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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo review

Late last year, a video showcasing the prototype of a modular phone - Phonebloks - circulated virally around the Web. The idea of a phone that can be whatever you want it to be definitely met with approval, and we might soon see it turn into reality, thanks to Motorola.

Samsung seems to have the same goal, but its approach has been to create a new model for every possible need. Did we hear someone enquiring about a smartphone with a 5.1-inch screen and top-of-the-line specs? We have the Galaxy S4/S5 for you. No? Do you want a slightly bigger screen with a full-HD display and a stylus? Take a look at the Galaxy Note 3. You think that's too expensive but don't mind a slight compromise on the screen resolution and camera specifications? Enter its younger sibling - the Galaxy Note 3 Neo.

For the uninitiated, this cacophony of device names might be unnerving. Did we mention there is also a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo Duos? Now, while we are at the topic of bewildering monikers, check this out.

The Neo is slimmer and sleeker than its namesake, and Samsung is also blowing its trumpet about the hexacore processor housed inside the device. Is the younger sibling rough around the edges? How is the performance compared to the Note 3 which is slightly more expensive? Is there a single redeeming feature for us to recommend the Note 3 Neo? Read on to find out.

Look and Feel
This 'lite' edition also has the faux leather plastic back with a distinctive stitch design running across the border akin to its elder sibling. The Neo feels comfortable to hold if you have big hands, but it isn't too comfortable for single-handed operation. Reaching the top of the screen with your thumb is bound to be a hassle.

Looking at it from the back, the camera and flash modules sit on top of the Samsung logo running across the breadth of the device. Removing the rear cover reveals the removable 3100mAh battery, a slot for the SIM card, and another one for the microSD memory card. It is interesting to note that the NFC module is a part of the battery.

We reviewed the alluring white edition and it is definitely a dust magnet. However, the Neo is also available in classic black and cool mint (which looks rather bland). This phablet has a single physical button for the home function which is flanked on either side by the back (right) and menu (left) buttons. Right above the screen is the earpiece grille. To its right are the proximity and light sensors, and the front camera module. To its left, you can see a discreet (almost invisible) notification LED. A bit too cramped in our opinion.

A chrome trim runs around the border, which houses most of the buttons and ports. The left edge has a volume rocker and the power button sits on the right edge, which is great for accessibility considering the size of the device (we're looking at you, HTC). The bottom is the busiest, with the Micro-USB charging/data port, speaker grille, microphone, and enclosure for the S Pen stylus. The top is also crowded, with the 3.5mm jack, extra microphone for the speakerphone, and an infrared LED.

The oft-used statement 'don't judge a book by its cover' holds true in the case of the Neo, since the faux leather might give it a premium look. Once we pry open the rear cover, it is unmistakably and unapologetically plastic. Despite this, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo is a sturdy device with no signs of flex. 

Features and Specifications
The USP of this Samsung phablet is the hexacore processor, which includes a quad-core Cortex A7 clocked at 1.3 GHz and a dual-core 1.7GHz Cortex A15, supported by a Mali T-624 graphics subsystem. The Neo has 16GB of internal memory and supports up to 64GB more using a MicroSD card. Two gigabytes of RAM are available for the user, which is a gigabyte less than on the Note 3. The rear camera is an 8MP variant (again stripped down from the Note 3's 13MP) with flash and there's also a 2MP front-facing camera capable of capturing 1080p video for those long Skype sessions.

Coming to the connectivity, Samsung has all bases covered, with 2G, 3G, LTE (no support for 2.3GHz band, though), GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0. Moreover, Samsung has added a multitude of sensors including an accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor and compass.

Since the Neo is supposed to be a stripped down version of the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has made a compromise on the screen, which is a 5.5 inch 720p Super AMOLED capacitive touch panel. It translates to a pixel density of approximately 267 per inch. Despite being a PenTile screen, it isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the accurate colour reproduction and impressive viewing angles are an advantage. The screen also has Gorilla Glass 3 for protection just like the Note 3, which should allow it to handle a few scratches.

Software
Colourful wallpapers and icons are standard for TouchWiz - Samsung's custom UI on top of all its Android (4.3 Jellybean, in this case) devices. It is garish, loud, cartoonish, and we are no strangers to it anymore. Nothing's changed in the case of the Galaxy Note 3 Neo.

