Like its predecessor (the IXUS 300 HS), the IXUS 310 HS boasts curves reminiscent of a sports car clothed in stainless steel. Like most touchscreen-enabled cameras, its huge 3.2-inch screen takes up most of the real estate at the back, though sharing space with a conveniently placed playback button. The camera’s few physical controls are lined at the top and make for smooth handling, and though we lament the lack of a dedicated video button, you do get a touchscreen alternative right after starting up the screen. Canon’s user interface on the IXUS 310 HS was clean-cut and fairly straightforward, though we would prefer a screen that was a little more responsive.

Like the Olympus, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3 is a weather-resistant, shock-proof camera, which means it comes with the same design constraints. But while it still handles less conveniently than a conventional compact camera, the FT3 handles better than its tough counterpart from Olympus.

The top plate has three of the most important controls; power, shutter and video record, conveniently located together, and differentiated via size and texture. Zoom is controlled by two buttons, and while that makes it less precise than the standard zoom toggle, it works fine for basic control. Using the FT3 is enhanced by the overlay quick menu, which quickly lets you change vital options like ISO settings.

The Nikon COOLPIX P300 keeps things simple, featuring an alluringly boxy, yet classy design that stops short of being flashy. While it is one of the bulkier cameras in the shoot-out, you do get one that sports good control layout alongside a reasonably large 3.0-inch LCD screen. Given that it lacks a touchscreen like some of the other entries in this shootout, the various buttons on the P300 are well laid out and easy to use. Handling on the P300 is also quite good, as a rubber strip up front helps users get a decent grip. The P300 also features the widest lens of the bunch at f1 .8.

The new PROUNK PHC105 is a surveillance camera with a slight twist: instead of connecting to a local area network, it sends the data over a 3G cellular network. And unlike most entry-level security cameras, you don’t control it via a browser interface on a computer. Instead, your mobile phone assumes the role of control center.

As the PHC105 requires a 3G cellular network for it to work, you’d need to procure a 3G SIM card (and plan) first. Bear in mind that since it can send alert notifications to your mobile phone via SMS, MMS, or email, as well as make audio/video calls, data usage at the end of the day can be substantial. Your phone must also be capable of interpreting the received data. For example, if you’re on a 2G network, don’t expect to initiate a video call.

The camera is mounted onto a base via a metal ball-joint. There are two holes underneath the base for you to wall-mount it, but no screws are provided. The package comes with a power adapter with a mini-USB end that you plug into the mini-USB receptacle on the camera. The USB port is also used to connect the PHC105 to your PC to view the images stored on its 4 GB card. In addition, it has a built-in 800 mAh lithium-ion battery, so it’s able to continue functioning when there’s a power disruption.

So how does one issue commands to the camera? By using text messages of course! The included manual is literally indispensable during the initial setup. Some of the essential first steps include defining a phone number as the alarm number (so that the camera knows who to “call”), an email address to receive the images, and “arming” the camera. Depending on how you configure it, when an alarm goes off (for example, due to a trigger of the motion sensor or the infrared body detector), you’d be notified through a video or voice call, an MMS, SMS, or email. Ad hoc commands such as requesting for an MMS or image, adjusting the number of images to be sent, activating/deactivating the sensors, and checking of the camera status, are also issued through text message. For example, the command to request the camera to send one MMS image to the phone is “1234 send MMS”. To see a live video stream is easy: simply initiate a video call and enter the password.

Image quality was about average; after all, the sensor is only capable of up to VGA resolution. Cell signal strength plays a critical role in making or breaking the device, so be sure to consider that during installation. While there are a total of 34 SMS commands, only a few are required on a regular basis. We suggest creating SMS templates in your phone for commonly used commands.

We had problems getting the camera to connect to the 3G network initially, though your mileage may vary. All in all, if you’re always on the road, and need an easy way to check out what’s happening at home or in the office, the PHC105 can be of great help.

The spanking new WL-330N3G, which is slightly larger than your average name card case. ASUS is marketing this 1T1R device as coming with “6-in-1″ capabilities; essentially, this trim and white travel gizmo can be configured as a router, access point, hotspot (while tapping into other wireless networks), 3G sharing, universal repeater and the useful Ethernet adapter (aka Wi-Fi adapter) mode. This networking gadget is powered over the Micro USB interface, instead of depending on an unwieldy power adapter, though a DC adapter comes with, handy when USB ports are nowhere to be found. With regards to hardware controls, however, it is equipped with WPS and Reset buttons, but nothing more.

