Introduction

In my quest for a good pair of earphones, you will have already noticed that I experienced with many of them here and here. During this journey I chanced across a suggestion from a friend on the Focal brand and the fact they were selling their earphones at a discount on Amazon.

Since the offer was too good to resist, I purchased these online.

Unboxing video

Here is a little unboxing I created for you to understand what the packaging of the earphone looks like.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/257Ei2DYDRf54sRn6

 

Strong points

The Focal Spark has these pros going for it

• Very easy to wear for long hours
• short cable means lesser tangling unlike the Samsung UFlex
• Good sound quality – bit of muddy bass, but largely good distributions of highs mids and lows
• Very good battery standby time – you charge it once and when you don’t use it the earphones does not lose battery power too soon – this is in stark contrast to the Uflex earphones from samsung which used to annoy me during the middle of that long walk
• Charging is quick and gives full charge that does not let you down anywhere
• You can pair two different phones to this earphone over bluetooth at same time (which could be a boon or a bane)

Weak points

The Focal Spark like any other earphones has few cons that I noticed during my usage which I will like to point out here

• The wire is a tad bit too short, it needs to be about 20% longer to fit better
• The earphone is best suited for music but not necessarily phone calls, I did have a feedback that the phone calls were not pretty clear. You can check that here.
• The earbuds are a bit tight so wearing them for longer hours means it will feel like your ears are blocked. This is exactly where the Airpods do better. They are there and not there at the same time.
• The bass was not exactly clear and was a bit muddy. Focal has still some way to go to beat Bullets V2 by OnePlus.
• The asking price of 7000/- is not exactly less, but right now you can bag a pair for close to 3000/- which makes it either a steal or well, unpopular as the case maybe!
• It comes with micro usb charging which is not so 2018, but this was not such a downer for me, would have still preferred usb-C which is quite the standard these days.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these are an excellent pair of wireless earbuds for music purposes if not exactly phone calls. The buds have excellent battery life, and are good to hear and use. They are comfortable over long hours of wear and you just need to find an eartip of the size that suits you better. Having said that, for the current price on offer, this is a steal, and you should go for it !

Introduction

I was in the market gathering interest in wireless earbuds of all shapes and sizes. Since my previous attempt at buying Leaf ear buds did not go so great as I thought it would, I had to scour the market again for something better. This is when I chanced upon Samsung UFlex with the BYOD pricing which was tempting for me to buy and use since I almost got it at 50-60% of the cost. What it proved to be for me is a detailed story!

As is the case wireless bluetooth earphones come in two different forms, one with the neckband and one without (the true wireless variety). The problem with the former was that there was always a band that was either too big or got caught in between collars, Id cards, or even worse seat belts of the car. The pros included great battery life, and good connectivity. The issue with the latter was the lack of wires meant losing the buds easily, mediocre battery life and constant connectivity drops every now and then with skips and jumps in music playback. The connectivity was first between the buds and then with the phone which made it even worse.

Contenders in the market

When you go to buy something there are always a few major players amongst the scores of other smaller ones, which are marketing their products more than the others and also manage to sell in large numbers thanks to their brand power. Here it was no different. The models I started considering was Jabra elite 65t, Apple Airpods, Bose SoundSport and Sony. The dark horses in all these were the One plus v2 bullets wireless which is perpetually out of stock (and again with the neckband), and the Focal Spark. There were a few more like Jaybird, Bragi and AKG which also were doing well. The Leaf and UFlex are brands I already owned and hence did not bother to look again.

Factors influencing my next purchase

Some of the things I was looking for after my two earphone purchases went awry were these

• – true wireless preferably (read as avoid large neckbands)
• – Good connectivity between buds
• – Easy pairing
• – Reasonably good battery life
• – good distribution of lows, mids and highs in the music
• – excellent call quality
• – bass thump was a bonus
• – very less or zero ear pain on long hours of usage
• – portability and compatibility
• – medium price if not too low based on bang for buck

Models I considered

I started considering Apple airpods, Bose Sound Sport, Sony, Samsung IconX, and Focal Spark and was not so interested in the other ones in the market. The thing with Jabra is I did not know where to go to try out a pair. Same with Focal spark, Bragi. For sony there was Croma or Sony world, for Bose there was the bose store and for Apple there was the inviting Apple store as usual.

A friend of mine bought the Focal spark on a very good discount of almost 60% off and that tempted me to get one too. While my product was on the way with a zippy order placed on Amazon, I managed to use his earphones to get a feel of how they would fit and sound. My reference point were the Bullets V2 wired earphones from OnePlus for the fit, feel and sound and I was pleasantly surprised at how close the Focal Spark was to those.

