Review and Technology

Just Legendary
HTC Legend

Taiwanese phone maker HTC has been making some really sleek devices of late, but it has outdone itself with the Legend. Machined from a single piece of aluminium, this mobile runs Android 2.1 and supports multitouch.

HTC's 'Sense' user interface makes Android look even better—the 'pinch to zoom' functionality gives you greater leverage such as switching between windows (like Alt + Tab on a Windows desktop). The small optical trackpad is also a well thought out new addition.

It is not to say there are no problems—getting the SIM card or Micro SD card out is not easy—but this is possibly the most capable Android device out there right now. And given the competition, that is quite a compliment.

• Pros: Brushed aluminium looks, HTC 'Sense' interface is very smooth, cheaper than competition
• Cons: Unibody architecture does make SIM and memory card retrieval a tad difficult
• Price: Rs 26,000

More Data, Less Hassle
WD My Passport Studio

Adecade ago, the average home computer had around 10 gigabytes of storage— buying an additional hard drive of similar capacity would mean shelling out at least Rs 10,000. Even two years ago, 500 gigabytes of storage would set one back by a significant amount and one would need a power connection for the drive.

This new product from Western Digital is brilliant not just because of its beefy storage capacity (actually just 465 gigabytes thanks to binary scales) but also because of a nifty small LCD screen which tells you at a glance how much capacity you have left and what is taking up your storage (documents, music or movies).

So, you can carry it around without worrying about your data. Needless to say that, coupled with the new faster broadband speeds, one will fill this up with data in no time.

• Pros: Easy-to-read display tells you storage facts, plug-and-play usage with media players
• Cons: A bit too large to fit easily in a pocket, pricey for the amount of storage
• Price: Price: Rs 9,600

Websites

how you can build a single page for personal or professional use. Most people rarely change their browser's default 'landing' page. And now you can even create your own 'personal landing page'.

Basically, it's a page where you can put up all aspects of your online profiles—links to your Twitter stream, Facebook and LinkedIn pages as well as links to your office site, personal blog or your photo or video stream. Flavors.me (note the American spelling) allows you to do this with a simple, Flash-based interface with several popular social services linked.

You can further personalise your page with images as well as contact information. There are several competing services that allow you to do exactly the same thing, such as www.chi.mp and www.card.ly, but Flavors.me makes the process extremely simple, and the results look great.

At a time when your online presence gets more scattered (and confusing), this is a great way for people to get to know you in a snapshot.