thanks to a carbon fiber chassis.

What seems to be eve more impressive, however, is that HP managed to cram a lot of computing power into the ultra-portable. It is offered with a 13.3-inch 1080p edge-to-edge display, an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor and up to 512GB of flash storage.

RAM is capped at 8GB and there was enough room left over for some Bang & Olufsen sound and a battery that promises up to 9.5 hours of use on a single charge. Thankfully, HP didn't go down the Apple road and included a total of three USB Type-C connectors, two of which even supporting Thunderbolt.

Last, but not least, if you were wondering why HP decided to unveil the geeky PC at a luxury conference, there is a pretty good reason. For one, the Spectre looks quite futuristic design-wise with a new piston hinge. In HP's own words:

high gloss copper accents reflect a hand-polished, jewelry-like finish and an innovative hidden piston hinge creates the illusion of a hinge-less design to offer an unmatched premium look-and-feel

Then there is also the fact that the laptop has two limited premium editions. One is the HP Spectre by Tord Boontje that incorporates floral details, a peacock, and a butterfly. Oh, and 18K gold with embedded Swarovski crystals. The second one is the HP Spectre by J. Hannah, which again has 18K gold, only a lot more of it- all around, to be exact. To finish things off, the logo and power button are encrusted in diamonds.

Both of these exquisite models will be produced in limited numbers, auctioned off at the Cannes Film Festival in May and all proceeds will be donated to the Nelson Mandela Foundation. As for the basic HP Spectre 13.3, pre-orders will be live on April 25 in the US, starting at $1,170. Best Buy has also promised to offer the laptop starting May 22 for $1250.

Oppo F1 Plus global rollout begins, price set at €389

The rollout of the Oppo F1 Plus has started and the phone is now available in select markets. In Europe, the phone will be on sale online starting May with a price of £299 in the UK and €389 elsewhere.

In India the phone will retail for INR 26990 ($400). The phone will carry a similar price tag in Southeast Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, but exact numbers are yet to be confirmed.

As Oppo clarified last week, the F1 Plus is nothing more than the international version of theOppo R9. As such, the F1 Plus rocks a 5.5" 1080p AMOLED screen and has an octa-core MediaTek Helio P10, 4GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB internal memory.

The camera department offers an interesting twist that might just be worthy of carrying on the "selfie expert" title. Just like the R9, the F1 Plus has a higher resolution front-facing camera than the rear one. Selfies are taken care of by a 16MP imager mated with an f/2.0 lens with a 78.1-degree field of view. On the back you have a 13MP sensor behind a 5-element lens with f/2.2 aperture and 80.6-degree FoV.

The battery of the F1 Plus is 2,850mAh with VOOC Flash Charge, while the dimensions are 151.8 x 74.3 x 6.6mm and a weight of 145g.

The Oppo F1 Plus comes in Gold and Rose Gold colors and will be available across India starting from mid-April with a wider release soon to follow. The phone will hit all Oppo markets, save for Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia, which will get it under the R9 name.

Nubia event set for April 19, possibly a Z11 announcement?

ZTE's sub-brand Nubia has announced a press event for April 19, to be held in Beijing. The tagline reads something along the lines of "Small world - big wonders", Google Translate tells us, but that's all the poster reveals.

Nubia April 19 event poster (click for full size)

Logic would dictate, however, that a new flagship is to be unveiled, the Nubia Z11, and a Z11 mini alongside it. The Nubia Z9 was announced last year in May, so an announcement a month ahead of schedule isn't out of the question. Not to mention that the Z11 mini (or what looks like it) was already certified by the Chinese telecom regulator.

For all we know, the Z11 will sport a 5.2-inch QHD dual-edge display, Snapdragon 820 chipset and 4GB of RAM. The Z11 mini, on the other hand will allegedly have a flat FullHD 5-inch display, 3 gigs of RAM and an octa-core CPU.

Barclays finally adds Apple Pay support in the UK

It's been 9 months or so now since Apple Pay first launched in the United Kingdom and Barclays is clearly a little tardy to the show. The major bank's absence from the original list of adopters, like HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Santander, as well as the following second wave came as an unpleasant surprise for the customers hoping to take advantage of it.

Better late than never and today the bank's customers were happy to discover that they can add their cards to the payment gateway. Barclays customers can finally enjoy Apple Pay, which despite its slow and controversial kick-off, can now boast over 2 million supported locations, across four markets and counting.

IKEA VR Experience lets you test drive kitchens before you buy them

IKEA has made a VR Experience app to help potential kitchen buyers with their decision. The IKEA VR Experience, which is available on Steam, lets you see the company's kitchen design offerings from different perspective and allows you to change the colors of the cabinets and drawers with literally a click.

What's even cooler is the option to modify your height down to 100cm tall and experience the kitchen like a child would. The VR Experience is currently in a pilot program, which will continue until August and is available for the HTC Vive.