The Neo carries forward all the software embellishments Samsung introduced with the Note 3. The most interesting of the lot is Air Command, which uses the S Pen (capacitive stylus) exclusive to the Note series. Basically, the moment you detach the S Pen, you'll see a semi-circular wheel of commands on screen. Using the S Pen, the user can select any of the following tools: Action Memo, Scrapbooker, Screen Write, S-Finder and Pen Window. Except for Pen Window which is used to launch apps compatible with Samsung's multitasking scheme, the rest of the features seem to have limited value. Still, we noted that the S Pen works better than any stylus in the market.

A few other features like Smart Stay, Smart Scroll and Smart Pause are present too. They work occasionally, but using Smart Scroll, for example, appeared to bystanders as though we were performing advanced neck exercises.

Samsung provides a panel of applications that the can run on screen simultaneously, and we found ourselves using this quite often, especially when we wanted to watch a video and do other little things such as sending a text message alongside.

TouchWiz offers a plethora of options in the notification panel and frankly, despite looking messy, it is indeed functional. Also, Samsung's default keyboard includes a number row on top of the QWERTY layout which is handy. Another nifty addition is the handwriting-to-text feature on the keyboard that works like a charm.

Users can find the regular set of Google apps, including Chrome, bunched up in a folder. We can always expect Samsung to fill their devices with bloatware, and they don't disappoint in the case of the Neo. Here is the laundry list: Samsung Apps, Samsung ChatON, Samsung WatchON, Samsung Link, Screen Mirroring, S Voice, S Health, Group Play, Story Album, and S Translator.

Samsung also bundles Evernote, Dropbox, Flipboard and Tripadvisor with the device. The apps are placed in a folder called Galaxy Plus. Samsung teams up with Flipboard for content syndication for the Magazine app and tries to emulate the functionality of HTCs Blinkfeed, which in itself shares design ideologies with Flipboard. The user can swipe from the bottom of the screen to pull up Magazine.

Samsung's idea is to give the user plenty of choice, but these apps are a part of the core system, and there's no easy way to delete them.

Camera
Samsung's Note series of phablets tend to deliver great camera results. In the case of the Note 3 Neo, Samsung has bumped down the rear camera's specification compared to the Note 3, which incidentally has one of the best smartphone cameras on the market today. This model features an 8MP rear shooter compared to the 13MP one on its elder sibling, and a 2MP one in front. Both are also capable of recording 1080p full HD videos. 

Users accustomed to Samsung's camera interface will feel at home. The various available shooting modes largely eliminate any need for third-party apps. We found ourselves reaching for the Best Photo, Best Face and Sound and Shot modes more often than not.

We tested the image quality of captured photographs under different conditions. At first glance, images captured in broad daylight look great but on closer inspection we found that the leaves on a tree had a bit of chromatic aberration. Indoor shots under incandescent lighting reproduced natural colours with minimal noise. Samsung enhances performance in low light using a feature called Smart Stabilization. Noise levels are high despite using the enhancement. Video captured at 1080p skipped frames and had interlacing issues when panned. All we can say is that the camera could have been better.

(click to see full size)

Performance
We ran a bunch of synthetic tests to determine the Neo's processor performance and fortunately it performed to our expectations. AnTuTu returned a score of 29,075 and in the Quadrant test, the phablet clocked in an overall score of 11,858. The hexacore processor of the device is definitely a workhorse, and it shows in the buttery smooth performance while sifting through homescreens and the app drawer in general.

For graphically intensive processes we used GFXbench and 3DMark's Ice Storm tests. The scores were 24.3 fps and 9446, respectively. This is definitely not top-tier performance, and a few other devices in the same price range such as the LG G2 and Sony Xperia Z1 perform much better. 

SunSpider took 870.8ms to complete and Mozilla Kraken returned a score of 8,106ms. Once again, the other phones performed better. Our disappointment was compounded by the fact that opening multiple heavy web pages at once caused the Neo to stutter.

Video playback is a cause of concern, especially since the default apps refused to play 1080p videos. If the encoded audio is 5.1 channel, the default app throws up the 'audio codec not supported' message. VLC, on the other hand, managed to play all the files we threw at it, but the heavier 1080p files had artifacts cropping up from time to time and dropped frames occasionally. We felt shortchanged with the experience on the 'supposedly' high-end hardware.

The bundled earphones are the same ones that Samsung includes with most of its high-end Galaxy devices, and are mediocre at best. The shrill treble overpowers the muddled bass. The only saving grace was tight mids in songs which emphasise only vocals. Audio purists will have a better experience with third-party earphones, and we noted that the quality of sound improved drastically when we tried our own.