Focal Spark

The focal spark earphones come with a great fit and finish, the white ones were particularly good and I got them at a discount of almost 60% on Amazon – somehow the brand is not as well known here as much as elsewhere in other countries. Frankly Focal builds some very good earphones and they know their business well. The frequency separation was excellent and never once did my music sound very tinny or the bass muddy. In fact in my entire comparison the bonus of having thumping bonus were delivered only by two of the four earphones I considered. And Focal was on that list. After listening to my friend’s earphone, I knew I did not make a mistake with Focal.

Let us get one thing straight at this point of the article.

It is very difficult to find an earphone that satisfies all criteria and even so to say two of the most important – music and calls in one product.

Initially I did believe Focal achieved that, but due to their rather narrow neckband, one had to wear them like a necklace for people to be able to hear audio. I did a small test to find out that wearing it in front did improve audio quality but not wearing it around the neck. In fact in the latter case it was so bad people could not hear me.

When it comes to battery Focal provides something like 4-5 hours max on continuous use, and its definitely better than the Samsung UFlex. Charging was quick for me and the connectivity to the iPhone was stable without much fuss. The audio quality is astounding and you really feel your money’s worth when you buy this earphone. Especially when you know it sells for 100$ and you are getting it at 30 or 40$.

Leaf Ear

I already have reviewed the Leaf Earbuds in isolation on this blog earlier and some of my opinions may have been provided due to not having a chance to test other earphones which were available to me at this point. The best part about Leaf is its an Indian Startup who are into the business of making earphones.

The sound quality is decent but a bit muddy. They advertise the earphones are sport earphones with good amount of bass for the price. But in reality for the same price other lesser known manufacturers either give clearer bass or no bass at all. So its in the extremes so to say. The fact that the Leaf mixes up the sound signature specifically with muddy bass means it may not live up to the likes of Focal or Bullets or other better brands.

The price is real low no doubts on that with Leaf, but the fit strains the ear (more of a blocked feeling) after a while since the buds are not really soft compared to other brands. They can switch to better quality silicone for the same. The main button is so hard to press that you would perhaps push the earbud all the way upto your brain if you try that hard ( 🙂 just kidding – but its messy nonetheless). The other physical buttons are placed a bit uncomfortably and obviously the usage is as irritating as expected.

Bose Sound Sport

For Bose and Apple there was only one way to find out whether or not your investment is worth it. Wear it in a showroom use it and get to know. One thing I am sure of with Bose is whatever product they sell be it small or big, everything is on display in their showroom. So off I went to check out that nearby. After some basic enquiry the lady at the store did offer me the SoundSport black for testing it against my iPhone. It also comes in Citrous & Orange colours which are good to see.

I had a little trouble wearing it properly but in the end I guess it’s a bit of getting used to. The clip is so soft that the earphone stays securely in the ear. The first thing you notice when you wear it is the rather unruly size of the earbud. It’s huge. Its not the typical type of earbud that sits cozy in the ear. It’s pretty big.

Coming to sound quality when you a buy a Bose you cannot go wrong. The product is well rounded and provides rich sound with well separated lows, mids and highs, and bass. For the phone calls I did a test, I went to the noisy part of the mall, with my wife inside the shop and asked her how much of surrounding noise the earphones picked up. The microphone on the Bose is pretty sensitive and picks up quite some background noise – now do not get me wrong, its not disturbing, but you do know there is that noise around you. Its not isolating it completely and filtering out only the vocals of the person talking.

For the price though, Bose did not offer something great that other earphones at half the price could not offer. At nearly 20k INR this was surely the brand that you were paying for more than the product.

Samsung Gear Icon X

Samsung have recently introduced their Gear Icon X 2018 true wireless earphones. Since the Samsung store was near by home, I buzzed them and they said I could come and take a look at the product, although they did not have stock to sell – and this worked perfectly for me as I was not in the mood to plonk nearly 13k INR on a product I was not sure of especially after the UFlex fiasco. Of course comparing the two is like comparing Apples (pun intended) and lemons due to the price range and build type.

Anyway I went to the store and as promised was given the Icon X truly wireless buds to try out. These are not as bulky as the Bose, and they managed to fit snugly into the ear. After pairing with the iPhone I started playing some songs to test out the frequency separation – a favourite of mine being Despicable Me from Despicable Me 3. It clearly shows the separation of the bass from the vocals and other instruments.

