Diwali Gift choices for your loved ones

GIZMO GIFTS Tired of the same old sweets-in-a-box presents? Here are some nifty tech ideas that are bound to stand out

This is the season of festivals. Shopping, gifting, gorging and celebrating — it is all in the air. If you are scratching your head over gift choices for your loved ones, we have here a few choices that may be up your street.



LIVING COLORS GEN 2 FLORAL  Rs.11,999



The Living Colors Gen2 Light has a transparent plastic body with a floral print, and a 15-watt colour changing power LED at the heart. It comes with a remote control that lets you set the colour, or set it on changing colours so that it will light up the room in a different shade. The remote uses radio frequency, so you don’t need to be in the same room to change the settings. The downside is that it is not waterproof, so don’t use outdoors.

iPHONE 5S[likely at about Rs. 53,500] 

It may have sold out across the world, but a little birdie ie tells us that Apple is set to make the iPhone 5S available in India just before Diwali. So o get your funds in place, and prepare are to upgrade. To bee on the safe side, keepp a bit of extra cash,, as Apple has not officially ally revealed pricrici ng. The iPhone 5S has fingerprint technology for security, and a benchmark-setting camera with a new sapphire lens that gives an aperture of f/2.0 — meaning better pictures in low light.

BOSE QC20I NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES Rs.22,388

 What is a festival if you don’t burst a few crackers? But if you prefer to cuddle up with a good book and nice music, the Bose QC20i is for you. It is the first in-ear headset that sports Bose’s famous noise cancellation, which is so effective that if you just put it on with no music playing, the eerie silence gets to you. Remember: if you forget to charge the headset, the noise cancellation will not work. One charge lasts roughly a full day, and you can use it to answer calls too.

There are two models – one for Android phones and the other for the iPhone. And if your spouse snores, well, what better than to ask him or her to gift it to you this Diwali!

FITBIT FORCE [$129.95; about Rs. 8,060]

To get this one, you would need someone to be traveling out from the US. But with all the sweets you will gorge on in the coming weeks, it may be worth it. The Force, which releases later this month, is a wearable device that helps you measure activity: steps walked, stairs climbed, calories burnt... It has a noiseless alarm that can wake you up without disturbing t he entire household; it can monitor your sleep and even tells the time. Force can run 10 days without recharge.

SONY QX 100 Rs. 24,990

Cellphone cammeras have come e a long way, but there is still only so much h that they can n do. Welcome to the QX100, whichich is a standalone camera that pairs up with your Android or iOS phone. It clips on to most screens under 5”, and can also be separately mounted on a tripod. The QX100 does not have a screen, but uses a 1”, 20.2 megapixel sensor — the same as Sony’s celebrated RX100II cameras. The Carl Zeiss lens comes with a fast f/1.8 aperture, among the best in the business.

 

  You can store the images on the QX100 itself using a microSD card, or wirelessly transfer them to your phone. Your phone screen works as the screen of the camera: you can touch any area to focus, zoom and do other stuff. The lens has a 3.6X zoom, and the battery lasts for 200-odd shots. If you find it expensive, there is a cheaper varianant called QX10, which has a 10x zoom, but nnot the Carl ZZeiss optics.

KINDLE FIRE Rs.11,999

If you have been looking for a tablet device on a tight budget, you will find the Kindle Fire 7” attractive. The device runs on the Android OS customised for Amazon, and it is good for everything — surfing, reading books, playing video and music (with Dolby stereo speakers) and a battery that lasts all day. You can even hook it to the TV via HDMI. The downside is that it is wiwi-fi only, and needs a device to connect to the Net.