At its highest volume, the loudspeaker is a bit soft but definitely not enough to be a deal-breaker. Once a call was made, the Neo managed to hold on the cellular network signal even where performance is generally supposed to be weak. The 3100mAh under the hood is a revelation since it lasted a good 12 hours, 22 minutes in our continuous video loop test. Discounting the testing process, during normal usage, we reached for the charger only twice in five days.

A look at the aforementioned observations, hexacore processor or not, reveals that the Note 3 Neo is not meant to be a powerhouse device but a workhorse.

Verdict
All points considered; if you are looking for a sturdy phablet with a powerful stylus for note taking, a big, beautiful screen and great battery life, then look no further than the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo as it might just serve the purpose. But be warned, the performance of the Neo is middling for an expensive device.

At the time of this review, online e-commerce websites were retailing it at approximately Rs. 36,500 whereas the Note 3 retails for Rs. 43,500. Give the elder sibling a serious thought before settling on the Neo. If you don't need the stylus and can live with a smaller screen, we would also suggest that you take a look at the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact and the LG G2, which perform better.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo in pictures

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo

Rs. 38990

• REVIEW
• KEY SPECS
• NEWS

• Design
• Display
• Software
• Performance
• Battery life
• Camera
• Value for money

• Good
• Great battery life
• S Pen functionality
• Good viewing angles
• Decent colour reproduction

• Bad
• Mediocre camera
• Sub-par graphics performance
• Plain design

Read detailed Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo review

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cloudGOO lets you consolidate Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud storage

Thanks to free giveaways, most of us probably have a couple of GB in Dropbox, and a free account in Box, not to mention OneDrive and Google Drive accounts, to make the most of all that free cloud storage, right?

The problem, at least for this reporter, is managing all those different accounts. It sounds like a lot of free space at first, but once you start syncing photos from your phone, uploading your comic books collection or filling it with movies from... backing up your DVD collection, each account gets filled up pretty fast. There's a lot of free space if you look at all the different accounts available, but keeping track of what is saved where very quickly becomes a nightmare. It's easier to just pay Dropbox $9.99 a month (approximately Rs. 600) or $99.99 for a year, and get 100GB of storage.

That's where cloudGOO comes in. Available as an app for both Android (Rs. 59.88) and iOS (Rs. 60), cloudGOO lets you connect all your cloud drives together, and then access them as a single drive. This means that instead of 2GB here and 10GB there, you can connect all the free accounts available and access over 100GB from a single app on your phone or tablet.

You don't even have to install each app individually, and then connect them all to cloudGOO - instead you log into them via the cloudGOO app and start using them right away. The app supports a number of cloud storage providers, such as iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, SugarSync and Amazon Cloud Drive. It uses APIs from the other providers so it's not storing your credentials for the other accounts anywhere, and it figures out the best places to save the files for you.

There are other solutions like Jolicloud, which lets you manage multiple cloud storage providers, but the difference is that you have to decide where you're saving files, and the search function also handles one provider at a time.

With cloudGOO on the other hand, the search is universal across your accounts, and it also has a simple graphical interface to help you find documents, or photos, or movies, or music. The logic of how it decides where to save the files isn't really clear, but as long as you have the app, you can quickly find the files you want, so it doesn't really matter.

There is one downside which is worth pointing out - cloudGOO doesn't have its own desktop client. When you're saving files from your computer, you'll still have to go to the individual cloud storage providers that you're using directly. Aside from that, there's no way to see where the file has been saved by cloudGOO, which can be a bit of a problem if you want to find files outside of the app. However, as long as you stay inside the app, there's no problem.

According to the listing on the Play store, the current pricing is an introductory discount, but from what we've seen, it's well worth paying a dollar for, instead of ten times as much, on a monthly basis, for paid storage.

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Gionee Elife E7 review

If Gionee is trying to set itself apart from low-cost Indian smartphone companies, it's doing a good job. While dozens of brands with little to no name value are busy fighting it out in the sub-Rs. 15,000 segment, Gionee has dared to try selling a phone priced above Rs. 25,000. Our market generally has a low opinion of Chinese products, even though it's well known by now that nearly all Indian smartphone companies source their devices wholesale from China. Despite this (or perhaps because of this), Gionee seems to be trying to position itself above our local brands.

The new Elife E7 uses surprisingly powerful components and delivers performance scores which rival those of products priced significantly higher. In fact, it's probably the cheapest device available with a Snapdragon 800 SoC and full-HD screen. It's exactly the kind of product that will give Gionee some real legitimacy and brand power, if it works as it should. We're going to see if Gionee has cut any corners in order to achieve this kind of low price, and whether your buying decision should be influenced by the name on the box.

