Tech Special: Have a techy, happy Valentine's Day

BOSE QC 25, Asus EeeBook X205, SONY SmartWatch 3, Blackberry Classic

Valentine's Day is around the corner - a perfect day to tell your loved ones that you care. In the Middle Ages, lovers expressed their feelings by exchanging flowers, chocolates and cards on this day. In Europe, lovers gifted each other Saint Valentine's keys to ‘open the door to their hearts'. Although we gift our loved ones traditional presents such as cards, chocolates, wallets, bags and jewellery, most of these gifts, though well-appreciated, are run-of-the-mill and boring. So, this Valentine's, think out of the box. Check out these latest gadgets that will bring a special smile to a loved one's face.

BOSE QC 25: (Rs 21,263)
If your Valentine loves music, then this is an ideal gift - the gift of an experience which allows you to listen to beautiful music. Bose's QC 25 appeals to people across all age groups. With a luxurious suede-like material on the headband that sits perfectly on your head, to soft ear cushions that fit comfortably around your ears, the QC25 looks as good as it sounds.

Designed for people on the go, the QC25 uses a Single AAA Battery that pops into the headphone to cancel out all noise at the flick of a button, and even if the battery runs out, your headphones still work. Bose includes a 3.5-mm to 3.5-mm cable with a microphone built in, that works with select smartphones and all iPhone/iPad Models. You can not only change your tracks using the remote in the cable, but also answer your calls. Also included is a beautiful case that can store your headphones when you are travelling, which has space for an additional backup battery. It also has an airplane adapter so you can use these in-flight to catch your favourite movie. The battery is designed to give you 35 hours of performance, so you may not need to carry
a spare.

Asus EeeBook X205: (Rs 14,990)
A laptop at the price, weight and battery life of a tablet - this and much more is what you get when you buy the Asus EeeBook X205. X205, with its 11.6-inch display, 17.5-mm display and 980 gm weight, may be slightly heavier than your average tablet, but it has a full keyboard built into it and provides up to 12 hours of battery life on a full charge.

Under the hood of the machine, the X205 houses Intel quad core processor, backed up by 2GB of RAM, and a 32GB Solid state storage. It runs Windows 8.1 (but no touchscreen makes it slightly frustrating to use the tile based home screen with track pad) and comes with a one-year subscription to Microsoft Office 365, giving you Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and OneNote, along with 1TB online cloud space to store your data.

Amkette Super Slim Power Bank: (Rs 1,395)
In the race to make phones slimmer and lighter, manufacturers have ended up compromising on battery life. Or, another way of looking at it is that our use of mobile phones has increased so much that no amount of battery life is ever sufficient though carrying bulky battery packs can be a nuisance. Solution? A battery bank that is super slim and fits in your wallet.

The Super Slim Power Bank is only 6.7-mm thick and sits comfortably in your wallet or pocket. It can also be connected to your phone. The device has a built-in micro USB cable with extra iPhone 4, 5, 6 connectors. These connectors easily fit into the in-built micro USB connector used to charge your iPhone or any other phone. The power bank comes with five layers of protection to ensure that no harm comes to your device battery such as overload protection, overcharge protection, over discharge protection, over voltage protection and short circuit protection. The Red and Blue LED indicators on the power bank, respectively, indicate when the gadget is charging and when it's done. The power bank and your device can be charged simultaneously, saving you precious full charge time for the power bank. The Lithium Polymer batteries ensure an optimised charging and a standby period of around 30 days when fully charged but not used. You can use Amkette's Super Slim power bank to charge your other handhelds, cameras and so on as well.

Blackberry Classic: (Rs 31,990)
With Classic, Blackberry has gone back to what it was known best for - its beautiful full QWERTY keyboard, though with slightly slanted keys with metal frets dividing the rows. Another throwback to the time of Bold and Curve is the Blackberry Utility Belt placed right over the keyboard.

The utility belt consists of the centralised trackpad along with call and end keys, the menu key and the back button too. The Classic with its 3.5-inch LCD touch screen display with Gorilla Glass (small-sized in an an era of big phones) is 5.1-inch tall and 2.8-inch wide. A stainless steel frame borders the phone, giving it strength, style and a bit of extra weight. The phone is a single sealed unit with Nano SIM slot on the side along with the microSD slot, which can be used to increase the in-built internal space of 16 GB to 128 GB. The Classic is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm 8960 processor, paired with a 2GB RAM. It runs BlackBerry 10.3.1, which supports Android Apps along with the usual apps from BlackBerry world. It also supports BlackBerry Assistant which performs tasks on your phone with a voice or a written command.

SONY SmartWatch 3: (Rs 19,990)
Sony's SmartWatch 3 has an almost classic design with minimal distractions. This square watch has a 1.6-inch 320x320 trans-reflective display, making it easier to read under direct sunlight.

The display has a brightness setting, which can be changed manually or put on an auto mode, wherein tapping the watch or raising your wrist will light it up. The watch is a little bulky due to the in-built micro-USB port. Smartwatch 3 runs on Google's Android Wear operating system, so it comes with features such as delivering notifications from your connected Android smartphone, voice commands and lets you dictate responses to your messages and swipe across the screen to see more information or open apps. It allows you to store music in your watch, using its 4GB space.