Smartbuy 25/08/2010

Smartbuy Business Line

G A D G E T S

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A U T O |

L U X U R Y

www.blsmartbuy.com

Exclusive drive Volkswagen Vento Page 8

Tablet gets twisty

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t reviewed Page 4

WHAT’S HOT this week

Team Smartbuy Editorial Anushya Mamtora anushya@thehindu.co.in

Ketaki Bhojnagarwala ketaki@thehindu.co.in

Mahananda Bohidar mahananda@thehindu.co.in

S. Muralidhar muraliswami@thehindu.co.in

Design Bryan Gaughan aqua@thehindu.co.in

Balakrishnan designkbala@thehindu.co.in

Advertising Contact R. Diwakar ramdiwakar@thehindu.co.in

Web Advertising Contact N. Amarnath amarnath@thehindu.co.in

Next is bigger Asus NX90

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Cover photo: S. Muralidhar

If you’re looking for a notebook to replace your PC, the NX90 from Asus, with its whopping 18.4-inch screen might just be your best bet. With a polished aluminium body and created in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen, this is one laptop with both style and class. The speakers are placed outside the chassis and alongside the screen, giving you a surround sound experience. It also comes with a dual-touchpad which enables two-hand usability. Other premium features include a Blu-ray player, 1TG(500 GB x 2) of storage, six-cell battery and a built-in 2-meg webcam.

Rs 1,31,999

Dazzling display

The ‘lite’ choice

Ad Notam Mirror TV

Samsung Omnia Lite

Catch the latest flick on this telly as you lie in your bathtub for a relaxed Sunday soak. The Mirror TV combines conventional mirror surfaces with a sophisticated display system that can be installed anywhere you want - recessed into the wall, hung as a picture, or even integrated into the furniture. A new LCD Active Matrix is elegantly mounted behind a mirror surface to dramatically display anything from TV and Satellite channels to PC presentations and video games.

The Mirror TV elegantly blends into your décor with no visible cables or annoying TV boxes.

With the Magic Mirror technology, the TV can completely ‘disappear’ when turned off.

Rs 1.5 lakh onwards

Smartbuy

With a Windows 6.5 Pro Edge OS, users can view and edit MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, as well as view PDF files and enjoy Microsoft Exchange Push email, right from their phone. The phone comes with a Touch 2.1 user interface, and allows for one finger zoom.

The Opera browser, coupled with 3G allows fast browsing. The Samsung Widget gallery lets users choose from up to 80 widgets, letting you customise your home screen. For all your multimedia needs, the phone comes with built-in DivX and Xvid support, and is equipped with a 3-meg camera and 3D photo album. Internal memory is 250MB, expandable up to 32GB, and the phone comes with 10 hours of talk-time.

Rs 17,560

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Clip ‘em on Philips SHQ series These bright new headphones from Philips are waterproof and sweatproof making them a good pick for sports and work-out enthusiasts.

Weightless, secure, and with a comfortable fit, these headphones are perfect for outdoor use. SHQ3000 has customisable ear hooks whereas the SHQ4000 has an extremely flexible neckband. Both the headphones are form-fitting and capable of staying put during prolonged physical activity. All you have to do is wash it under a tap to keep it clean. The headphones are available in rubberised black and bright orange design and come with three pairs of anti-bacterial silicon ear caps.

Rs 1,999 (SHQ3000) Rs 2,499 (SHQ4000)

Keep on snappin’ Fujifilm JV 150 This new 14-meg digicam from Fujifilm comes with the powerful Fujinon 3x optical zoom lenses.

The camera is equipped with a maximum sensitivity of ISO 3200 that helps capture subjects in motion. The Digital Image Stabiliser reduces blurs caused from camera shake using high sensitivity and fast shutter speed. Also packed in, is a six-scene SR AUTO (Scene Recognition Auto) mode and Face Detection that can recognise up to 10 faces in one frame.

Rs 7,799 onwards

All you’ve ever wanted HTC Desire For all the HTC fans in India, the wait for the HTC Desire is finally over with its launch in the country. Users can expect an Android 2.1 OS along with the HTC Sense experience, which makes using the phone a delight. The phone features a 3.7-inch touch screen, with 480x800 WVGA resolution. The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor makes multi-tasking a breeze. The camera is 5-meg with autofocus and flash, and also features widescreen photo capture. Memory is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB. Other features include 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, access to SNS sites and Friend Stream.

