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2018 was a juggernaut when it came to advancement in consumer electronics. We saw how smartphones evolved over the past year. But while the little computers inside our pockets have grown, so have their big brothers, the laptops. Powerful laptops were known to be unwieldy, thick and heavy. But 2018 managed to trim the fat while keeping the insides as efficient and powerful. There were some great laptops in 2018. We enter 2019 with a renowned sense of hope, and the devices listed below lay the foundation for inno­vations in 2019.

Dell XPS

 Price: Rs 125,000 (XPS 13), 169,000 (XPS 15)(Prices may vary depending on configuration)

Dell XPS is easily one of the best lap­tops to come out in 2018. It redefined what laptops were supposed to look like with its near bezel-less InfinityDisplay and internals that were good enough to run triple-A titles. The XPS is a versatile machine. Even with its powerful interiors it has a muted exterior, none of the sharp curves and bright accent colors mostly associated with gaming laptops. The thinness of the device also makes it easy to carry around. But it will still come out all guns blazing when it needs to.

Much like the Macs of old, the XPS does everything well: the keyboard is very clicky and has decent trav­el, the trackpad is large and comes with support for Windows Gestures. The body is made of machined aluminum, fiber-glass and carbon fiber. The XPS, in other words, is a do-it-all machine, sitting com­fortably in a business meeting without making you look like a child, while providing great performance underneath.

 Lenovo IdeaPad 320

 Price: Rs 75,000 (i5, 8 GB)

If performance is all you care about, the Lenovo deliv­ers great results at a price you don’t have to break the bank for. Much like the Dell, the Leno­vo is also muted in its aesthetics. No gamer accents and sharp curves. The IdeaPad comes in some decent specifications, with 8th Generation processors and MX150 graphics card its stand-out fea­tures. The MX150 might not be as powerful as Nvidia’s GTX line but it is more than capable compared to built-in graphics processors. The laptop isn’t built out of premium materials but the hardened plastic still looks good and the internals are phenomenal regardless.

 Acer Predator Helios 300

 Price: Rs 134,800

If you like the gamer aesthetics on your laptop, the Acer Preda­tor Helios 300 is just for you. From the out­side, the laptop looks like a killer alien machine, with sharp angu­lar cuts and red accents all over the device. Its inter­nals match its design, coming as it does with the GTX 1060 graphics card and i7 processors from Intel’s seventh-generation processor line. If you’re a gamer and looking for a device that can provide buttery smooth gaming, you can’t find a better deal than the Predator Helios 300.

Continental Trading Enterprises has launched the fourth-gen KIA Sportage. There is a redesigned front bumper with new fog lamp housings, and new gloss black or bright chrome inserts leading from the fog lamps to the lower air intake. The Sportage now has an evolved ‘tiger-nose’ grille, with new gloss black or matt black grille.

New full-LED headlamps with four-point LED daytime running lights and rede­signed fog lamps provide maximum visi­bility and enhance the SUV’s light signature for a more modern appearance. At the rear, the slim combination lamps retain their horizontal shape, with the revised design featuring a new C-shaped LED light signature. The reversing lamp and reflec­tors are now integrated into the new rear bumper, which is now finished with a flash of chrome across its base

 Hill-start Assist holds the car for two seconds on inclines to prevent it from rolling backwards

Changes to ‘GT-Line’ include a new gloss black hot-stamped radiator grille, gloss black and silver skid plates, and dark chrome inserts on the front bumper, the side sills and rear tailgate. The unique 19-inch alloy wheels of the ‘GT-Line’ have been redesigned, and all models are fit­ted with a dual exhaust rear valance and revised ‘ice cube’ LED fog lamp designs.

The new Sportage has the look and feel of a car from a higher market segment, but without the hefty price tag. While the layout of the previous Sportage cabin is retained, a series of minor upgrades exude a further sense of modernity. The upgraded model is equipped with a new steering wheel and revised driver instru­ment cluster.