Look and feel
The E7 isn't bad looking at all, even if it does remind us a little bit of some of Nokia's more recent designs. The body is a single block of plastic, which in our case was a very glossy black. The plastic has an interesting granite texture, but the surface is totally flat and is almost too smooth to get a grip on.

The front panel is predictably bare, and thankfully free of ugly branding. The capacitive buttons below the screen are completely invisible when not illuminated, which is a tiny bit of a problem for usability. Above the screen, you'll see only a small earpiece and front camera lens. The notification LED and sensors are well hidden.

The E7's body bulges out a little at the back, and the camera lens protrudes even more. The two sides are completely flat, while the top and bottom are curved. The unibody construction is excellent, and we had no problem at all with the fit and finish of this phone. There's only one ugly part of the design: all the mandatory regulatory information such as IMEI number is printed on a sticker on the lower back of the phone. We didn't try peeling off the one on our test unit, but we hope it comes off easily so that users can really show off the E7's smooth body.

Gionee has bucked at least one current design trend, and so the power button is in its traditional place on the top panel rather than on the right, which seems to be popular on large phones today. You can use the volume down button to wake the phone from standby, which is a welcome compromise. Everything else is fairly standard: there's a volume rocker on the right edge, headset jack on top, USB port on the bottom, and SIM card tray on the left. The tray sits perfectly flush with the E7's body, and you'll need a pin to eject it.

Features and software
The Gionee Elife E7 has pretty much every major box checked when it comes to current top-end must-have features. The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, running at up to 2.2GHz. Our test unit came with 16GB of built-in storage space and 2GB of RAM, but there's also another variant with 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM. Considering the relatively small price difference between the two, and the fact that this phone doesn't have a microSD slot for additional space, we really can't see any reason to choose the 16GB variant over the 32GB one.

The screen is crisp and bright, thanks to the full-HD resolution at 5.5 inches. It is highly reflective and gets washed out a bit in sunlight unless you really raise the brightness level. Wireless is covered with Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi and GPS. The battery weighs in at a hefty 2,500mAh.

The E7 is a single-SIM phone with 3G but not LTE support. That and the lack of expandable storage are the only things missing from the feature list, but considering the state of LTE in India, the 32GB variant is still highly competitive with other manufacturers' top offerings.

Our positive impressions of the E7's hardware are unfortunately diluted by its lacklustre software. The E7 runs Android 4.2.2, which by anyone's standard is behind the times. Gionee has evidently spent a lot of time and effort in customising the interface, but absolutely none of it is an improvement over stock Android. For starters, there are no home screens: you are taken directly into the app grid from the lock screen. This means that widgets are completely unavailable, except for a weather readout that stays permanently attached to the top of the screen.

From the lock screen, you can swipe left to show shortcuts to the camera, voice recorder, torch and "FakeCall" apps, which are all pretty handy. Tapping the FakeCall icon makes your phone ring after 15 seconds, with a totally genuine-looking caller ID screen (which shows a name you can set in advance). If you pick up this fake call, there's even a prerecorded woman's voice saying "Hi, can you send me the file as soon as possible, please".

Swiping up instead unlocks the phone, and the icon grid just slides into view. There's a lot of wasted space, and between the weather widget on top and dock on the bottom, there's only space for 12 icons. The dock isn't visually distinct, so it's odd to see those four icons stay put while the rest slide around when you scroll between pages. You can also swipe down from any point on the icon grid to lock the phone again.

Gionee's personal touches extend to the quick settings panel in the notifications tray, which shows 15 icons that you can choose and reorder. The main settings app is oddly subdivided into two sections, Common Settings and All Settings, which seems a bit redundant. The Common settings are duplicates of entries in All Settings, of which most are the top anyway. There's also no way to search for apps or settings, and no quick access Google web search.

Quite a few apps are included, though few are genuinely useful. UC Browser is the default web browser, replacing Android's default option. Charm Cam offers a number of filters and effects which aren't of very high quality, but are fun enough to use. GioneeXender lets you create Wi-Fi mesh networks to exchange files between devices. NQ security claims to optimise your device, scan news apps and downloads, hide files and call records from spying eyes, and back up contacts.

Kingsoft Office is a fairly capable app for viewing, sharing and creating documents in the popular MS Office formats. WeChat, BBM, Facebook and Twitter are preloaded for your various social needs, as are six rather low-quality games. Many of the apps have poorly translated English labels and options, especially a trio of utilities called Phone Accelerator, Power Manager and Traffic Assistant.