Rs 28,900

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TABLET review

Photos: R. Ravindran

Flippin’ over Lenovo’s convertible tablet Ketaki Bhojnagarwala ith companies like Fujitsu and HP introducing new products in the convertible PC category, Lenovo has joined the bandwagon and launched the IdeaPad S10-3t. A convertible PC is essentially a laptop with a LED touch screen which rotates 180 degrees, to fit on top of the keyboard and doubles up to function as a slate.

W Overview

The S10-3t has a really impressive ergonomic design. It features a screen that is 10.1-inches wide, and the lid is a smart black colour, with an attractive embossed geometric design, which can also be seen on the lower panel, just below the keyboard.

The power button is unconventionally located on the

top panel, near the screen, which means you can power on even in slate mode. Underneath this is a lock button that locks all the other buttons. There are three buttons on the left side of the screen, the first opens up the Lenovo NaturalTouch software, the second changes the view between portrait and landscape and the third is a mute button.

The keyboard, like in all netbooks, is small and cramped, and takes a while to get used to, after which it is easy to touch-type. However one feature Lenovo missed out on here is the ergonomical chiclet-key design, which could have made typing a better experience, as well as helped increase the aesthetics of this already stunning tablet.

In terms of connectivity options, the tablet offers two USB 2.0 ports, a 6x1 card reader, a 3.5mm stereo headphone and 3.5 mm microphone slots and a VGA port.

The IdeaPad S10-3t’s trackpad was too small for

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comfort and made navigating troublesome. It was also unresponsive at the best of times, especially when it came to scrolling up and down. There is also the hard-felt lack of physical left and right mouse buttons, which left users feeling more cramped.

Weight was also an issue, at nearly three pounds, it isn’t exactly light by netbook standards, nowhere close to some of the Vaio models we’ve seen.

Display The touch interface was a delight to use with the S10-3t’s capacitive touch screen. It recognised gestures responsively and smoothly, requiring minimum effort.

While we didn’t see a downside for the touch screen from Lenovo’s point of view, this is where the Windows 7 OS came to disappoint. The OS is basically Windows with touch control – which just doesn’t do the trick. Controls

are small and difficult to operate, which leads to a lot of jabbing at the screen. At times you get fed up and just use the trackpad. This is also where you see the limitations of capacitive touch – pointing at small controls with the edge of the finger or your nail just won’t open up programs.

Another downside is that in full slate mode, i.e. when the screen is directly above the keyboard, Lenovo hasn’t made provision for an onscreen keyboard. Which means you can’t browse the net or use any word documents in slate mode. All you can do is occasionally use the touch controls for the most basic functions, watch videos or indulge in a fun game of Solitaire.

Lenovo has tried to compensate for Windows by including the app NaturalTouch. While this does make using the touch functions of the tablet a little easier, it still fails to be a good enough reason to opt for a convertible PC.

Media The stereo speakers are located towards the bottom of the top panel, below the screen. While this does mean that you can direct sound depending on which way you rotate the screen, we were disappointed with the volume.

Sound was barely audible in a crowded room, irrespective of whether we played a YouTube video or Twist and turn The screen can be rotated 180 degrees in either direction when it is upright or laid down flat. Lenovo’s built-in accelerometer was very sluggish, and more often than not we used the rotate button which switches it to portrait mode. However this can be used only when the tablet is in slate mode.

music loaded on Windows Media Player. The sound quality was also bad – tinny at most times and what seemed like a complete absence of bass. This means that if you do want to watch a movie or listen to music, you’ll have to plug in a pair of headphones, after which the reproduction quality is fine.

Movies and videos played without stuttering and were quite crisp and clear. However we did feel that colour reproduction could have been better – saturation was minimal and colours just weren’t vivid enough.

The S10-3t comes with 220GB of storage, which is substantial for all your files.

The webcam is located on the right-hand side of the screen, which often cuts out your face, so you constantly have to position yourself in front of it.

