HARMAN KARDON ALLURE

Price: Rs 22,490 

Rating: 8/10

Amazon has stolen a bit of a march on the smart speaker space with its focus on Alexa-enabled devices (and their skills) in India, but the speakers so far were clearly smart speakers first, and just didn’t sound as good as dedicated speakers. Harman Kardon’s Allure is the answer, though it’s quite possibly the most unique-looking smart speaker yet.

Offbeat, alien, funky, anything but normal — words I would choose to describe the Allure. It’s not altogether small, standing eight inches tall and six inches across, and its egg-like shape is reminiscent of some of the older Harman subwoofers. The clear plastic top half accentuates the 360-degree LED light ring that glows red, white and blue when you speak to Alexa, making the Allure a conversation piece on its own. It’s also quite powerful for its size, with a clear bias for bass lovers — the downward-facing subwoofer pushes out those low frequencies right onto your table and out in all 360 degrees, while the mids and highs are handled by three evenly-spaced drivers around the sides.

The Alexa capabilities are much like other Echo speakers, which means that while third-party integrations are better fleshed out, it’s stricter with language syntax than Google Assistant. The extra bass doesn’t distort at higher levels, but the speaker can vibrate a bit too much. No battery, and lacks wired connectivity options.

MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO

Price: Rs 64,999 

Rating: 8/10

The fifth-generation detachable 2-in-1 still remains one of the best showcases of the form factor, showing Microsoft’s hardware partners how a well-thought-through detachable tablet experience should be, but the hefty pricing may find few takers.

For anyone familiar with the Surface Pro series, the design is instantly familiar — the iconic kickstand has some additional degrees of tilt, the optional snap-on keyboard now has a classy alcantara finish, but it’s familiar territory, and all in a good sense. The whisper-quiet fanless design is a revelation, more so given the fact that the model I tested (Rs 1.07 lakh) packed in a capable Core i5 chip (along with 256GB of storage and 8GB of memory), and not an underpowered processor like many other fanless designs. The 12.3-inch PixelSense touchscreen is gorgeous, and the optional Surface Pen makes for the best drawing and note-taking experiences on a Windows PC. Battery life, which runs between seven to nine hours, is comfortable for a day’s use.

Sure, the series starts at Rs 65,000, but the base models sport only 4GB of memory and quite frankly are sub-optimal to run Windows 10 Pro. You’d be better off picking up the model I tested, but when you start adding up the cost of accessories, many of which complete the Surface experience, you’re setting yourself back by around a lakh and a quarter. A few more ports, maybe even a USB Type C port for charging and connecting accessories, would have been nice. The kickstand is still better suited for a table than a lap.

Mi BODY COMPOSITION SCALE

Price: Rs 1,999 

Rating: 9/10

Fitness trackers can track your every move but miss out on two vital elements — your body weight, and what’s making up that weight. The Mi Body Composition Scale fills that void at a price that’s nice.

As weighing scales go, the Mi Body Composition Scale offers a minimalistic, sleek design with an anti-slip finish, and an embedded LED screen reads out your weight when you step on it. Pair it with the companion Mi Fit smartphone app, and the scale sends a ton of additional data to the app. Using the four embedded stainless-steel electrodes and bioelectrical impedance analysis (the resistance to the flow of electric current through body tissues), the scale can give you the lowdown on your body mass index, bone mass, basal metabolism and total body water, among other metrics. You’re then given an individual body score — the scale can work with 16 individual profiles to track the entire family’s health — to indicate how healthy you are and what you need to do to better the score. The graphs to show your progress, especially if you’re following a weight loss regimen, are addictive!

No major downsides — the readings are pretty accurate when compared to a BMI-scale at the nearby diagnostic centre, but I’d still caution you to use this as a reference point rather than as medical advice.

GOOGLE HOME

Price: Rs 9,999 

Rating: 8/10

Google has taken its own sweet time launching its Home smart speaker in India, but the Google Home Mini and its bigger sibling, the Google Home, are finally here. If you’re invested in the Google/Android ecosystem, the Google Home will seriously impress, but its integrations and audio quality may leave you wanting more.

It looks like one of those matryoshka nesting dolls that’s had its top sliced off at an angle. But its size and overall aesthetic mean it can be placed anywhere in the house without screaming “gadget”!. Although invoking it via the “Hey Google” wake word feels less personal than “Alexa”, the AI assistant is quite good at figuring out exactly what you’re asking, even if you don’t phrase it in a syntactically correct manner or are one with a thick accent. Plus, tied to a Google account, it’s got a lot more data to personalise its recommendations, and its ability to personalise responses for up to six users make it far more useful for a family than the Echo devices.

Home’s two far-field microphones manage about okay anywhere in the same room, but you have to speak louder for Assistant to respond, particularly if loud music is playing. Audio playback is strictly average, with bass that’s boomy and a lack of definition in the highs and mids. Can connect to connected home devices, but Amazon’s Skills (with third-party integrations) edge ahead.

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