Posts in category "review"


  • Going Wireless With Bluetooth Headset

    I have always been a headphones guy. Back when I was working you would almost always find me with my earphones plugged in. It helps me with two things. One, I can drown out all the noise, hubbub and excitement in the office. Not sure why people have to be so social and noisy. And two, it helps me deter people from talking to me because they wouldn’t want to bother a guy deeply in thought with headphones. An introvert thing. Once I retired, I switched from wired headphones to wireless neckbands and it changed a bunch of things for me. That and why I moved to neckbands but not ear buds is coming up next.

    ...continue reading
  • Acer Aspire 7 Review

    As you already know, I recently purchased a budget gaming laptop – Acer Aspire 7 with Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card. I really did not need a gaming laptop because I barely play games anymore. But the deal was so good compared to a similarly spec’ed laptop without the graphics card, that I could not pass up the deal. It’s been only 10 days since I have the laptop under my possession, but that does not deter me from writing a review. If you are also looking to buy this laptop, this post might help you in making a decision. If you are not planing to buy one and are still reading, you might be here to pass some time. Either way have fun.

    ...continue reading
  • Laptop Upgrades And Lap Gadgets Review

    Over the years I have been upgrading my laptop to keep it humming along. Normally the upgrades are mainly to help keep pace with the rising demands of my development tools. However, the latest upgrade to the laptop has been to extend the life of the laptop until I can buy another one. You see, I tend to upgrade my laptop every 5 years or so. I purchased my current laptop in late 2016. So it is almost time to replace it.

    ...continue reading
  • Experience with TyresNmore - A Tyre Replacement Service

    My Maruti alto car was manufactured in 2007 and the tyres have been the same since that time. While the tyres haven't worn out quite as much, they have become hard and brittle. One of the tyre's rubber gave way on a ride. Thankfully we weren't too far from home, so we just drove slowly and reached home. This was before the COVID pandemic. So we had lots of options to have the car fixed. We do have road side assistance on our car insurance, so could have it towed to the nearest Maruti service center and have the tyres replaced. But I wanted to try something different.

    ...continue reading
  • Realme X Review: 3 Months Later

    After a lot of research, I finally decided to buy Realme X although it did not meet all my criteria of a good phone. But after having used it for almost 3 months, I am really loving it in more ways than one. Here is a quick review of the phone in case some one decides to buy one. The 4 GB RAM with 128 GB storage flavor of the phone has an advertised price of Rs. 16,999 on Flipkart. But when I purchased it during the Diwali sale on Sep 30, 2019, it was available for Rs. 15,299 after discounts. Not the best deal because some other phones had deeper discounts especially if you don't care about the notch, but my heart was set on it, so went ahead and gifted myself one. It promptly arrived the very next day.

    ...continue reading
  • My Search for an Ideal Phone

    I have always used some of the more expensive android phones up until my brush with minimalism. After that, I decided I need to buy something for what it is really worth for me. I have always been a value conscious guy, which means I try to get the best value for my money. But nobody ever said that the money needs to be a small amount :) . So I used to buy moderately expensive stuff, but still with good value. I considered a $2100 gaming laptop a worthy buy because of the value of the components. Which is also the reason I don't buy Apple products. Don't get me wrong, the products are absolutely beautiful and well crafted and the attention to detail is impeccable. The engineering and innovation that goes behind those products is commendable. But I always feel that the value could be better spent at something other than the good looks and perfection. Anyway back to the point. So after trying to practice minimalism, I decided to go with things that are less expensive but still value for money.

    ...continue reading
  • Upgrading my Router: Asus RT-AC58U vs Tenda AC10

    This is the continuation and the conclusion post of my previous post. So if you have missed it, head on over there first. As you know, I have decided to upgrade my old TP-Link router with Asus RT-AC58U. Initially I was extremely happy with the performance although it was running a little hot. The performance and coverage was just great. But things turned south as soon as I tried using it as a NAS. While I know that the processor on the router will not be powerful enough as a dedicated NAS, it performed quite poorly in my opinion.

    ...continue reading
  • Upgrading my Router: Asus RT-AC58U

    My aging router has been causing trouble for a few months now and it was time to upgrade it. I tried a couple of routers and thought I should do a quick review comparing them in case it helps some one because at the time I was taking the decision, there wasn't a good comparison between the two. So the story begins about 6 months ago when my old TP-Link TL-WR740N router was evicting devices, or not letting new devices connect after a certain number of devices have connected. I don't know the maximum number of connections it can handle, but I think anything beyond 12 devices is giving it the fits.

    ...continue reading
  • Renewing Passport in Bangalore

    Just wanted to do a quick post on my experience renewing passport in Bangalore. May be this will help someone. So the story goes like this -- my passport is about to expire in 10 months and my daughter's is expiring in 4 months. We thought it might be a good time to start the renewal process not knowing how long it will take to renew. While my passport renewal could wait, I wanted to finish it along with my daughter in one go, instead of wasting time again for my passport renewal. Created a couple of accounts (one for myself and one for my daughter) on passportindia.gov.in.

    ...continue reading