The overall sound was a bit low, not really loud. There was no bass thump either and it was similar sounding to the lesser priced cousin UFlex. The point here is that its not unclear or muddy, its not loud and does not have thump. That said it does have some touch controls like single and double tap, swipe up and down for volume and so on. But I really got jolted when I tried touching the controls and the earphone went on to ask me to get ready for a workout in the midst of the music being played in a showroom. I went into a frenzy to get it to a stop. I had not configured any buttons as such on my iPhone so am not sure why this happened.

But clearly the implementation of the interpretation of hardware touch within Samsung software is really crazy, and the earphone is too sensitive in the way it interprets these touches.

All I wanted is an earphone that has good music and call quality but this one had so many other things in the mix like workout schedules and so on for which it started issuing many prompts in the middle of what I was trying to do. This is not something I appreciate much, and I feel you would also not like the way this is implemented much. I did not get a chance to test call quality, but I believe it will definitely be good enough in reasonably noisy environments. The UFlex is a testimony to that and I see no reason why the Icon X would not better it in some terms.

Apple Airpods

After my experience with Bose and for the fact that I own Apple iPhone 8 plus, the only natural choice for me was to go to the Apple store and test out the Airpods. The store did not have a sample piece!!! And they were not sure when they would get one. But the guy at the store did not want to lose a potential customer, so he offered his personal airpods to test out at my end.

With Apple one thing is a given – no matter what product they make, however less advanced it may be compared to Samsung or the likes, it will be 100% easy to use, and I can bet my whole life on it.

Airpods were no exception. Open the case and after the initial manual connection, the Airpods were always recognized by my phone. To be frank I am not a big fan of the shape of the Airpods. I have a wired version of lightning earphones and these earphones cause a lot of ear pain. Apple airpods are no exception though Apple may say it is made for a wide variety of ears – but that list did not include my own ears I guess.

For the wired version I even tried soft covers around the buds, but to no use. Ear still pains and you will need to live with it. Now having thrown that grouse out of my mind, let me come to the positives. Connectivity is a breeze both for the phone to realize the presence of the buds nearby and stay connected without losing the connection. Music does not have the bass that the Focal or the Bose or even the Bullets V2 wired have, but it is not flat, whatever is there is okay to contend with. Music remains clear and very audible at higher volumes effectively isolating the noise outside.

I was not so sure about how the call performance would be. But you need to use the buds to see it for yourself. Absolute clarity on both ends of the call and it never misses a beat. Absolutely stays connected at all times and lasts that way for hours. The airpods promise the most amount of hours and the best connection out of the battery and hardware, and Apple has not gone wrong here.

The intuitive controls are absolutely a delight to use. Add to it the fact that once you plug in the buds (or even a single one) the phone goes into BT mode for audio. Remove the buds and the phone will go back to normal mode. Double tap can be configured on both right and left earbud for Siri or music playback/pause and call answer. With Siri Apple claims you can do anything you want as such with the phone.

Remove the bud when music is playing and it stops like a charm, put it back and it plays. This is how hardware must be – designed around the user who uses it. Not the other way around. However funny the design of the Airpods are, they sit in the ear tight. And don’t fall out – ever – even if you run or exercise.

Instructing Siri to do stuff is so accurate that I could not believe that it worked the way it did.

For the buds being so far away from the mouth, the microphone is astounding. The flip side is the pain – the max you can do is about 30-40 minutes with it, you will have to remove it a bit after that to relax your ear. This is why it works best for reasonably long calls but that not that hours-together-call-with-your-date call.

Ratings in percentages based on my experience

Disclaimer: These are purely my personal opinions after using each of the mentioned products. Your mileages may vary appropriate to what you feel, but my scores are as below.

Final call – what did I buy?

Its the moment of truth. Can you guess what I bought and what I am likely to live with? Remember its a real world usage thing. And not being with the messy wires thing. And the good battery, music and calls thing.

Though I did initially think the UFlex would be with me for long, I had to let it go due to the horrid neck band which was weighing on my neck and interfering with my other stuff like the ID card, seat belt etc. When the batter goes weaker it sometimes also did drop a few bits of sounds here and there which was annoying even when the phone was nearby. I was so gung-ho about the IconX that I thought I would walk out of the shop wearing a pair of them but the kind of gimmickery it did with the gestures thing, I was a bit shaken. Its seriously sensitive and badly implemented for the price it commands.

The Leaf ear with its muddy bass leaves a lot to be desired. I also saw and heard that the Sony truly wireless needs charging within three hours so it was not in my list at all at least among top contenders. The Bose was out due to the price and the fact that I could answer calls only through the right bud for that price, which I find to be silly on the part of the company that made this. When you ride on brand value, give us the value for money. Having physical buttons on truly wireless earbuds is not the best idea.