Performance The S10-3t scored quite high when it came to performance. It is powered by the single-core Intel Atom N450 processor, seen on a lot of netbooks including the Dell Inspiron Mini. Although it is known for its slightly sluggish performance, especially when it comes to multitasking, we found that the S10-3t performed quite well.

We tried it using multiple browser windows, plugged in an external hard drive and played music, and it executed all these tasks smoothly and without much lag.

Although the Atom N450 processor is supposed to extend battery life, we didn’t see much evidence of that here – it was poor – what you would expect from a 4-cell battery. We got close to three hours with a couple of hours of browsing and about an hour of video playback.

You can choose to upgrade to an eight cell battery which would give you a couple of more hours of juice.

Using it on just video mode would give you just enough

time to watch a movie and if you’re lucky, get in a wee bit of browsing time. Considering that netbooks and tablets are meant to be portable, Lenovo could have improved on the battery life – in this segment, the iPad’s 10 hours of battery power is the benchmark.

The Lenovo convertible tablet took about two minutes to start up. When we connected an USB drive or memory card, it took a little longer than usual to read before showing up on the icon tray.

Our verdict All in all, the tablet functioned quite well as a netbook.

Whether the swivelling touch screen can function independently as a slate looks doubtful – especially when using a Windows OS, and considering new entrants in the market like the Dell Streak. Until then, we would recommend the S10-3t if you’re looking for a netbook for basic computing needs, along with the novelty of a convertible touch screen.

Love: Smooth touch interface, sleek looks Hate: Poor sound quality and battery life Rs 30,740 NaturalTouch Use this software for one touch access to all your basic computing needs. It has large icons of your most commonly used files – music, videos, ebooks, word documents, etc. At the bottom is a dock with all your popular applications, like Internet explorer, Control Panel and My Documents, sort of like the toolbar in Macs. This is also where you can access multi-touch functions and pinch to zoom.

Send feedback to ketaki@thehindu.co.in

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SOUND bytes

1 While cruisin’ down Samsung WEP570 The Samsung WEP570 comes with a portable charger that you pop into your car’s cigarette lighter. There’s also a micro USB port for attaching an MP3 player. Pairing with your phone is simple and the volume controls and multi-function button are within easy reach. Call quality is fine indoors and noise reduction works well, but voices could be more clearly defined. Still, with six-hours of talk time, easily topped up via the car charger, multi-point support and weighing in at a comfortable 11g, the WEP570 is good value for money.

Love – Cheap, easy to use, bundled car charger Hate – Cheap plastic build and flimsy hook, voice clarity could be better Rs 2,100 Rating – 3/5

Bluetooth headsets, oft lambasted, have nonetheless become a necessity for many.

These well-designed, discreet headsets have high-end features such as voice commands and simultaneous multipoints for connecting between two calls, even as they add to your corporate style quotient…

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2 Worth the buck LG HBM-570 With a faux-metal finish and blue, flashing on/off light, the LG HBM-570 looks slick, even if the cheap, plastic ear hook is not too sturdy. Equipped with dual mics, LG’s digital signal processing works well – you’ll have no trouble hearing or being heard against busy city traffic.

Multi-point support is built-in and voice commands inform you when you’re connected as well as provide caller ID info. With volume controls that are easily accessed, a manageable 11g weight and five-hours of talk time on offer, this is an ear-bound winner.

Love – Voice commands, attractive design Hate – Cheap plastic ear hook with no spare, dubious build quality Rs 2,800 Rating – 4/5

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3 Quality calling Aliph Jawbone Icon The Icon uses the hilariously named NoiseAssassin 2.5 tech to effectively block out noise both indoors and out, as long as the 45mm long, 8g body is positioned correctly against your jaw. In lieu of volume controls, it automatically adjusts to external noise; in loud environments you may have to adjust the volume on your phone but generally it works. A button press tells you how many hours of life are left – you’ll get a maximum of 4.5-hours. It supports multi-point and US users can access directory assistance, but we can’t. Oh well.

Love – Lightweight, voice commands, extremely clear call quality Hate – No volume control Rs 5,000 Rating – 4/5

Ear candy

4 Classy accessory Jabra Stone The innovative Jabra Stone comes in a protective shell that doubles as a portable charger, boosting the terrible two-hour battery life to a more palatable eight hours.

