There used to be a time when an ‘It’s a Sony’ used to end all TV purchase arguments, but of late, their neighbours from across the Sea of Japan have pulled out all the stops to take the lead in the LCD/ LED TV market. Does the 2012 Sony Bravia HX850 series, specifically the 46HX850 unit I’ve looked at, do enough for Sony to regain its mojo?

It certainly ticks off the first impressions box pretty comprehensively. A single sheet of Edge- to-edge Gorilla Glass — the same durable glass that’s found in the top smartphones today — topped off with a thin sliver of silver trim around the edge gives the TV a sleek and streamlined look, and the well-weighted plastic stand does its job of supporting the TV and also allows a stable left-right swivel. No integrated camera means you’ll need to buy an add-on if you want to use Skype.

It’s a good thing then that one is distracted by how good the picture quality gets on this TV, and Sony’s X-Reality Pro image processing produces stunning natural colours and excellent contrast levels. 3D, for those of you who care for it, shows satisfactory depth but you’ll have to cough up even more money for 3D glasses.

Like the competition, the TV features built-in Wi-Fi and wired Internet connectivity and gives you one-touch access to watch a host of video websites such as BigFlix, Sony, STAR, DailyMotion, not to forget on-screen widgets, which let you stream your Facebook and Twitter feeds discretely on one side of your TV screen. But what excited me the most was the fact that the Opera TV App Store has made its way onto the TV, which lets you download a ton of TV- optimised apps and games — this really shows the way forward for app adoption on TVs.

All in all, Sony’s pushed out a competent TV that does justice to the content you throw at it, but having to pay more for accessories that really should have been part of the bundle is a downer for sure.

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 1.23 lakh for the 46-in variant
• URL: http://bit.ly/PFOgft

Out of the frying pan

Fried food without the guilt. Has Philips made the perfect kitchen gadget or is it just clever marketing? If you look past the hype, the Philips AirFryer is basically a convection oven for your kitchen counter top. Sitting above the tray which houses your food is a heating element not unlike the kind you’ll find in your electric oven. What Philips does different is that they use a big fan above this heating element to blow superheated air onto your feed — upto 200° and for up to 30 minutes.

Now while the cookbooks suggest everything from quiches to fries are fair game for the AirFryer, results are mixed. Fries work great, as do roast potatoes, but breaded food items…not so much. You’ll have to experiment a fair bit to get your estimates right with this. And of course, French fries aficionados will point out that the taste doesn’t match up to deep-fried fries. It also takes up a lot of room on the kitchen counter, and it is pricey!

• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 14,995
• URL: bit.ly/OaAFLK

Double deal

Till recently, you could either get a capable smartphone or you could pick a dual-SIM device, but not both, and I longed for a dual-SIM device that did not make any compromises. Well, following on the heels of the Desire V dual-GSM phone comes the HTC Desire VC, the ‘C’ referring to the CDMA network capability in addition to its GSM SIM. Much like HTC’s current range, it runs Android 4.0 with HTC’s mature Sense 4.0 user interface. Specs are mid-range — a single core 1 GHz Cortex-A5 processor and 512 MB of memory — and so you’re paying a bit of a premium for the dual-SIM capabilities at this price. Internal storage is limited at 4GB, but you have the option of adding in SD card storage or taking HTC up on the free 25GB of Dropbox cloud storage offer, which is valid for 2 years.

Using the device is a breeze thanks to its 480x800 pixel 4.0 in touch screen, and while it’s packed to the gills on the connectivity front, it is worth mentioning that it does not support 3G on the GSM connection, which means you’re stuck with only the CDMA connection if you’re looking for high-speed data .

• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 23,300
• URL: bit.ly/OzD4lf