The Focal Spark was the closest to the Bullets wired V2 which in my opinion is a fantastic feat even for a 100$ price. The fact I got it at 35-40$ is an icing on the cake for the bass thump, which was a bonus. The neck band could have been 10-20% longer which is something the company can fix in their next iteration and it is quite an annoyance to wear it like a necklace for people to be able to hear you properly. For music the Focal rocks, for calls it sucks. But it stays with me as a faithful companion for some more time.

The Apple Airpods won the competition at least for me. Excellent connectivity, almost zero effort discovery between phone and pods, astounding call quality in the noisiest of environments, and truly wireless nature won this one for me. Of course the stick out design and the ear pain it causes is something I cannot live with or even excuse in lieu of its good qualities, and I am seriously hoping the next version of the Airpods are much better in terms of design. But there is a small edge that the other qualities of this product outweighs its niggles. So I  have come to terms with them.

At the point of writing this article I have not tested the Jabra Elite 65t which has a lot going for it in terms of sound, battery life and so on. Also I could not test the Sony truly wireless earbuds but that is more of a choice due to hearing about the poor battery life. Each of the truly wireless earphones comes with its own charging case which extends the battery life to make it last the whole day by charging when not in use. The semi wireless earphones like Leaf, or Focal have micro usb charging and as such not a case.

If you liked this comparison, let me know what is your take and how you decided to purchase your favourite pair of earphones in the comments section below.

Till the next review – happy gadgeting !

Introduction

I was in the market gathering interest in wireless earbuds of all shapes and sizes. Since my previous attempt at buying Leaf ear buds did not go so great as I thought it would, I had to scour the market again for something better. This is when I chanced upon Samsung UFlex with the BYOD pricing which was tempting for me to buy and use since I almost got it at 50-60% of the cost. What it proved to be for me is a detailed story!

As is the case wireless bluetooth earphones come in two different forms, one with the neckband and one without (the true wireless variety). The problem with the former was that there was always a band that was either too big or got caught in between collars, Id cards, or even worse seat belts of the car. The pros included great battery life, and good connectivity. The issue with the latter was the lack of wires meant losing the buds easily, mediocre battery life and constant connectivity drops every now and then with skips and jumps in music playback. The connectivity was first between the buds and then with the phone which made it even worse.

Contenders in the market

When you go to buy something there are always a few major players amongst the scores of other smaller ones, which are marketing their products more than the others and also manage to sell in large numbers thanks to their brand power. Here it was no different. The models I started considering was Jabra elite 65t, Apple Airpods, Bose SoundSport and Sony. The dark horses in all these were the One plus v2 bullets wireless which is perpetually out of stock (and again with the neckband), and the Focal Spark. There were a few more like Jaybird, Bragi and AKG which also were doing well. The Leaf and UFlex are brands I already owned and hence did not bother to look again.

Factors influencing my next purchase

Some of the things I was looking for after my two earphone purchases went awry were these

• – true wireless preferably (read as avoid large neckbands)
• – Good connectivity between buds
• – Easy pairing
• – Reasonably good battery life
• – good distribution of lows, mids and highs in the music
• – excellent call quality
• – bass thump was a bonus
• – very less or zero ear pain on long hours of usage
• – portability and compatibility
• – medium price if not too low based on bang for buck

Models I considered

I started considering Apple airpods, Bose Sound Sport, Sony, Samsung IconX, and Focal Spark and was not so interested in the other ones in the market. The thing with Jabra is I did not know where to go to try out a pair. Same with Focal spark, Bragi. For sony there was Croma or Sony world, for Bose there was the bose store and for Apple there was the inviting Apple store as usual.

A friend of mine bought the Focal spark on a very good discount of almost 60% off and that tempted me to get one too. While my product was on the way with a zippy order placed on Amazon, I managed to use his earphones to get a feel of how they would fit and sound. My reference point were the Bullets V2 wired earphones from OnePlus for the fit, feel and sound and I was pleasantly surprised at how close the Focal Spark was to those.

Focal Spark

The focal spark earphones come with a great fit and finish, the white ones were particularly good and I got them at a discount of almost 60% on Amazon – somehow the brand is not as well known here as much as elsewhere in other countries. Frankly Focal builds some very good earphones and they know their business well. The frequency separation was excellent and never once did my music sound very tinny or the bass muddy. In fact in my entire comparison the bonus of having thumping bonus were delivered only by two of the four earphones I considered. And Focal was on that list. After listening to my friend’s earphone, I knew I did not make a mistake with Focal.

