Dyson Pure Cool Link

Price: Rs 39,900
Rating: 8/10 

Dyson’s fan-meets-air purifier is quite unlike any air purifier you’d have seen — none of the traditional fan blades, replaced instead by an incredible halo-like design that’s as much a conversation piece in your room (particularly the blue and grey model) as it is an air purifier. Like any Dyson product, it’s classy and built well, albeit a bit premium priced.

The premise is simple — the Pure Cool Link pulls air in through a fine mesh filter towards the bottom, filters it through a 360-degree glass HEPA filter and an activated carbon filter (to handle smells/pollutants and any particulate matter over 0.1 micron) and pushes it out in a directed ‘beam of air’ via the company’s ‘air multiplier’ fan designs. The high-end pricing isn’t without a bevy of features — it connects to your home Wi-Fi and onwards onto the Link app on your smartphone, and you can then control the device, check the air quality, and change modes through the app. The curved remote which attaches magnetically to the top is a nice touch, and the replacement filters are reasonably priced (Rs 2,690).

Despite the name, the fan won’t cool you down in the middle of the Indian summer, and is best used along with an air conditioner. It gets the job done, albeit a little slowly since it’s not the most powerful air purifier around.

Microsoft Xbox One X

Price: Rs 48,490
Rating: 9/10

Microsoft’s best response to Sony’s PlayStation lineup yet, the Xbox One X packs in raw firepower and true 4K HDR gaming into this diminutively-sized console, giving the boys from Redmond legitimate bragging rights over the PlayStation4 Pro.

It’s incredible how Microsoft has made the One X smaller in almost every way than its predecessor, yet given it this much processing grunt and graphical heft. There’s an eight-core AMD Jaguar chip with a mind-boggling six teraflops of AMD graphics horsepower mated to 12GB of high-speed memory, all of which come together to let the One X produce Ultra HD gameplay from the word go, instead of merely upscaling full HD visuals to 4K Ultra HD. Goes without saying, games such as Forza Motorsport 7 which are designed to take advantage of the 4K and high dynamic range capabilities look great on newer 4K TVs while others offer additional detail in the gameplay or, for that matter, the ability to dynamically scale down the resolution ever so slightly to allow for silky smooth performance. Despite the impressive power on tap, there’s only a mild hum coming from the unit during gameplay. Streaming apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video fully support 4K HDR playback on the console.

Games developers have to update their games to take advantage of the new hardware, without which all that firepower goes a-begging. The 1TB hard disk feels a little cramped in an age when 4K games touch anywhere up to 100 GB, so you’re going to be picking up an external hard drive sooner rather than later.

Zicom Street Smart

Price: Rs 7,999
Rating: 7/10

Personal security major Zicom has tapped into the automobile security market with Street Smart, an on-board diagnostic device that connects to the car’s on-board computer and sensors. Plug this into the OBD-II port and the device streams data directly to the app on your iOS/Android phone — via Bluetooth or a pre-installed GSM SIM.

Street Smart delivers well on its core capabilities — trips, alerts and car health. For instance, the app logs each trip you make (from the engine being turned on to when it is powered down), and gives you insights on each trip such as the route on a map, the average speed and fuel consumption based on your driving style. There are alerts for rash driving and excessive speeding/braking and for when the car leaves a designated area, much needed for those who are chauffeur driven or lend their cars to a bunch of friends often! Zicom’s also added in accident alerts (sudden G-forces), towing alerts and alerts for when the car is used at night (or any time it’s not supposed to be)! If you’re so inclined, the app lets you peep under the hood and see the status on your coolant, engine oil and battery, and even runs a few diagnostic checks on the car’s overall health.

There’s no way to export the entire car data to review later on a PC, although it is stored on Zicom’s cloud, which is a bit of a privacy nightmare for some. Alerts often get mixed (and missed) with other phone notifications.

Redmi 5 

Price: Rs 7,999 onwards
Rating: 8/10 

Xiaomi’s taken the carpet-bombing route to budget smartphone dominance with overlapping offerings at each price point. The Redmi 5 slots right in between the entry-level 5A and the Redmi Note series, and offers capable specs, a tall 18:9 display, surprisingly good battery life and an all-round good bang for your buck!

The taller 5.7-inch screen (720x1,440 pixels) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 450 are all great additions on a phone in this budget, and the unit I tested (3GB/32GB) is the safest bet to pick without going into Redmi Note 5 price territory. It runs MIUI 9.2.7 (on a dated Android 7.1.2) but everything is snappy until you bring out the heavy gaming artillery. The 3,300mAh battery, while seemingly modest, lasts well past a day of moderate use and doesn’t disappoint.

Design-wise, Xiaomi’s taken a safe path with the Redmi 5, with heavy visual cues from the Redmi Note 5, but it’s a formula that works well in terms of build quality and ease of use in the hand. The screen is a bit dull, and the cameras are par for the segment, which is to say that if photography is important to you, you should pony up more for a Note 5/Pro instead.

Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator. Follow him on Twitter @2shar. Mail your tech queries to t2onsunday@abp.in