Overall, the E7's menu feels cluttered, and we would have liked to have been able to get rid of some of these apps. At least there are plenty of launchers in the Google Play store to replace Gionee's awful skin with.

Camera
Apart from the design and specifications, Gionee is also touting the E7's 16-megapixel camera. Gionee has used a sapphire lens; a feature Apple popularised a year or two ago. In actual use, we were blown away by the camera's quality. The photos it takes are truly outstanding, in a variety of situations and lighting conditions. Photos are richly detailed and accurate, with minimal noise. The camera also does an excellent job of detecting focus, and you can take beautiful close-ups with blurred backgrounds with no more effort than it takes to tap the screen once. We did find in some situations that the HDR mode resulted in overexposed images and exaggerated colours.

Video recording was much the same, with great quality and the ability to dramatically shift focus with a tap anywhere on screen. The E7 defaults to 720p, though 1080p is available in the settings menu. There's also an anti-shake option, though Gionee hasn't mentioned what kind of image stabilisation is at play. You can only zoom in and out by pinching with two fingers on screen, so that's bound to make the phone shake.

(Click to see full size)

The front camera is also pretty impressive, though you don't get the same sort of deep focus ability, and video recording tops out at 720p. 8 megapixels is far better than most cameras offer on their front cameras, so those who love taking selfies will be more than happy.

The default camera app has a pretty basic set of features, so you might want to try third-party alternatives which will let you get even more out of the excellent optics. Apart from a creative options panel, there isn't much you can do in terms of manually adjusting settings. The bundled CharmCam app offers a few filters and special effects, but nothing really worth getting excited over.

(Click to see full size)

Performance
There doesn't seem to be much the Gionee Elife E7 cannot do. It blew through all our benchmark tests, with performance only slightly trailing that of the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. Both phones share roughly the same specifications, but the Z1 Compact's lower-res screen is easier to drive.

We managed to achieve 22.8fps in GFXbench, and 3Dmark reported "Maxed out", the highest possible score in both, the regular and Extreme Ice Storm scenarios. You'll be comfortable playing most of today's most immersive graphics-heavy games, not just the simple puzzles and runners that others with lesser phones are restricted to.

AnTuTu came in with an impressive 33,686 points, while Quadrant returned 20,246 points overall. Only the browser-based JavaScript tests, SunSpider and Kraken, reported poor scores. We can't pinpoint a single reason for this, due to the variable nature of testing conditions and the fact that the E7's default browser is UC Browser.

As expected, we had no problem whatsoever playing HD videos. Audio quality was decent, but the built-in speaker is not especially loud or clear. The custom Music app offers a DTS effects panel and you can tweak parameters such as 3D effect, Focus, Clarity and Space Reverberation individually, or just choose from five presets. You'll need really good earphones to really feel any difference these settings might make.

Another impressive aspect of the E7's performance was its battery life. We managed to eke out just over nine hours' worth of movie playback time in our loop test. Gionee doesn't seem to have done a good job calibrating the battery, since it reported its remaining capacity as 1 percent for an extraordinarily long time, which meant at least in our case that the phone lasted much longer than it projected it would.

Verdict
There's a lot to like about the Gionee E7. It has a fantastic camera, great screen, top-end performance, and a battery that didn't let us down. The price is also quite unbelievably low - so low, in fact, that we have no problem recommending the more powerful 32GB variant over the base 16GB one.

Gionee is also quite aggressive about its plans for India, and that includes a huge network of service centres, eventually. So what it comes down to, finally, is the name. Gionee isn't anywhere near as well established as Samsung, Sony, Nokia or LG, so spending nearly Rs. 30,000 will feel like a bit of a risk even if the value proposition is this good.

If you're in two minds about trusting an unknown manufacturer, there's always the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has now fallen in price, and the Google Nexus 5, which comes with stock Android 4.4. It's also quite likely that last year's other flagships, such as the HTC One, will also drop to this price level soon. The S4 offers expandable storage and the Nexus has far better software, but the Gionee Elife E7 is still a better rounded package.

We hope that Gionee does build a strong sales and service network in India. The E7 is fantastic value for money now, and sets the stage for more premium offerings in the future.