Let us get one thing straight at this point of the article.

It is very difficult to find an earphone that satisfies all criteria and even so to say two of the most important – music and calls in one product.

Initially I did believe Focal achieved that, but due to their rather narrow neckband, one had to wear them like a necklace for people to be able to hear audio. I did a small test to find out that wearing it in front did improve audio quality but not wearing it around the neck. In fact in the latter case it was so bad people could not hear me.

When it comes to battery Focal provides something like 4-5 hours max on continuous use, and its definitely better than the Samsung UFlex. Charging was quick for me and the connectivity to the iPhone was stable without much fuss. The audio quality is astounding and you really feel your money’s worth when you buy this earphone. Especially when you know it sells for 100$ and you are getting it at 30 or 40$.

Leaf Ear

I already have reviewed the Leaf Earbuds in isolation on this blog earlier and some of my opinions may have been provided due to not having a chance to test other earphones which were available to me at this point. The best part about Leaf is its an Indian Startup who are into the business of making earphones.

The sound quality is decent but a bit muddy. They advertise the earphones are sport earphones with good amount of bass for the price. But in reality for the same price other lesser known manufacturers either give clearer bass or no bass at all. So its in the extremes so to say. The fact that the Leaf mixes up the sound signature specifically with muddy bass means it may not live up to the likes of Focal or Bullets or other better brands.

The price is real low no doubts on that with Leaf, but the fit strains the ear (more of a blocked feeling) after a while since the buds are not really soft compared to other brands. They can switch to better quality silicone for the same. The main button is so hard to press that you would perhaps push the earbud all the way upto your brain if you try that hard ( 🙂 just kidding – but its messy nonetheless). The other physical buttons are placed a bit uncomfortably and obviously the usage is as irritating as expected.

Bose Sound Sport

For Bose and Apple there was only one way to find out whether or not your investment is worth it. Wear it in a showroom use it and get to know. One thing I am sure of with Bose is whatever product they sell be it small or big, everything is on display in their showroom. So off I went to check out that nearby. After some basic enquiry the lady at the store did offer me the SoundSport black for testing it against my iPhone. It also comes in Citrous & Orange colours which are good to see.

I had a little trouble wearing it properly but in the end I guess it’s a bit of getting used to. The clip is so soft that the earphone stays securely in the ear. The first thing you notice when you wear it is the rather unruly size of the earbud. It’s huge. Its not the typical type of earbud that sits cozy in the ear. It’s pretty big.

Coming to sound quality when you a buy a Bose you cannot go wrong. The product is well rounded and provides rich sound with well separated lows, mids and highs, and bass. For the phone calls I did a test, I went to the noisy part of the mall, with my wife inside the shop and asked her how much of surrounding noise the earphones picked up. The microphone on the Bose is pretty sensitive and picks up quite some background noise – now do not get me wrong, its not disturbing, but you do know there is that noise around you. Its not isolating it completely and filtering out only the vocals of the person talking.

For the price though, Bose did not offer something great that other earphones at half the price could not offer. At nearly 20k INR this was surely the brand that you were paying for more than the product.

Samsung Gear Icon X

Samsung have recently introduced their Gear Icon X 2018 true wireless earphones. Since the Samsung store was near by home, I buzzed them and they said I could come and take a look at the product, although they did not have stock to sell – and this worked perfectly for me as I was not in the mood to plonk nearly 13k INR on a product I was not sure of especially after the UFlex fiasco. Of course comparing the two is like comparing Apples (pun intended) and lemons due to the price range and build type.

Anyway I went to the store and as promised was given the Icon X truly wireless buds to try out. These are not as bulky as the Bose, and they managed to fit snugly into the ear. After pairing with the iPhone I started playing some songs to test out the frequency separation – a favourite of mine being Despicable Me from Despicable Me 3. It clearly shows the separation of the bass from the vocals and other instruments.

The overall sound was a bit low, not really loud. There was no bass thump either and it was similar sounding to the lesser priced cousin UFlex. The point here is that its not unclear or muddy, its not loud and does not have thump. That said it does have some touch controls like single and double tap, swipe up and down for volume and so on. But I really got jolted when I tried touching the controls and the earphone went on to ask me to get ready for a workout in the midst of the music being played in a showroom. I went into a frenzy to get it to a stop. I had not configured any buttons as such on my iPhone so am not sure why this happened.

But clearly the implementation of the interpretation of hardware touch within Samsung software is really crazy, and the earphone is too sensitive in the way it interprets these touches.

