This Month's Tech Show

HTC One M8

Brilliantly designed, ergonomically satisfying, top-of-the-line specs and a brand that is the best bet against Apple. That’s how we’d like to address the new One M8. Brushed aluminum covers 90% of the body, boomsound speakers that really feed the music hungry soul, 2K resolution, Snapdragon 801 chipset only makes you wonder where does this phone falter. It’s the camera. Despite using a duo-camera, the camera produces limited detailed captures viz-a-viz the Samsung S5, or Sony Z2, that reproduce quite real-life captures. So should you still buy the phone? Yes, if you swear by Android, then this has to be the phone for you.

Pentax K500

There are several entry level DSLRs doing the rounds lately, that have literally pushed the consumers into a dilemma when it comes to picking one from the lot. The Pentax K500 is one such DSLR that cuts the slack for us. The DSLR lets you capture pictures/videos and lets you edit them without the hassle of loading your flash drive onto a PC. Though, the specs aren’t really encouraging, a bit of tweaks does the job real well. Key specs to be noted are 16 MP camera, an ISO range of 100-51200, Full HD 1080p video recording at 30fps and an array of in-built digital filters that did the job for us.

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Asus Zenfone 5

So you’re quite done being the Apple fanboy and are desperately looking for a respite, but spending a bomb on an Android phone only for experiential basis doesn’t sound convincing enough. So what do you do? You buy a budget Android. A 5 inch display, 1.6 Ghz processor, 8 MP rear and 2 MP front camera and 8GB storage with a sturdy body seems a decent option for those who are the first time Android experiencers. The phone however runs on Android 4.3 OS, which might be a letdown considering there are other phones running on Android 4.4 already.

Maxx AxD21

Move over budget phones. This one is a smacker of a deal. 20 GB storage space, Android 4.4 OS and priced just over 4k – seems a bit unreal, isn’t it? But its true. The phone has a dual-core MediaTek processor, a 3.2 rear-end camera and 3G bandwidth capacity. Well, this can’t be coveted as THE-GO-TO phone for you, but surely can be a good choice for the memory-space hungry and early Youtube addicts.

Xiaomi Mi3

By the time this review is out, this phone can be proudly attributed as the product that crashed Flipkart’s website 5 times, due to the unprecedented traffic it generated on the vendor website. The phone is pegged to disrupt the top-of-the-line Android phones in the market. With full-fledged specs and priced at a third of the nearest competitor, the phone has to be the most anticipated launch of this year. An aluminum-magnesium frame gives the phone the much needed high-end feel and Snapdragon 800 chipset, 13MP rear camera, 5 inch full HD IPS screen, 3050 mAh battery and Bluetooth 4.0 is all we could have asked for ₹14000.

Panasonic P81

How does a company differentiate its products from the competitors when the array of products has almost the same hardware and specs? Simple. It tweaks its bloatware and tries to sell a gimmick to the consumers. That’s what this phone is all about. Appearance wise it doesn’t really look different than the Samsungs and Micromaxs, but what it gets right is despite the big 5.5-inch screen, the small bezels and 7.9mm thickness make it relatively comfortable to hold. On the inside the phones runs on an octa-core processor, only 1GB RAM, dual-sim compatibility, 13 MP rear-end camera that fares just about average. Oh, the touted gesture based functions that it’s promoted with, fade away faster than you think.

From the September 2014 issue of FHM India.