Pairing is simple and there’s support for multipoint, with clear call quality indoors. Noise cancellation is less effective against heavy traffic though, and adjusting the volume doesn’t always fix the problem. At 7g the Stone is light and discreet, but you can only wear it on the right ear. It has a habit of dropping Bluetooth signal too, not fair at this price.

Love – Lightweight design, innovative charger Hate – Drops signal at times, fiddly controls Rs 9,500 Rating – 2/5

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5 Talk on and on and on…

Sennheiser EZX 60 The EZX 60 is not as eye-catching as some of its rivals and at 12g it’s a little heavy, but it’s also sturdy and comfortable, with a reassuringly secure fit. You can accept, reject or redial by pressing the well located multifunction button and the omni-directional mic helps to ensure clear call quality at all times. You get a best-ontest 7.5-hours of talk time and support for multipoint.

The charger is proprietary though, and there’s no USB for quick charging. We’d have liked voice commands too, but despite that this is still a solid choice.

Love – Comfy, secure fit and well-placed controls, lengthy battery life Hate – No voice commands or spare buds Rs 3,600 Rating – 3/5

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6 Silent as a breeze Plantronics Voyager Pro

at work

This serves up crystal clear calls even against heavy traffic thanks to its AudioIQ technology and dual mics. Supporting multipoint, pairing is quick and simple and with dedicated volume controls and a call on/off button at the base of the boom mic, it’s very user friendly. You’re also given handy voice prompts when the six-hour battery is running low. However, while the features may impress, the Voyager Pro still makes you look like an amateur astronaut. At 17.5g, we’d venture it’s also too heavy for prolonged wear.

Love – Excellent noise cancellation, intuitive controls, features galore Hate – Looks awful, weighs a bit too much Rs 4,199 Rating – 4/5 T3 India

AUTO focus

Photos: S. Muralidhar

Give Vent to your desire S. Muralidhar olkswagen introduced the Jetta nearly three decades ago just to be able to capture the small family sedan market in the US. Slapping on a boot to the rear of its already popular hatch – the Golf, VW managed to create one of its most successful cars in the North American market, selling nearly 7 million of them worldwide.

Clearly, one of the most promising segments that any car maker would want to be in is the compact sedan. It is growing fast and there are a lot of hatchback owners waiting in the wings to upgrade.

Conscious of the fact that it is a late entrant in the Indian market, VW is working double time to play catch up, even as it is attempting to bring the most relevant cars to the market here. After filling up the gaps with the Polo, the Jetta, Passat, Beetle and Touareg, VW India will plug another slot in its portfolio next month with the new Vento.

Can this new premium, compact sedan be able to emulate the success that VW had with the Jetta? I took both the diesel and the petrol variants of the Vento on test drives and here are my first impressions.

V

First look Though built on a hatch platform, the Vento is more than the sum of its parts. It does not look like a hatch that is masquerading as a sedan and it doesn’t drive like one either. And unlike some of the other hatch-sedan combinations in the market, the Vento’s boot doesn’t look like it has just been slapped on, without any thought about aesthetics.

The boot integration has been engineered extremely well and quite frankly the Vento is pretty much all-new, despite the fact that it shares the Polo’s hatchback plat-

form. First, to improve legroom and cabin space, even as the Vento’s overall length has been increased by about 434 mm compared to the Polo, the wheelbase too has been upped by 96mm. The Vento is also about 17mm wider and features a bigger track that has enabled VW engineers to liberate more room for passengers inside the car.

To make more room especially for back benchers (often the owners here), the suspension struts at the rear have been placed further outside. This has also enabled VW to offer a huge 480 litres of boot space in the Vento. VW engineers have however managed to retain the tight turning radius of 4.97 metres for the Vento too.

Design The new Vento’s looks is classic Volkswagen simplicity.

Collaborating with Chief Designer Walter de’Silva, VW engineers have designed one of the smoothest transitions from a hatch to sedan. The bonnet still looks a bit stubby compared to a natural born sedan, but the Vento’s got one good-looking rear-side. Simple, elegant and still harking back to the hatch’s style, the boot design for the Vento has no unnecessary drama, though it is still distinctive.