All I wanted is an earphone that has good music and call quality but this one had so many other things in the mix like workout schedules and so on for which it started issuing many prompts in the middle of what I was trying to do. This is not something I appreciate much, and I feel you would also not like the way this is implemented much. I did not get a chance to test call quality, but I believe it will definitely be good enough in reasonably noisy environments. The UFlex is a testimony to that and I see no reason why the Icon X would not better it in some terms.

Apple Airpods

After my experience with Bose and for the fact that I own Apple iPhone 8 plus, the only natural choice for me was to go to the Apple store and test out the Airpods. The store did not have a sample piece!!! And they were not sure when they would get one. But the guy at the store did not want to lose a potential customer, so he offered his personal airpods to test out at my end.

With Apple one thing is a given – no matter what product they make, however less advanced it may be compared to Samsung or the likes, it will be 100% easy to use, and I can bet my whole life on it.

Airpods were no exception. Open the case and after the initial manual connection, the Airpods were always recognized by my phone. To be frank I am not a big fan of the shape of the Airpods. I have a wired version of lightning earphones and these earphones cause a lot of ear pain. Apple airpods are no exception though Apple may say it is made for a wide variety of ears – but that list did not include my own ears I guess.

For the wired version I even tried soft covers around the buds, but to no use. Ear still pains and you will need to live with it. Now having thrown that grouse out of my mind, let me come to the positives. Connectivity is a breeze both for the phone to realize the presence of the buds nearby and stay connected without losing the connection. Music does not have the bass that the Focal or the Bose or even the Bullets V2 wired have, but it is not flat, whatever is there is okay to contend with. Music remains clear and very audible at higher volumes effectively isolating the noise outside.

I was not so sure about how the call performance would be. But you need to use the buds to see it for yourself. Absolute clarity on both ends of the call and it never misses a beat. Absolutely stays connected at all times and lasts that way for hours. The airpods promise the most amount of hours and the best connection out of the battery and hardware, and Apple has not gone wrong here.

The intuitive controls are absolutely a delight to use. Add to it the fact that once you plug in the buds (or even a single one) the phone goes into BT mode for audio. Remove the buds and the phone will go back to normal mode. Double tap can be configured on both right and left earbud for Siri or music playback/pause and call answer. With Siri Apple claims you can do anything you want as such with the phone.

Remove the bud when music is playing and it stops like a charm, put it back and it plays. This is how hardware must be – designed around the user who uses it. Not the other way around. However funny the design of the Airpods are, they sit in the ear tight. And don’t fall out – ever – even if you run or exercise.

Instructing Siri to do stuff is so accurate that I could not believe that it worked the way it did.

For the buds being so far away from the mouth, the microphone is astounding. The flip side is the pain – the max you can do is about 30-40 minutes with it, you will have to remove it a bit after that to relax your ear. This is why it works best for reasonably long calls but that not that hours-together-call-with-your-date call.

Ratings in percentages based on my experience

Disclaimer: These are purely my personal opinions after using each of the mentioned products. Your mileages may vary appropriate to what you feel, but my scores are as below.

Final call – what did I buy?

Its the moment of truth. Can you guess what I bought and what I am likely to live with? Remember its a real world usage thing. And not being with the messy wires thing. And the good battery, music and calls thing.

Though I did initially think the UFlex would be with me for long, I had to let it go due to the horrid neck band which was weighing on my neck and interfering with my other stuff like the ID card, seat belt etc. When the batter goes weaker it sometimes also did drop a few bits of sounds here and there which was annoying even when the phone was nearby. I was so gung-ho about the IconX that I thought I would walk out of the shop wearing a pair of them but the kind of gimmickery it did with the gestures thing, I was a bit shaken. Its seriously sensitive and badly implemented for the price it commands.

The Leaf ear with its muddy bass leaves a lot to be desired. I also saw and heard that the Sony truly wireless needs charging within three hours so it was not in my list at all at least among top contenders. The Bose was out due to the price and the fact that I could answer calls only through the right bud for that price, which I find to be silly on the part of the company that made this. When you ride on brand value, give us the value for money. Having physical buttons on truly wireless earbuds is not the best idea.

The Focal Spark was the closest to the Bullets wired V2 which in my opinion is a fantastic feat even for a 100$ price. The fact I got it at 35-40$ is an icing on the cake for the bass thump, which was a bonus. The neck band could have been 10-20% longer which is something the company can fix in their next iteration and it is quite an annoyance to wear it like a necklace for people to be able to hear you properly. For music the Focal rocks, for calls it sucks. But it stays with me as a faithful companion for some more time.