The Kia Sportage rides on fully inde­pendent front and rear suspensions, car­ried over unchanged for the 2018 model. Delivering a comfortable ride and supe­rior damping over poor road surfaces, the chassis is nevertheless tuned to offer intuitive and engaging handling. ‘GT-Line’ models feature their own specially-tuned suspension characteristics, endowing the Sportage with sharper, more athletic han­dling and a slightly firmer ride—crucially, without compromising the SUV’s funda­mental comfort and stability. A number of advanced driver assistance systems are offered on the Sportage, all designed to minimize the possibility of an accident. The Sportage has earned a five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP.

All versions have Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS) with Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD) and Brake Assist (BAS), so that the car comes to rest in the shortest possi­ble distance in an emergency, and with maximum retardation, regardless of the pressure applied to the pedal by the driver. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Vehi­cle Stability Management (VSM) prevent the car from skidding in corners or when accelerating on surfaces with different lev­els of grip between left and right.

Hill-start Assist holds the car for two seconds when setting off on inclines to pre­vent it rolling backwards. Every Sportage is equipped as standard with Kia’s Vehicle Stability Management (VSM). This maxi­mizes stability when braking and cornering by controlling the car’s Electronic Stability Control (ESC) if it detects a loss of traction. The Sportage is also fitted with driver and front passenger airbags, first-row side airbags, and first- and second-row curtain airbags.

Streaming services have changed the way we consume media. Ser- vices like Spotify, Netflix and Apple Music have managed to offload all our music to an omnipresent library on the cloud. These services are extremely useful. But in Nepal many of them are unusable because of the problems with payment. Which is why we still carry around our music libraries as local files.These files need to be consolidated into a single library, with a good player to access them. While apps for some streaming services may have been developed to perfection, the same can- not be said about music players that come bundled with your smartphone. The iOS has a slightly better Music app compared to Android’s Google Play Music, which has clunky design and unfriendly UI. So what app should you use? Here we take a look at some great music players for your Android device that should improve the way you access access your music.

DoubleTwist

Price Free, $5.59 (Pro)

DoubleTwist is one of the older media players with a well-de- signed inter- face. From the time of its skeuomorphic design, DoubleTwist has grown a lot. Today, the media player sports a mod- ern card aesthetic with large grid-sized album art pages and automatically downloaded artist images for the corresponding page. The media player is also great at handling different and high-res audio codecs; everything from MP3 to FLAC files played wonderfully. There was a bit of a loading time for heavier files but apart from that, it worked perfectly. The player also comes with light and dark themes. While I love lighter themes, the dark theme is bound to shine on an AMOLED screen, while saving you some battery life to boot.

Stellio Player

Price Free, $2.99 (Pro)

Even though DoubleTwist looks mod- ern, its age has influenced its modernity. It lacks new design elements and technological advancements. Stellio, on the other hand, is ultra-modern. It masterfully displays a nice waveform of your audio file on the Now Playing screen and all the Songs, Albums, and Artists pages are wonderfully rendered in grid-form. The player automatically enables crossfading and gapless playback, both of which work perfectly. The app has also been written well, with zero to little load time and graceful animations that played out in buttery smoothness. I did face a problem with the app’s complex Artists page. It collects all album arts and renders them as an elongated rectangle, with all the album art inside. There is stuttering due to loading that doesn’t work well even on a Snapdragon 845 device.

Phonograph

Player Price Free

Phonograph is an open- source music player that usually comes bundled with some famous custom rooms.  The media player can be easily downloaded to any smartphone. Its beauty is in its simplicity. This player has a minimalist design aesthetic there are no eye-candy UI elements, unlike the previous entry—and it comfortably flows Google’s Material Design standards. The app is also considerably smaller at 8MB and comes with support for most of the popular audio codecs. Phonograph, in its earlier development cycles, was free but currently, you can also find a Pro paid version. While I couldn’t find a price for the Pro version, you will instantly notice certain features blocked on the free version.  While this annoyed me a bit, there is no denying that the Phonograph is probably one of the most stable, reliable and gorgeous media players on Android right now.

However, with the Mahindra XUV 500 there has been little doubt to where it stands in our books. We loved it back in 2013 when we first got our hands on it. It was by far the most stylish Mahindra at the time and the swiftness with which it tore through the tarmac was baffling.