Design changes to the front of the Vento are minimal. In fact, if you catch a glimpse of the Vento in your rear view mirror, you might mistake it to be the Polo. Unless, of course, you are able to pick out the finer differences like the larger airdam, the slightly modified front bumper and the chrome lipping to the airdam. The most dramatic angle to view the Vento is the side profile. The third-box has been seamlessly added on and the design lines merge with a sense of proportion. Part of the reason is also the clever engineering for the C-pillar, which is thin, and along with the rear quarter glass contributes to considerable visibility at the rear. VW engineers have liberally dipped into the Polo’s parts bin, bits of which can be seen

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in the door grab handles, the door mirrors etc. The side profile is also highlighted by the prominent wheel arches that cut deep into the body, but are filled out well by the 15-inch wheels that are offered in the Vento’s Highline trim and adequately by the 14-inchers offered in the lower Trendline trim variant.

Interior The Vento’s interior is very familiar and why not. Much of the layout and design of the dashboard and interior has been carried forward from the Polo. There are some differentiators like the chrome surrounds for the aircon vents, the door handles, the matt-silver insert in the steering wheel spoke and the automatic climate control. The instrument cluster also features some changes, but unfortunately one change that I personally missed seeing was the seat fabric. The matt, cotton-rich fabric could have been replaced with a jacquard fabric that will be more resistant to dust and grime.

The seats themselves are firm and good enough for long drives. But, the bottom squabs could have been designed to provide more thigh support. Depending on the trim level, other features include a leather-wrapped steering wheel and a centre-console mounted hand-rest. There are considerable storage options including cup and bottle holders in the doors and the centre-console.

There is not much novelty in the Vento’s interiors, but I loved some of the India-specific additions that VW engineers have thoughtfully developed, to provide for the average Vento owner who might well be employing the services of a chauffeur.

The best of the list is the unique way in which rear passengers can push forward the front passenger seat to generate more legroom at the rear. A chunky plastic lever within reach of the rear passenger and at the base of the

front passenger seat, allows the seat to be pushed forward in one sweep.

This lever is independent of the one provided at the front for moving the seat forward or back. The features targeted at pleasing the back benchers are the centreconsole mounted independent aircon vent for the rear and the flip open bottle-holder just below the vent.

Performance The Vento is offered with two engine options – equal sized 1.6-litre petrol and diesel powertrains. The two engines also generate an identical 105 PS of peak power. But similarities end there.

The 1.6-litre petrol engine is offered with both a five speed manual transmission and a six-speed automatic gearbox. The automatic is what I got to experience and it was pretty clear even early during the test drive that VW engineers had done the tuning of the powertrain with the city driver in mind. The engine is refined and capable of delivering 153Nm of torque right from 3,800 rpm and peak power was also available from the 5,250 rpm mark, but the auto gearbox was slow to shift and made the car feel

lethargic.

Changing the auto into sport mode improved the drive feel, offering a slight improvement in shift pattern. For users expecting a bit more engaging drive, the auto gearbox also offers a manual/ triptronic mode. My guess is that the manual gearbox option in the Vento petrol will be peppier to drive.

The Vento’s 1.6 litre diesel engine is an in-line, 4 cylinder, DOHC, 16 valve unit that features common rail injection, a turbo charger and an inter-cooler.

This engine can put out a maximum power of 105PS @ 4,400 rpm and also generates a peak torque of 250Nm @ 1,500-2,500 rpm. The diesel variant is being made available only with the 5-speed manual transmission.

This diesel engine is derived from the Race Polo unit and it packs in a lot of power. It is a bit on the noisy side, but inside the Vento’s cabin, NVH packaging ensures that the noise levels have been controlled very well. The manual gearbox’s ratios are well-matched with the diesel unit and there is a lot of room in each slot for both slow traffic and highway cruising.

The Vento’s driving dynamics is another positive point.

It feels planted and the feel of stability is very comforting both during straight line highway driving and during high speed cornering. The steering does feel light and lacking in feedback, but that hasn’t taken away the fun of driving the Vento. The light steering is probably also targeted at keeping city driving easy.