This portable iOS device dock and speaker system offers extra functions through free apps. It can be turned into an alarm clock using Alarm Rock, while Music Mood adds relaxing video. Altec Lansing also provides a handy remote control.

Dual 2in drivers produce clear, sharp sound. The 318x38x130mm speaker can be plugged into the mains when not running off its built-in rechargeable battery. Expect around 7 hours of playback.

Thanks to its very good image quality, wide-aperture lens, and aperture-priority and shutter-priority modes, the 10-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD4000 IS stands out in the compact point-and-shoot class. Its killer feature is its F2.0 tens, which creates impressively shallow depth-of-field effects for a camera this size.

The 10-megapixel, 3.8X-optical-zoom SD4000 IS has chic looks, thanks to a glossy finish. Angular accents on the sides and corners add to its sleek appearance and make it feel comfortable in your hand.

The SD4000 IS also throws in a few creative goodies: scene modes that mimic a tilt-shift lens (Miniature Mode) and a fish-eye lens (Fisheye Mode), a high-speed burst mode that snaps up to 8.4 shots per second at a reduced 2.5-megapixel resolution, and multiple transitions and playback modes for the in-camera slideshow feature.

In tests for image quality, the PowerShot SD4000 IS earned one of the best overall scores for a point-and-shoot camera. On exposure quality, color accuracy, and lack of distortion, it racked up scores of Very Good; on sharpness it received a slightly lower score of Good.

LG has launched the world’s first single lens Full HD 3D projector targeted at hardcore movie and gaming enthusiasts. It displays 3D content in Full HD resolution and has a 120Hz True Motion technology for clear and smooth movement. It uses two projectors combined with one lens for perfect brightness and contrast ratio. It also has a 3D auto picture calibration that eliminates the need of manual alignment. Utilizing the same polarized technology of its 3D TVs and 3D laptops, it gives flicker-free 3D experience. With 2500 lumens, it has a contrast ratio of 30000:1.

A portable projector isn’t something most of us would carry around—but ask a corporate professional what it means to him and you will admire its utility. The Portronics Smart Projector can easily squeeze into the corner of the laptop bag. It has the controls and navigation pad on the top and comes with a tiny but sturdy tripod. The Android-run device can play files in various formats, including PowerPoint, PDF, Word and Excel. We also played movies and songs in most of the formats. With 30 lumen brightness, it produced acceptably sharp projection. The projection ranges from a minimum of 7 inches to a maximum of 80 inches. Also, it can also be used for browsing the web by connecting over Wi-Fi, only make sure the language option is correct. The 1.5 W inbuilt speaker had enough audio power for presentations in a small room without the need for additional speakers. The battery was good enough to last 70 minutes on a single charge. The gadget comes with 8 GB internal memory and supports a 1B GB memory card.

Slip your iPad inside and it’s held firmly in place by the brackets, while the solid material protects your precious gadget if it gets battered. The edges are left open to provide access to essential ports and switches, so bear in mind that these are potential vulnerabilities too.

Magnets and a flap hold the case closed when your iPad’s not in use. Open it up and you can prop the tablet up at an angle perfect for typing, or also at a near-vertical angle for watching movies or TV shows.

Stand-alone navigators never got their share of success in the Indian market. After we saw the launch of a few mid-segment navigators in the recent past, SatGuide has now come up with one for a common man. By that we mean it is affordably priced at ₹ 6,490. Its name specifies the display size of the device. The big 4.3-inch display is good enough to see details of the maps from a distance. But this is a resistive touch display and cannot be operated with fingers. A small stylus is hidden on the side comer that makes typing and browsing relatively simpler. The device manages a connection with a satellite in less than a minute. By Searching for points of interest or street on the map, you can preview a route and follow the voice guidance. The performance of the navigator often depends on how quickly it can recalculate the route in case of a wrong turn—and this one impressed us with its quick thinking. Considering the 850 mAh battery, we were a bit skeptical about the power backup but at managed to stay active for quite a long trip. Also, essentials such as car charger and navigator stand are included in the box. Other than navigation, you can also store images, songs and videos on this navigator.

Our $1849 review unit of this 23-inch all-in-one included an Intel Core i7-870 quad-core processor running at 2.93GHz, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 1TB of hard-drive space and an ATI Radeon HD 5570 graphics card. It earned a score of 135 in our WorldBench 6 benchmark suite, one of the highest marks we’ve seen for an all-in-one.

Our TouchSmart BID Quad maintained an acceptable frame rate of 47 frames per second while running Unreal-Tournament 3 at a resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels on the highest graphical settings. In Dirt 2, however, its frame rate dropped to 22 fps at the same settings.