The Apple Airpods won the competition at least for me. Excellent connectivity, almost zero effort discovery between phone and pods, astounding call quality in the noisiest of environments, and truly wireless nature won this one for me. Of course the stick out design and the ear pain it causes is something I cannot live with or even excuse in lieu of its good qualities, and I am seriously hoping the next version of the Airpods are much better in terms of design. But there is a small edge that the other qualities of this product outweighs its niggles. So I  have come to terms with them.

At the point of writing this article I have not tested the Jabra Elite 65t which has a lot going for it in terms of sound, battery life and so on. Also I could not test the Sony truly wireless earbuds but that is more of a choice due to hearing about the poor battery life. Each of the truly wireless earphones comes with its own charging case which extends the battery life to make it last the whole day by charging when not in use. The semi wireless earphones like Leaf, or Focal have micro usb charging and as such not a case.

If you liked this comparison, let me know what is your take and how you decided to purchase your favourite pair of earphones in the comments section below.

Till the next review – happy gadgeting !

Intro

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZBxS4siFo8UL6bM29

The craze these days in tech is the set of wireless bluetooth earphones all over the market. They are there in all kinds of price ranges, shapes and sizes ranging from bands, thin over the neck strips, pure wireless without any wires and so on. I being a geek naturally got sucked into this craze as well and after seeing many many reviews on youtube and other blogs, decided to opt for the Samsung U Flex bluetooth wireless earphones.

Pricing

https://photos.app.goo.gl/86rtoKgLMnXtg4sb8

The headset is priced currently at 4999/- on the samsung shop website, but being a corporate BYOD login user I got the product for 3522/-, with no cost emi options as well. Samsung does good on the BYOD side, and it is this kind of ventures that makes a company retain its customers.

Unboxing video

The details of the U Flex are available all over the internet, so I will start with an unboxing video of the headset for you below.

https://youtu.be/ypjEvrWMOzw

 

Since this review is a rather short one, I will focus on the pros and cons of this headset so you know whether it interests you.

The good bits

https://photos.app.goo.gl/f6YZKY4PY5WKVbhX9

1. Price: The U flex is priced reasonably and its a steal and about 3500 bucks.
2. Weight: The eaphone is lightweight as such except for the bottom part of the band and you would have guessed it its flexible while packing it so you can pretty much put it into any bag in any manner
3. Soft buds: I am a big fan of soft buds and this is no different from say the One Plus bullets V2 that I have which by now is the gold standard in a 1000/- bucks earphone price range. The fact there are multiple sizes of these buds only add cheer to the buyer.
4. Fit: Since there are different sizes of soft buds available, you will eventually find one that fits you well. Once you slightly push the earphone into the ear, almost all outside noise is filtered out keeping the environment inside silent so you can hear that all important conversation or music in peace
5. Charging time: Charging time is pretty quick and if you are left with zero juice when you wake up – by the time you refresh yourself and get prepared for office it will reach full charge. Pretty neat.

The bad bits

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ccRR6WkkCZtivPsE7

Every product will have its bad bits mainly because someone did not properly consider how the user will use their product. The apple airpods is a case in point where you get ear pain in less than 5 minutes !!