Verdict VW has set its sights clearly on capturing a big chunk of the market that is currently dominated by the Honda City.

There are not many other competitors that will match the Vento’s class and build quality.

The Vento will be available in two trim levels each for the petrol and diesel engine versions. Starting at a price of Rs 6.99 lakh for the petrol and Rs 7.99 lakh for the diesel (both ex-showroom), VW has managed to bundle a lot of value into the Vento.

By focusing on offering Indian user specific features and by respecting the pricing sensitivity of the market here, VW could not only have a winner in its hands, but will also manage to gain from the rub-off effect the Vento will have on its other products – current and future.

MELANGE luxury redefined

Smokin’ hot!

Sizzling with a trendy blend of autumnal hues and smoky shades, The Body Shop gives the ‘Smoke and Fire’ look for the coming season. Compacts, eyeliners, mascaras, eye shadows, lip colours… pick ’em up from their outlets for that smouldering look.

Rs 495 to Rs 1,095

Classy, in brief Toffee-coloured deerskin with brown jacquard lining, stainless steel fittings, zip closure, adjustable shoulder strap and leather handles, if we could describe Montblanc’s soft leather range’s Single Gusset briefcase in one word – Classy! Available at Montblanc boutiques.

Price on request

Button it up… … nope, not your studded jacket, but your new pair of Wayfarers. Yes, you heard right. Ray Ban’s latest is the cheerful ‘Button Pins’ that spreads a smile across the face that dons the colourful little pins and of course, the beholder’s too. Available at select eyewear outlets.

Rs 6,290

Wading fun Rain-dressing gets peppier with Tresmode’s newest wellies. Lightweight and embossed with little stars, this one in bright blue with yellow stars is fun to do the puddle splash with. Available at its stores in Mumbai.

Rs 1,990

No lip service, this The sweet smelling flower inspires this ultra feminine Rose Exclusif lip gloss from Bourjois Paris that not only has hues of the garden beauty but an equally enchanting container to flaunt. Head to select lifestyle stores and gift a rose to your lips.

Rs 525

Office, Office Samsonite is out with its Savio collection of portfolio case, office case, briefcase, mobile office and rolling totes in fine leather with nickel plated hardware. Compartmentalised ideally for a quick business trip, the bags are available at all leading stores.

Rs 6,500 onwards Smartbuy

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PREMIUM interiors

Light we like it

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f all the things that stimulate our senses, light holds a special place. Light is life-giving; light, in its purest form, is the essence of knowledge, revealing the unknown in one single illuminating instant.

The most important criterion when making decisions about finding a home, an office, or any space where you plan to spend large amounts of time, is light. Light is priceless and cannot be defined in terms of money or square footage. The effect of light on architecture can be seen in cultures all over the world. In countries like the Nordic ones that are closer to the Arctic, walls are built with a slope into the window so that light can be caught and reflected throughout the room. In Japan, there is actually a law, known as Kitagawa Shasen that prevents buildings from blocking out sunlight of neighbouring homes. Globally, home designs have always been orientated towards welcoming light.

natural feeling at home; a warm, comforting and recognisable glow.

Most colours radiate under this kind of lighting, yet there are a few that pose challenges. Certain shades of mauve and brighter blues tend to look a little muddier.

Pick fresher shades of these types of colours if your lighting is predominantly yellow or intersperse white light bulbs with yellow ones. Following these suggestions will make your home a place people are drawn to.

Light as the cynosure An integral point to remember when using light to create a focal point is focussing on what is most important to you.

When lighting a home, there’s an opportunity to create a mood that is uniquely you. A typical way of using light as a focus is to highlight precious objects like paintings, exquisite cabinets, or that new bling vase you’ve just bought.

The second, and more original way to focus light, is to zero in on an area that is most important to you. Cull out a zone of comfort and relaxation by placing a reading lamp by a favourite chair; or a quiet corner that is lit up by only candles because it’s where you share a relaxing drink with a close friend. If you’re a foodie who gathers everyone around the table at meal times, hang a pendant lamp over your dining table to bring the circle of family or friends even closer together. Try to use focus lights to play up what you think is important, not what people think ‘should be’ the focal point of a room.