Gionee Elife E7 in pictures

Gionee Elife E7

Rs. 26999

• REVIEW
• KEY SPECS
• NEWS

• Design
• Display
• Software
• Performance
• Battery life
• Camera
• Value for money

• Good
• Fantastic camera
• Top-end specifications
• Good battery life
• Good screen

• Bad
• Awful custom Android skin
• 16GB variant has less RAM and slower CPU than 32GB variant

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Facebook Bug Bounty 2013 highlights: India contributed the most valid bugs

India, which accounts for over 93 million Facebook users, reported the largest number of bugs under the social networking giant's bug bounty programme last year.

The California-headquartered firm said it received a total of 14,763 submissions in 2013, of which 687 bugs were found to be valid and eligible to receive rewards.

A bug is an error or defect in a software or hardware that causes a programme to malfunction. It often occurs due to conflicts in software when applications try to run in tandem.

The social networking platform, which has over 1.2 billion users globally, paid $1.5 million (approximately Rs. 9 crore) last year to security researchers who report bugs on its website.

"India contributed the largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353 (Rs. 80,000 approximately). The US reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 (approximately Rs. 1,35,000) in rewards," Facebook said in a post.

Brazil and the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs and average rewards of $3,792 (approximately Rs. 2,25,000) and $2,950 (approximately Rs. 1,75,000), respectively, it added.

Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per report in 2013, receiving an average of $3,961 (approximately Rs. 2,40,000) for 38 bugs, Facebook said.

It said: "We've paid over $2 million (approximately Rs. 12 crore) since we got started in 2011, and in 2013 we paid out $1.5 million ( approximately Rs. 9 crore) to 330 researchers across the globe."

The average reward in 2013 was $2,204, (approximately Rs. 1,30,000) and most bugs were discovered in non-core properties, such as websites operated by companies the firm had acquired, it added.

"2014 is looking good so far. The volume of high-severity issues is down, and we're hearing from researchers that it's tougher to find good bugs," Facebook said.

The social networking site said it will encourage best research in the most valuable areas and will continue to increase its reward amounts for high priority issues.

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Seven must-have gadgets for every frequent traveller

Technology has sure made our lives simpler, but deciding which gadgets to pack on your travels knowing you'll be carrying your smartphone, tablet, and (if it's a work trip) your laptop, can be quite a challenge, in this age of strict baggage allowances. Here's our pick of gadgets that are small and light enough to carried almost anywhere.

1) Universal adapter
If you are a frequent international traveller, you understand the importance of having a universal adapter in your travel kit. While basic adapters like this one cost around Rs. 300, these days you can buy ones with multiple USB ports like the Ultra World Travel Charger with Dual USB, so you don't need to carry a charger for your phone/ tablet separately.

2) Wi-Fi Router and Ethernet cable
Many hotels across the world provide wired Internet access for free, but charge for access via Wi-Fi, often on a per-device basis. You could be a sucker and pay the extra charges, or you could go prepared by carrying a Wi-Fi router of your own, setup and ready to just plugin. The author still carries a first-generation Airport Express on his travels, and loves it, largely because it can be directly plugged into the wall. (Yes, you can do that with the current Airport Express as well, but it's not as elegant.)

You could go for something cheaper like the TP-Link TL-WR702N 150 Mbps Wireless N Nano Router, which has a small footprint and won't hurt your pocket either. Though most hotels will happily give you an Ethernet cable without charge, it doesn't hurt to carry one of your own, as they don't take too much space, especially if you can find a retractable one.

3) Extension board
If there's one thing the author has learnt on his travels, it's that the hotels never have nearly enough power points - and if they do, they are hidden under the bed, or on the other side of the room - why would I want to charge my phone next to the TV, WHY?!! Carrying an extension board fixes all this, giving you multiple power sockets (that are of the same style as your 'home' country, eliminating the need for several power adapters) wherever you want them in the room. 

We recommend going for the cheap circular boards with retractable wire that you'll find at your neighbourhood shop. If you prefer having a brand attached to everything you buy, consider one of Belkin's many offerings.

4) Noise-cancelling headphones
If it seems you spend half your life in flights or at airport terminals, investing in good noise-cancelling headphones is a wise choice. Our preferred ones are the Bose in-ear noise cancelling headphones or if you are on a tighter budget the Quietcomfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones are available for half as much from Amazon. 

Go for headphones that come with an in-flight adapter or invest in one separately, so you don't have to use the crummy headphones the airline provides the next time you happen to find something tolerable on the in-flight entertainment system.

5) E-book reader
Throw away the dead-tree edition of your books and purchase an e-book reader to carry hundreds of books with you wherever you go with seemingly endless battery life, making it the perfect companion for those long delays at the airport.