The TouchSmart 610 Quad is slim and compact, with a hefty black plastic housing that includes a pair of USB ports on the Left edge, plus headphone and audio-out jacks, a six-in-one card reader, and volume controls, Along the right side HP puts a pair of HDMI inputs and a slot-Loading DVD drive that you can upgrade to a Blu-ray drive. Everything else—two more USB ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a TV tuner, and the power jack—lies concealed under the sliding rear panel. The front has an adjustable webcam and a microphone.

The unit’s swivel stand enables the screen to slide both forward and down for comfortable prolonged use of the excellent and responsive touchscreen. Slide the screen all the way down, and the all-in-one comes to rest atop the base at roughly a 30 degree angle, nearly par-allele to the desk. Adjusting the unit up and down takes some practice—sliding the screen requires a significant amount of force, however.

HP’s own TouchSmart 4.0 gesture-control software supplies the best touchscreen interface we’ve seen. The TouchSmart 610 Quad shines as a home media center. The 1920-by-1080-pixel LED screen boasts an impressively wide viewing angle that ensures images remain bright and colorful even when viewed from as far as 60 degrees off-center, and streaming movies look terrific on the 1080p display.

Many people have ditched traditional telephone service for mobile phones, but others aren’t quite ready to make that leap, particularly those with spotty mobile coverage at home. If you’re in this category and have a high-speed Internet connection, NetTALK DUO is a terrific option; in fact, it’s the best Internet-based solution for making calls within the U.S.

NetTALK DUO is a physical device that comes bundled with a number of other basic phone services, like voicemail and call-waiting. You plug an existing phone handset into the DUO device and connect the device to your Internet modem or router.

NetTALK is priced aggressively, at $69.95, which includes a year of free service; after that you pay $29.95 per year. In my testing, quality was excellent when calling both toll-free and local landline numbers, but a little choppy for mobile numbers, most likely due to the mobile network itself and not NetTALK. Occasionally I did have to wait up to 12 seconds after dialing before I heard ringing on the other end, although a delay is common with many VoIP services.

If you’re considering netTALK, you should know that you can’t use your existing phone number with it. Also, the company restricts users to 5,000 minutes per month, to prevent telemarketers from taking advantage of NetTALK’s services. Finally, the DUO doesn’t work with all routers, so you should make sure yours is supported.

Despite these three caveats, NetTALK DUO’s rich features and aggressive pricing make it our Editors’ Choice for consumer VoIP services.

The 24-inch Sony VAIO VPC L218FX/W is a real beauty, but unfortunately it carries a daunting price tag of $2049. Our test model, came configured with a 2GHz Sandy Bridge Core i7-2630QM processor, which features four physical cores that can jump to a virtual, eight thanks to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology; automatic overclocking—aka Turbo Boost-can power the CPU up to 2.9GHz. You also get a capacious 2TB hard drive and 8GB of DDR3-677 memory. The L218FX/W delivered a WorldBench 6 score of 116.

This powerful, high-end GPS has the best live Internet connectivity we’ve tested yet, and includes lifetime maps, traffic updates, and Google Local, all without annoying ads. It’s not perfect, and isn’t as slim or sexy as the Garmin nuvi 3790T, but it has the best routing, audio, and traffic performance on the market today.

Routing performance was sublime. It always locked onto my location within moments. All of my regular test destinations worked as expected, and a few even surprised me. During one test, it even smartly advised me that on a slow Sunday evening, it was faster to travel through downtown Boston than to skirt around the city as usual.

The live updates really work, too; during my tests the GO 2535 M LIVE was aware that a section of interstate had recently lowered the speed limit by 10 mph.

Several bugs marred my time with the GO 2535 M LIVE. During initial setup, as I was inputting my home address, the unit froze entirely, and required a hard reboot. Another time, it trapped me in a rapid-fire series of Route dialogs; tapping the done icon to begin driving just flashed the screen and brought the same window back.

Overall, the GO 2535 M LIVE is a solid, forward-looking choice. Yet the Garmin nuvi 3790T remains our Editors’ Choice; it is considerably thinner and offers a higher-resolution screen with 3D terrain mapping that blows away the GO 2535 M LIVE’s older-style, ray-traced maps.

PLACE-SHIFTING technology allows you to watch your home TV programs remotely by streaming them over the Internet to a PC or mobile device. Monsoon Multimedia’s Vulkano Flow costs about S100, supports high-def video, and works well if your remote broadband connection meets its modest bandwidth demands. But you must accept some image-quality compromises, and its controls for remote access react very slowly.