IKEA also counts on the VR Experience users to help it out with ideas on how to further make use of the new tech. Martin Enthed, IT Manager for IKEA Communications, the in-house communication agency at IKEA of Sweden says:

We also see IKEA VR Experience as an opportunity to co-create with people all around the world. We hope that users will contribute to our virtual reality development, by submitting ideas on how to use virtual reality and how to improve the virtual kitchen.

If you happen to have an HTC Vive and wouldn't mind give the IKEA VR Experience app a try, please share your impressions with us!

Top deals for HTC phones in the US, One M9 for $399, hurry up though

HTC is offering substantial discounts on a few of its hottest devices in the US, valid today only. The promo includes three smartphones, the Nexus 9 and the RE action cam.

The deal on the One M9 saves you $250 off the usual off-contract price of $649 and the smartphone now goes for the rather attractive $399. The One A9 on the other hand, is $110 off, but at $390, it only makes a compelling case for the $9 more expensive M9. If you're on a tighter budget, the Desire 626 is being sold for $149.99, $30 off.

The Nexus 9 tablet is 40% off, but the 16GB version is out of stock. The 32GB Wi-Fi only variant gets a $287.40 price tag, while cellular connectivity will cost you an additional $72, $359.40 total. The RE camera is is the best deal, in relative terms at least, as it gets a 60% discount - retailing for $79.60.

All this is fine and dandy, but the promo expires at 11:59 p.m. PT today, so you better act quick.

Google updates Google Play icons

Google has updated the look of all its Google Play series of apps.

Starting today you will start seeing the new icons everywhere. This includes the Play Store, Play Movies & TV, Play Music, Play Games, Play Books, and Play Newsstand icons.

The new icons try to combine the skeuomorphic nature of the previous icons within the Play symbol. The Play Store and Google Play icons are mostly the same but with much brighter colors.

As of now none of these are live online or on the store but should be soon in the coming weeks.

Huawei P9 has its specs leaked one more time thanks to GFXBench

Huawei's P9 will finally be made official at an event on April 6, which is this Wednesday. The grand unveiling follows leaks upon leaks that we've seen of the device over the past few weeks. In fact, its back side got portrayed in all its glory mere hours ago, complete with Leica branding for the camera and new Huawei text-only logo on the lower side.

And now we've got a leaked list of specs for the P9, probably the last one before it gets official. It comes courtesy of a benchmark run, though it's not AnTuTu this time (like last month), but GFXBench.

Interestingly, the specs revealed today and the ones surfaced by AnTuTu in March do differ slightly, so perhaps Huawei will launch multiple versions of the P9 as many Chinese companies do (especially for their home market).

GFXBench says the Huawei P9 will have a 5.1-inch 1080p touchscreen, the HiSilicon Kirin 955 SoC (with an octa-core big.LITTLE CPU featuring four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at up to 2.5 GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores), the Mali-T880 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, 12 MP resolution for the dual-cameras on the back, an 8 MP selfie snapper, and all the connectivity options you'd expect.

The AnTuTu listing from a while back had the P9 coming with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, the rest of the specs being very similar. So maybe the model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage will be the entry-level one, and you'll have to pay more to get more memory.

The P9 will have a 2,900 mAh battery, according to the FCC. It will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow underneath Huawei's own EMUI. In Europe, it's rumored to cost €599.90, though it's unclear which hardware version that amount will net you.

Meizu MX5E debuts in China with slightly watered down specs, lower price than the MX5

Earlier today we found out that the upcoming Meizu m3 note is going to cost CNY 1,099 ($169 or €148 at the current exchange rates), and now it's time for another bit of news regarding a Meizu smartphone.

This one is called the MX5E, and it's actually a new variation of the MX5 that has been released last year. It's slightly lower-end and also cheaper by a little, in fact.

Meizu has launched the MX5E in China without an official announcement or anything of the sort. It can be found in stores starting at CNY 1,399, which is about $215 or €189. Apparently that's CNY 100 ($15, €13) cheaper than the normal MX5.

However, the device you're getting comes with a 16 MP main camera (down from 20.7 MP), as well as a lower-clocked processor. Whereas the one inside the MX5 can go up to 2.2 GHz, in the MX5E it's only capable of reaching 2 GHz - 10% less, as it turns out. Otherwise, the MX5E is identical to the MX5, but it's unclear whether the paltry savings here actually make the performance hit worth it.

Another mystery is whether Meizu will ever sell the MX5E outside of China. That's not the case for now.

New HTC 10 video teaser says we should expect "the best BoomSound yet"

The latest HTC 10 teaser is here, ladies and gentlemen. And like one of those from last month, this is all about audio. However, this time around we're thankfully treated to more than just a cryptic image.

It's a full video teaser, this, and it expands upon the "we're obsessed" theme that we saw in the company's first ever video teaser for the HTC 10. Though obviously this obsession has everything to do with "bright, fat, crisp" sound now.

HTC promises "the highest-quality sound possible" and "flawless high fidelity on your phone", features which should be delivered by the HTC 10 through "the best BoomSound yet". These are all things that we hope HTC will be able to make good on with its next flagship device. We'll find out on April 12, when the official unveiling is going to take place.