Tensai Sensei

It's been a year since I published my post about the state of video streaming services in India (which can be found  here ). I wrote how media companies were trying to get a piece of that market. A lot has changed in a year. For starters, Hotstar has received a revamp and it works on my Kubuntu system now. Prime Video remains the best option for most people. Many more services have launched. Ozee has rebranded itself as Zee5. But a few things have stood the test of time. Netflix's pricing is as expensive as it was a year ago. Yes, that was sarcastic. Now there are lot of streaming services to choose from. Here's a list of some of the popular ones. Amazon Prime Video Hotstar Netflix YouTube Zee5 Eros Now Spuul Voot Hoichoi ALTBalaji Hooq JioCinema / JioTV Sony LIV YuppTV BIGFlix The list goes on and on. It is said that competition is good for the consumer. More the competition, more the aggressive pricing, more the benefit for the consumer. Just lo...

I have been a tech enthusiast for as long as I can remember. I love fiddling with the latest and greatest. So when the Amazon Echo line-up launched in India, I had to get my hands on one. I went for the smaller Echo Dot as I was not convinced of its usefulness. As It turned out, I was right. Another reason for buying the smallest of the bunch had to do with the sound quality. Time and time again reviewer kept saying that the Echo speakers sound average. So there wasn't any reason pay extra for a bigger speaker. I bought the Echo Dot for discounted price of ₹3,149.00. It came with 1 year Prime membership. Amazon Echo Dot The setup process was a big hassle. You need to install the Alexa app to set up your Echo device. The app is as bad as any other app from Amazon. It just wouldn't detect my Echo Dot. It took me about an hour to finish the setup. Once the setup was done, I started off with simple question like, how's th...

I had been using the OnePlus One since June 2015. My smartphone game was due for an update for some time now. For my next smartphone I wanted one with no compromises. This time I wanted a flagship, not a Flagship Killer. Here a list of features I wanted the OnePlus 5/5T to have. Processor: Don't care Memory: Don't care Storage: Atleast 128GB Front camera: Don't care Rear camera: Just match the Google Pixel (looking forward to that collaboration with DxO Labs) Headphone jack: Don't care (on the bottom if it's there) Speakers: Front facing stereo ones of course OS: Android O Durability: IP68 Charging capabilities: Dash Charging (V2 maybe?) and wireless charging Color: Midnight Black 😍 Screen: No higher than QHD Battery: At least 3500 mAh SIM slot: Don't care (although having 2 slot would be great) ...

It's been about 2 years since online video streaming caught on in India. There were some services here and there that tried their hands on this format of content delivery. But nobody really nailed it. Nobody really pushed hard; they were just experiments. Not until Hotstar came into the scene. With the launch of Hotstar in 2015, thing started rolling. And now everybody wants a piece of these huge market. Here are my top 3 picks from the bevy of streaming services in India. Yes, my posts are biased! ( Video link ) As you go through the rest of the post, you will realize that this review isn't from a neutral standpoint. So in that sense this post is biased. Well, of course it is! The review is based on my experiences with the services. The devices I use had a lot to do with it. I use an OnePlus One running Cyanogen OS 13.1 and a Lenovo G50-80 running Ubuntu 16.04.3. With that out of the way, let's dive in! Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video is the most affordabl...

This is my review for the Mi Band. I have been using this smartband for 2 months now and the results have been, well, disappointing. The band has a good built quality. The main unit is also built well. It's water proof. I took a bath wearing it. No issues whatsoever. TL; DR: Good hardware, quirky software The Mi Band is backed up by buggy software. Step tracking works well, but sleep tracking is poor, very poor. Sometimes it shows that I took steps while I was asleep. If you sleep more than once in a day, your sleep data gets deleted. You can increase your step count just by shaking your hand. The app has its own quirks. It's designed well, but in 2016, I had hoped for Material Design; at least for the Android version. Synchronising with Google Fit works intermittently. The app doesn't show granular data for days other than the current day. I even had issues trying to connect the band with the app. But not everything is that crappy. The battery life is incredible. Over...