The art of filtering In extremely tropical countries, too much light tends to be a problem. To protect you from the inconvenient heat that light sometimes brings with it, there are some wonderful devices to help filter light. You can use voile, bamboo blinds, and even manage to carve stone into tracery and jaalis, all in an attempt to control light. In modern urban homes, light from windows can be controlled by layering window dressings. There are times when you want to shut out all light, which can be done by adding a layer of opaque plastic outside the blinds. Use a pretty print or an interesting colour on the plastic to create some good cheer outside while resting inside. In front of these functionally thick blinds, add some thin, sheer curtains to introduce a

A welcoming touch Our oldest experiences with light relate to fire and candlelight. Humans are drawn to the warmth of a fireplace or a light in a window that represents homecoming. Light becomes inspirational, a signal of familiarity that all humankind can appreciate. These earliest human experiences have always been with yellow light. Typically, homes were lit with tallow candles, which always produced a yellow spectrum of light. Look for this type of warm lighting for a home. Regular incandescent bulbs of daylight colour renditions (D65 quality) give you the most

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layer of fun to the inside of your room as well. Experiment and you’ll soon find that the various ways of filtering light can be just as exciting as the different types of lighting.

Shadow play While most people tend to think of lighting a space as focusing on a particular point in the room and controlling direction, light can purposefully be used as a creative element. There’s always an opportunity to use lamps and lighting effects. Filter light through paper, stencils, patterned grills or even a plant placed in front of a floor lamp to cast amazing silhouettes all around your room. Use shadows as often as light to create drama.

Playing with light Today, lighting design is a very sensorial experience.

Lighting design for the public sphere and in public architecture is constantly changing. Even the tackiest toys flash blue, red and yellow. Light, for the first time, is flexible.

Obviously, such a thing leaves massive room for experimentation in public spaces. But in the home, one has to use this delightful new technology with a little more restraint.

Still, it is completely possible for domestic spaces to have illumination that changes colours. The back wall of a bedroom or one in the den could have a series of replaceable lights such as the transition from pink to mauve or even green to blue. Limit yourself to small shifts of colour rather than dramatic changes seen illuminating large public sculptures. If the transient colour is too intimidating, a simple lava lamp can have the same mesmerising effect.

Simple rules to follow There have been entire books written on the rules of task lighting and general lighting. As a mother, I’m always yelling at my children to ‘have good light’ when doing a task — whether it’s reading, sewing or doing artwork.

Focus task lighting is needed in areas where you know you’ll be doing work that requires ‘good light’. When watching television or any other type of screen, make sure you have light washing the back wall to take away some of the strain on your eyes.

The science behind Lights created through diverse scientific processes work better for different types of spaces. Candles and incandescent bulbs give us light that we have been used to. Tube lights are flat and shadow-less, and have been the most efficient for work environments. CFLs are fantastic for display and retail environments.

As we discovered in our childhood, when converting light into fire, light has transformational energy. Remember how granite got hotter and marble remained cooler?

Light carries with it an astounding amount of energy and the consumption of this energy is one of our biggest modern environmental concerns. People all over are using CFL lights and designers are creating products that work with the same.

There have been concerns raised, however, that while CFL lights are energy-saving, they may be negatively impacting our living experience. A lighting designer at The International Conference on Colour at Sydney, brought up the experience of eating food under CFL lighting. Due to the deep connection between sight and taste, the lighting makes the food feel almost like cardboard in your mouth.

While CFL lights help reduce our carbon footprint, they take away the type of yellow light that humans have been used to throughout our existence. As we further the technology of lighting, we must learn to keep in mind the psychological effects that light has, and make sure we don’t negatively alter the human experience.

Latika Khosla (Better Interiors)

WRITING instruments

Write bids for the right nibs

Lindsay Pollock onhams will blow a raspberry at the BlackBerry era with an auction of deluxe fountain pens expected to fetch as much as $649,020.

The 410 lots in the New York sale include a Dunhill-Namiki fountain pen laced with gold dust and mother-of-pearl and tagged to sell for as much as $30,000.