Pick up the current-generation Amazon Kindle Paperwhite if you want the latest-greatest, or choose between various offerings by Amazon and Kobo, depending upon your budget.

6) Entertainment on the go
If reading isn't your thing and you are the kind who carries all your movies and TV shows on your mobile device, wouldn't it be great to enjoy them on the 40-inch LCD that your hotel room has? Carry an Apple TV with you and you can do just that. This experience is not limited to owners of iOS devices, as third-party apps available on the Play Store let Android devices benefit from the convenience of AirPlay. 

Or you could also look at something like the Amkette Evo TV, which can connect to your phone using DLNA, if you are on a budget. Google's Chromecast is another not-too-expensive option, though it's not available in India yet.

While most hotels will have a HDMI cable (you can use the one the set-top box is connected to), carry one of your own retractable ones preferred) just to be safe.

7. Battery bank
The smartest of gadgets are nothing but dumb bricks without power. While many planes, trains, and even buses now have power sockets that can be used to charge your gizmos, there's nothing like having a portable battery bank at hand, especially if you have a long day on the road, or a week or two in the wilderness. 

Choose from various capacities - a couple of thousand mAh that will charge your phone once, to 20000mAh monsters that have standby time of weeks and will charge your device several times over.

Bonus tip
If you fly quite often, ditch your 15-inch laptop and opt for something lighter like the 11-inch MacBook Air. Not only does that mean you are lugging around less weight (those kilograms add up very quickly), laptops this size (and smaller, of course) without a hard disk-drive will save you a lot of time and effort at airport security as you don't need to take them out of the bag. 

The author can personally verify having left his Air inside the cabin baggage without any incident at various airports (including the major ones in India). Of course, if you can ditch your laptop entirely in favour of a tablet (it's not as difficult as you think), your life becomes even simpler. Logitech has a great range of keyboards for tablets which can help on that front.

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Printerest: How India is warming up to the world of 3D printing

Walking through the Asaf Ali road, till the New Delhi Stock Exchange building, the cacophony is unmissable. Running up a flight of stairs in the building adjacent to the New Delhi Stock Exchange one reaches a large hall owned by Stirring Minds, which is home to a 3D printing workshop on a hot Saturday morning. Abhinav Singhal, Pranav Prakash, Shirsendu 'Troy' Karmakar and Shantanu Raghav, the founders of 3D Printing start-up Solidry are cheerfully working on setting up the workshop paraphernalia, getting the 3D prints organised and assembling a 3D printer. A gaggle of enthusiasts curiously peer over with noisy whispers as Karmakar continues to work on assembling the printer mopping his forehead occasionally. A few noisy minutes later after things are in place the workshop begins. From explaining 3D printing, to demonstrating how an object is created to answering questions to predicting its use in the real world, the workshop provides an in depth introduction to the concept. And it ends with the promise of meeting again to instruct people on how to build do-it-yourself 3D printers within the house.

Solidry, which was started by the 20-something engineers with full time jobs at places like LinkedIn andSlideShare, is just the tip of a very fascinating iceberg. At the workshop, they created (and showed the rest of us how to create) objects that range from a 'batarang', to pen stands, and from card holders, to plastic jewellery all using biodegradable plastic. 

There are definitely problems for mass adoption, such as the time taken for a simple print. Solidry is a startup and they work with limited tools and resources, and printing a bracelet that was 15mm high and 5mm thick took around one and a half hours. The same was true in the case of our 'batarang'. Also the finishing is something that has to be meticulous too. The technology is steadily improving though; "we are currently working with plastics like ABS, Polycarbonate PVA, rubber like materials called TPU, Ninja Flex amongst others. Once we are able to build a printer that can utilise multi-materials, it opens up a wide new range of possibilities," says Prakash. 

Explaining their enthusiasm about the process Karmakar says, "We got hooked onto the concept when we first heard about it during our engineering days. We wanted to purchase a 3D printer, but it was not cost effective. As a result we decided to build it all ourselves. That was the inception of Solidry, in June, 2013. We are focussing not only on popularising 3D printing but also in creating customised products for people and retailing them." Karmakar and his team currently work with various plastics and metals. They offer users the freedom to upload their own designs, and create, hand finish and deliver it to them across India. In addition, they are also trying to enter into the manufacturing space wherein they could both create products on order and also retail their own designs.

