This isn’t gadget gluttony!

Make the tortoise in you fly with the help of technology!

What differentiates the real gadget connoisseur from the gadget glutton? Let me explain. Gadget gluttony is a meaningless hoarding of gadgets with little or no respect for technology and innovations… and a gadget connoisseur, on the other hand is one who dives into the uber cool and ultra modern and everything in between and remains forever a perfect tech gentleman!

Specky, my wife, was as usual sitting right next to me in our Study and reading what I was typing. She tapped my shoulder and asked, ‘I have a nagging doubt.’

‘And doubts are always nagging,’ I said, ‘so come out with it and I’ll try and get you out of that murkiness.’

‘Isn’t every gadget seeped in technology? So how can anyone say for any device: This isn’t gadget gluttony!’

‘Valid question,’ I said, ‘and, therefore, let me answer this with a little diversion. Let’s take biscuits as example. You can obviously enter any store and buy brand after brand that would all have a unique and distinct and attractive packaging but would taste almost the same. These would be the really affordable biscuits. They’re, of course, filling an important space in the world of biscuits but would generally transform a person into a biscuit glutton and nothing more!’

‘Hmmm… so I must make sure that you don’t fill our shopping trolley with this affordable lot!’ she said with a twinkle.

I hurriedly said, ‘They do fill a vital spot in our lives, but the moment one graduates to tasting their more evolved avatars, the sort of cookies that bakeries bake with special attention to flavours, one realises what the ‘affordable’ biscuits lack.’

‘Sounds rather rude to something that we much every day,’ said Specky with a not-s0-pleased nod, but went on, ‘but I understand what you mean. The same goes for dishes prepared at a roadside dhaba and those served with greater élan by names like Sabyascahi Gorai. And I think your analogy goes for the difference between the suits that I get stitched by my local tailor and what the designer boutiques sell. Right?’

‘Almost right,’ I said, ‘because the difference that I am talking about is the difference that is cuddled by words like quality, attention to details, service, and every other small but anyway relevant detail that converges to makes one product better than the other.’

‘But I read somewhere that how people use technology is how technology works,’ insisted Specky. It was at this stage that I took a deep breath and swished out the brand new box that had a Galaxy Note 3 in it. Yes, there were gasps because anything new from Samsung obviously means something more, something special, and something that outshines and outruns every other gadget… including the Note II that my wife was using. The device, when it was taken out of the box, was actually stunningly beautiful.

Just read how Specky described it: ‘Oh my God! The back cover has evolved into a designer’s dream! The stitched leather looks are unbelievably charming. The metal strip running on the sides makes it seem so much sturdier, stronger, and classier! I love the looks and I wish I could have this one!’

Well, even I wish I could have this piece of art that is so eminently graspable… but let me now tell you that the new Galaxy Note is a veritable treasure of technology that now comes with a larger and better screen for the best viewing experience and more powerful multitasking, and introduces significant S Pen improvements that make everyday life easier and faster.

Samsung GALAXY Note 3 comes with a larger (5.7inch) full HD Super AMOLED display, yet slimmer (8.3mm) and lighter (168g) hardware design, and more powerful and longer lasting (3,200mAh) battery. The device has a powerful 13 megapixel rear camera with Smart Stabilization and high CRI LED flash that makes sure that even in low light you get pictures that make you smile. I then said, ‘The best part is that even those who want their phone to communicate with them in a different language get it.’ I turned the settings to display text in Hindi, (and bingo!) everything was in Hindi. Now even those who find English a trifle intimidating can switch to a language of their choice. More languages will be added. So obviously, anyone impressed by this single feature transcends from being a mere gadget collector to being a gadget connoisseur! And this isn’t gadget gluttony! The GALAXY Note 3, incidentally, comes pre-loaded with support for 11 regional Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya and Assamese.

The S-pen hovering Air Command has gone up several notches and now gives users the advantage of handwriting a number and commanding the phone to dial it in Action Memo, jump straight to finding images, texts, and messages through the S-finder, taking screen shots and making notes on them without fumbling around, opening a selection of vital apps by just drawing a window of any size, capturing needed parts of a screen to transfer directly to the scrap-book for reference… now these are important tasks that a user can do without looking for specific apps or navigating in and out of technology catacombs! The scrap-book, by the way, helps you store YouTube videos too in your device for later viewing… all with a small circle drawn as you see it in the browser.

Specky was watching me demonstrate all this with her eyes wide open and sighed before saying, ‘What else? I’m now desperate to graduate to the Note 3. And please don’t think I am a gadget glutton!’

I calmly replied, ‘This isn’t gadget gluttony, Specky. You’re just proving that you are now a gadget connoisseur!’

To the ‘what else?’ I went on to tell Specky that the Note 3 had taken multi-tasking to a new level… and that now she could actually open many windows and apps, arrange them in cascades, and hop from one to another working on them all. No need to close one window and then going to another! The Note 3 made sure that users could copy a picture from the gallery and swish to the already open messages window and paste it there… or to the scrap book or to the S-memo… just about any app that accepts that action. I’m sure that on hearing this, even gadget gluttons would murmur: This isn’t gadget gluttony!

As usual, I was literally in love with the large clear screen as that is what matters to me most… the S-pen is irresistible, the multi-tasking is unheard of, and then I hummed and stumbled upon another gem. The Walking Mate in the phone was ready to count every step that I took anytime, anywhere. So I tapped it on and by afternoon I discovered that I had actually taken 7072 steps… I even wrote my name through the screen-write feature by just hovering my S-pen over the screen that announced this figure.

The two of us are now convinced that this latest device from Samsung is a must-have, and before you smile to shoot some cynicism towards us, let me just say: ‘This isn’t gadget gluttony!’

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda. We give out themes for creative writing each weekend for Indian bloggers.

Arvind Passey
27 October 2013