There’s also a Montblanc ‘Magical Black Widow,’ featuring a web-like white-gold overlay, a filigree spider with black diamonds on the clip and a target price of $24,000. It’s from an edition of 88, of which the first sold for $33,500 at Bonhams last year.

Pens are “a kind of jewellery for the successful man,” says Martin Gammon, the auctioneer’s Director of Business Development who is overseeing the sale. A Bonhams pen sale in June raised $411,845.

“The pen market is stable, which is not bad, the economy being what it is,” says Ed Fingerman, Director of Operations at Manhattan’s Fountain Pen Hospital, where pens have been repaired and sold since 1946. Buyers include Bill Cosby and Tom Hanks.

Some aficionados buy and sell for profit. A sterling silver Montblanc pen inspired by Florentine art patron Lorenzo de Medici retailed for about $1,200 when it was produced, and now trades around $7,000-$9,000, Gammon says.

The Bonhams auction is drawn from a pair of private collections. One seller, U.S. businessman Michael A. Tucci, acquired pens for 20 years, never using them, according to Bonhams. The second collection hails from a California entrepreneur who has dubbed his trove ‘Clavius’ yet declines to be identified by name himself.

B

Mammoth, stingray The auction includes pens produced during the past two decades - a field known as ‘modern limited editions’ - by high-end makers including Cross, Grayson Tighe, DuPont, Parker and Visconti. These editions began as the supply of pens from the vintage era, loosely defined as pre-1980, began to dry up, according to Fingerman.

Materials can be weird, like mammoth ivory, meteorite and stingray, and no theme is too glitzy, arcane and corny. There are pens named after or inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, Mickey Mouse and Moses and the Ten Commandments. Others are decorated with tennis rackets, alligators and maps.

A Krone homage to the Apollo 11 lunar landing includes a silvery mottled moonscape, a piece of foil from the mission and a letter from astronaut Buzz Aldrin attesting to the foil’s authenticity. It’s expected to sell for $1,000-$1,500.

Buyers include “captains-of-industry types who come in through watch collecting,” Gammon says.

There are also new collectors in Asia and the Middle East, as well as the usual old-guard buyers drawn from the ranks of doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs.

‘Little works of art’ Die-hard collectors might acquire two of a variety one to use and another to store. A pen without the proper box and papers can lose as much as 50 per cent of its value.

Besides investment appeal, pens are “little works of art,” Fingerman says, reflecting the design sensibility of a particular era. And in a world succumbing to e-mail, texting and Twitter, pens have a retro appeal, he adds, “harkening back to a more tranquil time.”

Bloomberg

Photos: Bloomberg

Smartbuy

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August 25, 2010

WATCH collection

Elegant checks The famous Burberry checks get carried over to this dainty steel bracelet watch with a silver dial.

Available: The Burberry Boutique, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, The Collective, Mumbai and Helios-The Watch Store, Chandigarh.

Price: Rs 54,995

Simplicity, at its best Cartier gives a new meaning to simplicity with this steel case, steel bracelet and pale silvered opalin dial Tank Solo – Les Must Collection. The blue spinel cabochon with matching hands is the highlight.

Available: Cartier boutique, Emporio Mall, New Delhi Price: On request

In classic brown

Star gazing

The personalised alligator strap gives this Officine Panerai 42mm Radiomir watch with a handwound mechanical movement and black dial, a thumbs up.

Available:Select watch outlets across India Price: Rs 3.20 lakh

With an eye-catching ‘supernova’ dial design and studded with diamonds, Omega’s New Constellation for men and women is out of this world!

Available: Omega boutiques and select multi-brand outlets Price: Rs 96,000 onwards for women and Rs 1.05 lakh onwards for men

Steely gaze The five-row alternate finebrushed and polished steel bracelet and classy black dial give’s Tag Heuer’s Carrera Calibre 1887 Chronograph a sleek look.

Available: Tag Heuer boutiques Price: Rs 1.74 lakh

The Weil tradition One of Raymond Weil’s latest is this Maestro Tradition timepiece with a mechanical-SW260 movement, stainless steel case, silver dial, blue hands and leather strap.

Available: Raymond Weil boutique and Kapoor Watch Co. New Delhi Price:56,000 to Rs 66,000 (entire range) Smartbuy

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August 25, 2010