Extruding a print
3D printing involves extruding plastic filaments, slowly playing them in layers to build 3D objects. At the Solidry workshop, while Singhal works away at explaining the real world uses of 3D printing in the field of medicine, the home made printer works away religiously at extruding hot white plastic in a concentric pattern on a flatbed. At one end of the extruder is the hopper for feeding the white plastic line, which has a diameter of 1.75 mm. Like other normal printers it too is connected to a laptop nearby where the design parameters have been keyed in using software called Slic3r. The extruder works along three axes - X,Y,Z - to create the final finished product. The Slic3r tool enables users to convert their digital designs, and wireframes into a model that can be accepted by the printer for printing. Once the material is fed into the hopper it is continuously drawn into the heater where it melts at 155 degree celsius following which the extruder nozzle points it at the base and the plastic is added in successive layers according to the design imprinted. 

Raghav, who is the youngest member of the group, explains that it works against the current industry manufacturing processes of subtractive manufacturing. "When we use CNC based manufacturing the focus is usually on cutting the design out from the stock material. That involves a lot of wastage. Additive manufacturing basically is adding the material on a set design, which leads to virtually zero wastage."

Singhal, who is currently working in developing 3D prints in the field of bio-medicine also says that the designs can help replicate bone structures, create organ implants, and others. "It becomes important to consider this during times of surgery. For instance if a body part has to be created or an implant fitted it takes time to create the same. There might be inaccuracies and also it involves a second surgery to insert it which increases complications. A lot of these issues can be solved using parts created from 3D printing," he says.

There are interesting possibilities for the future. In India 3D printing is still at a domestic hobbyist use which has limited its reach as of now. But there are a wide range of possibilities. Singhal points out that with its unique challenges India provides a vast landscape for research and innovation in this field. "It should get better from here on," he says with a smile. 

The road ahead
The Dutch firm, Dus Architects, are in the process of creating what would possibly be the world's first 3D printed house. Using materials that are completely recyclable (all one needs to do is reheat it to use it), it involves significantly reduced transports cost and also reduction in pollution. In a report by the Guardian, the 3D house could be a very scaleable model on which modern day cities of the future can be built.

(Also see: 'Kamermaker' 3D printer used to build Amsterdam canal house)

Houses are one aspect, points out Prakash, who says, "Imagine if we could create food. Pizzas are already being created in outer space in complete vaccum. If we find a way to print out say rotis, rice and dal, we could print out edible meals. It won't reduce our problems completely as far as food goes, but it will help open up a new sector or a new technology that can improve lives in rural India. While for us as a startup these are too big things to dream about, but it can happen in the future."

(Also see: Researchers 3D-print working loudspeaker with new multi-material method)

Currently major firms across the globe, that make 3D printers include the likes of Prusa Mendel,MendelMax, Huxley, Tantillus, Ultimaker, Makerbot, Lulzbot AO-100, TAZ, MakerGear M2, Rostock, Mach3, Bukobot amongst others. A major issue that prompted the team at Solidry to rethink their strategies was because these companies charged an arm and a leg for their products. "Look at this printer," Karmakar says, pointing at a transparent green plexiglass 3D printer, "It came in three days ago, and it cost over Rs. 3 lakhs. And it is so fragile that we are yet to set it up and get it to work on optimum level. In fact the printers we use work on the 3 axes, but now we are trying to build a printer working on the delta axes (at 45-degrees to the X,Y,Z axes) that will reduce the time taken to create products by almost 25 percent." It is something that needs to be given serious thought. 

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iOS 7 bug reportedly allows Find My iPhone to be disabled without password

As a security feature, requiring people to enter the password of their Apple ID before disabling Find My iPhone is a helpful move, as it means that someone can't just steal your phone and disable the only methods available to find it. However, a new report on 9to5mac shows that this is actually pretty easy to circumvent.

As shown in the video below, the tipster to the site goes through a step by step process of disabling Find My iPhone and then deleting an iCloud account.

The whole process seems really simple, and apparently just needs access to the phone's settings menu. Once in, you can go to iCloud settings, and then simultaneously disable Find My iPhone and tap "delete account". When you're asked for the password, reboot the device and you can repeat the process, and remove the account. This means that someone with access to the phone can create a new account on your device, and you've got no means to track it.

While the iOS 7 bug will likely be patched out by Apple soon, it highlights the importance of putting a passcode on your phone, or if you have an iPhone 5s, using the TouchID sensor to unlock the phone. These are very basic security measures everyone should take, but would still be more than enough to completely stop an exploit like this in its tracks.

Apple released iOS version 7.0.6 as a patch to provide 'a fix for SSL connection verification', a bug that possibly left email and other encrypted communication open to hacking if the user was connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi network.

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