The Flow works by intercepting the video stream between your cable or satellite box and your HDTV, and making it available via the Internet to player software, The PC and Mac players are free; the mobile device apps, however, cost $13.

The main drawback; The Flow must use your set-top box’s analog outputs, which can’t deliver the pristine quality of a digital video signal The Flow needs to use the box’s analog stereo outputs, too. Still, video-quality issues are less apparent on a small mobile screen than on a big HDTV display.

The Vulkano Flow comes with cables to connect to a set-top box’s analog outputs for either component or composite video, as well as for stereo audio, but you have to provide your own cables for connecting the Flow to the HDTV. You must also connect the Flow to your home network, preferably by wire.

When I’m on the road 5100 (with no service charges) seems Like a bargain for a product that lets me watch pretty good versions of the programs I enjoy at home.

A massage at the end of a tiring day was a dream since massage chairs are priced exorbitantly. One way to cut the cost was to make any regular chair into a massage machine. So Osim has the easy-to-operate uRelax to make flesh kneading more affordable. Using the remote, you can choose different massage options—a quick option that gives you a full back massage using all the three modes of Shiatsu, swing and rolling. In quick mode, heat mode is automatically activated to ease backache, muscles fatigue and improve blood circulation. You can select Shiatsu, swing and rolling individually for full, upper or lower back action. When using the rolling mode, the user and adjust the width of the pressure points on the back, whereas in Shiatsu and swing mode, the user can direct the kneading at particular spots. Even as the mechanical masseur knocks the tiredness out of the muscles, vibration through the seat slowly takes away any remnant tension and fatigue. Each massage sessions lasts 15 minutes, but one can even switch it off in between, it comes with a car charger, and so can turn your vehicle stuck in a traffic jam into a moveable spa.

Green Powercell Technology Pvt Ltd, which provides green technologies, has come up with a series of portable charging devices. The ETO 3800 is a power horse that provides more than 100 hours of usage time for mobile phones, Bluetooth devices, and MP3 players and can also provide backup for digicam photos. Others in the series include the ETO 2000, ETO 3000 and the ETO Brute.

With 3G services picking up in the Indian market, D-Link has launched a range of portable routers. Compatible with a 3G dongle, the DWR 131 can support 3G speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps or even connect to the fixed landlines to offer Internet access to Wi-Fi-enabled devices. With the conventional 802.11 wireless access, it is compatible with EV-0/CDMA/HSPA + /HSUPA/ HSDPA/ UMTS networks. It has an inbuilt battery of 1700 mAh.

Garmin offers a huge range of satnav devices – but oddly, only one with live services onboard: the nuLink 1695. Like both TomTom devices in these Labs, it has a built-in GPRS radio, and offers similar features.

There’s Google local search, for when a points of interest search doesn’t find what you’re looking for. It also provides a more reliable means of receiving traffic data than the FM-based TMC system, and its trafficTrends technology works in a similar way to TomTom’s IQ Routes, gathering journey data from other Garmin users to base route choices on. In addition, the nuLink has live airport departure and arrival details, weather, and a Google Latitude-alike service that lets your friends monitor where you are.

The nuLink 1695 also supports Garmin’s optional ecoRoute HD dongle. This plugs into your car’s onboard computer via its OBD II port (a list of compatible vehicles can be found on Garmin’s website), allowing you to monitor your fuel efficiency, carry out engine diagnostics, and even tap into real-time information such as coolant temperature and RPM (it varies depending on the vehicle), then present it onscreen in the form of graphical gauges.

In use, the nuLink is a bit hit and miss. The Sin touchscreen is responsive and bigger than many of its rivals. Onscreen buttons are large and easy to press, and navigating around the user interface is straightforward. Audio quality is outstanding, with voice instructions delivered about as loudly and clearly as you could hope for. Once moving, however, we weren’t quite as impressed. Even with the traffic Trends technology, route choices weren’t brilliant, with the device directing us through the heart of East London on our cross-London jaunt rather than on the more sensible route down towards the Blackwall Tunnel and through the Limehouse Link.

The timing of voice instructions wasn’t ideal, often coming too early. The maps also lack detail, a fact made worse by an odd perspective that means it’s difficult to judge the distance to upcoming junctions.

Those negatives undermine what could have been a winning effort from Garmin, especially as the price and map updates are so reasonable. It’s a good all-round satnav, but the nuLink 1695 is beaten to the prize by the TomToms.