Around 2015 the XUV 500 went through a quick facelift. But now, it finally gets a serious overhaul, with a lot of tinkering done under the hood. We were pretty keen on rekindling our affair with the now new plush XUV 500. We took a seat behind its wheels and headed out.

FEATURES

Variants: Mahindra XUV 500

Price : Rs 6,180,000-Rs 9,095,000

Engine : 2179cc

Fuel Type : Diesel

Power : 155 bhp @ 3750 rpm

Torque : 360 Nm @ 1750 rpm

Drivetrain : AWD

Exterior

Much like its predecessor, the XUV 500 remains the most stylish Mahin­dra and it has blown us away with its good looks again. We will refrain from calling the XUV a beautiful car, because it’s not. Instead, this is one handsome car. A dominant front, a muscular build and an imposing stance comes together to form an image of a car that looks poised to turn heads. On the front the under­body sharply angles upward into the air inlet, making the car look high­er off the ground. You get big pro­jector headlamp units with stylish fog lamps on each side sandwiched between the huge grille studded with chrome. The wide bonnet arches both sides upon meeting the A-pillar, and the flared wheel arches on the front make for a muscular front.

Over on the side the XUV carries a sporty look mainly because the rear body ends in a fairly straight line, making for a boxier appear­ance. The rear wheel arches are now robust, adding to the handsome appeal and all this sits on a premium set of alloy wheels. Also, the bespoke XUV door handles return, adding to the uniqueness of the vehicle. On the back, Mahindra has cleaned up its act, as the rear end of the XUV is sleeker. The new taillights are sharp and the chrome strap over the boot lid completes the look. You also get twin exhausts which is always better than one.

Interior

The interior of the XUV builds on its already impressive exterior. Open the door and the first thing you see is the luxurious quilted tan leath­er seats. These seats enhance the overall interior of the car and when paired with the electrical adjustment these posh new seats go off their way to pamper you while on the road. The visibility is good all around the car because of the large windscreen and windows. Adding to the comfort is XUV’s Fully Automatic Tempera­ture Control or FATC system with dual heating, ventilation and air conditioning. This system allows you to set a cabin temperature, which is then maintained automatically throughout the cabin without your intervention.

Another luxury addition is the cen­trally located cooling box that can chill up to four cans of beverages at once; do not drink and drive though. The rear seats are wide and offer good support and fitting three in the back will not create any discomfort. The third row seats are comfortable as well, but large adults will find long journeys uneasy. Both second and third row of seats get AC vents for added comfort.

The storage spaces are ample and well laid out, both second- and third-row seats fold flush with the floor, freeing up to 1512 liters of boot space. The infotainment system is also one of the best we have come across, with clean graphics and a smart interface, although the number of buttons on the central console was overwhelming.

Overall, Mahindra deserves high praise for this plush interior.

Performance

Let’s start with the ride comfort before getting into the figures. The new XUV 500 features enhanced sus­pension, so no matter where adven­ture takes you, you are guaranteed a plush ride. The new suspension offers increased stability, greater comfort and precise steering and also improved impact management over bumps and potholes.

Powering the car is a 2.2 liter mHawk diesel engine mated to a six-speed automatic transmission that makes 155 bhp and a whopping 360 Nm of torque from as low as 1750 rpm, meaning the car is quick to get a move on and slow traffic crawling and highway overtakes come easy. Taking care of the grip is the AWD.

Whether it is heavy rain or snows the intelligent All Wheel Drive ensures better control and driv­ability with a seamless transition from 2WD to AWD without any driver intervention. Working with the AWD is NexTrac, an electrically controlled, on demand, interactive torque management system that gives you unmatched handling and vehicle control. Mahindra hasn’t skipped on driver and passenger safety either: you get six airbags, ABS with EBD, disc brakes on all four wheels, hill descent and hold control and electric stability program with rollover mitigation to ensure your car remains stable at all times.

Verdict

Let’s all agree to one thing. The XUV 500 is still the most handsome Mahindra out there, and at the risk of sounding superficial, that is half the battle won. Now add to that the brilliant interior features, creature comforts, and performance, and you have a formula that is built to succeed. And that is exactly what the new Mahindra XUV 500 brings to the table. A bulletproof concoction that has its sight on success.