1. Battery life: its about average, for moderate use, I may get two or three days max. This means few calls in a day, about an hour of music a day. Nothing more than that. If you are much more an active user then it may not cross a day due to heavy usage.
2. Wires: It is ironic that I have to speak about wires in a wireless bluetooth earphone. But that is what makes it the achiles heel for Samsung. This thing has some bit of wires which end in the earphones themselves that magentically lock, but for most part of the wearing in the day, I have come to be known as a doctor with a stethoscope. Something that shows how casual onlookers look at it. The wires tangle with my seatbelt in the car, they tangle with my office ID card lanyard – it is a mess. Its not something that will make me change the earphones to some other brand, but nevertheless is an annoyance I can live without at times
3. Audio quality: Now this is totally subjective based on what sound signature you like. I like proper separation between the lows, mids and highs and a bit of thump in the bass. The separation is clear in this earphone, but bass is where it disappoints for users that look for it. It could have been better, keeping bullets v2 wired headphone as a reference point.
4. Volume: The volume stops at some point to increase. It is not a level that I would personally prefer as my reference was somewhere higher, but that is about it. At the max volume you are left wanting for more. I have not tried using this with a Samsung phone yet, but I am assuming pairing will be much better and the software app will have better controls with which you can adjust the bass in much more precision.
5. Call quality: You can hear the person on the other end well, the problem is the other way round. The other person cannot hear you so well since the band has the mic which sits under your collar or away from your mouth (the speaking point). So you need to raise your volume a bit while speaking which could be annoying to others around you.
6. The band: It grows on you, after about a month or two of usage, I really want to take out that earphone and throw it on my desk. It seems heavy, you know its there on your neck and heck sometimes you just answer the call with your phone. Period. There maybe more effective ways of having greater battery life, but the band does not provide for much in that way
7. Buttons and UX: I have a keen eye for user experience or UX, since I am from that domain. Everything matters to me – placement of buttons, usage in terms of button presses, outcomes of those – all of that. The metal buttons on either side of the band are somewhat merged with the band itself and you really need to grope and find out literally where the button starts and ends since it sits below your chin. The buttons for siri, Ok google, or Samsung’s own bixby can be configured though I never reckon to have to use that. All these are useful only when you are away from the phone which was not my use case.
8. Connectivity: The connection is stable (bluetooth 4.2) although I did have some drops while listening to music at times which was irritating, but for long calls never once did the connection drop. In a rather silent place calls are good and one can go on and on without worrying about annoying drops. Of course the farther you move from the earphone the worse it will get.
9. Sweat proof worthiness: The earphone handles the sweat part just about okay though I have not tried its water resistance. I did try to jog with the earphone but there is quite some amount of movement in the ear which is audible and not so comfortable – I am not talking about fit, its just the loudness of the phones moving around your neck, you can feel it. These arent the best for heavy exercise
10. Magnetic latch: The magnets aren’t very strong, but also not very weak they secure the earphones in place quite firmly.
11. Charging: I am putting this under negatives because it still uses micro USB port for charging and not USB type C. This is not a big downside as such but still its 2018!

Conclusion

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xHLomH7BHLSr6Bzb7

Many people have reviewed this gadget, and I am only bringing you the points that you need to know specifically before investing on this earphone. As such the product is unique since it flexes saving space for packaging. It has reasonably good audio, though not loud and thumpy in terms of bass (for the reference I listen to despecable me to decide).

The price is in the correct range and being Samsung you get BYOD and Emi discounts and options. I am hating that sort of heavy-ish neckband although the heaviness is only a feeling more than reality. The tangling wires are definitely irritating and battery life is about okay for my kind of use. There is always room for improvement for this design. The good bits outweigh the bad ones and you would generally NOT be disappointed with this purchase.

If you have it and have used it extensively leave me notes what you feel about it in the comments below. I have also reviewed the Leaf ear phones which I will update shortly based on real world usage, if you want a comparison of some sort.

My next purchase is the Focal Spark Wireless BT which is on the way! Look forward to another review of that one as well on this blog.

 

Intro

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZBxS4siFo8UL6bM29

The craze these days in tech is the set of wireless bluetooth earphones all over the market. They are there in all kinds of price ranges, shapes and sizes ranging from bands, thin over the neck strips, pure wireless without any wires and so on. I being a geek naturally got sucked into this craze as well and after seeing many many reviews on youtube and other blogs, decided to opt for the Samsung U Flex bluetooth wireless earphones.

Pricing

https://photos.app.goo.gl/86rtoKgLMnXtg4sb8

The headset is priced currently at 4999/- on the samsung shop website, but being a corporate BYOD login user I got the product for 3522/-, with no cost emi options as well. Samsung does good on the BYOD side, and it is this kind of ventures that makes a company retain its customers.

Unboxing video

The details of the U Flex are available all over the internet, so I will start with an unboxing video of the headset for you below.

https://youtu.be/ypjEvrWMOzw

 

Since this review is a rather short one, I will focus on the pros and cons of this headset so you know whether it interests you.

The good bits

https://photos.app.goo.gl/f6YZKY4PY5WKVbhX9

1. Price: The U flex is priced reasonably and its a steal and about 3500 bucks.
2. Weight: The eaphone is lightweight as such except for the bottom part of the band and you would have guessed it its flexible while packing it so you can pretty much put it into any bag in any manner
3. Soft buds: I am a big fan of soft buds and this is no different from say the One Plus bullets V2 that I have which by now is the gold standard in a 1000/- bucks earphone price range. The fact there are multiple sizes of these buds only add cheer to the buyer.
4. Fit: Since there are different sizes of soft buds available, you will eventually find one that fits you well. Once you slightly push the earphone into the ear, almost all outside noise is filtered out keeping the environment inside silent so you can hear that all important conversation or music in peace
5. Charging time: Charging time is pretty quick and if you are left with zero juice when you wake up – by the time you refresh yourself and get prepared for office it will reach full charge. Pretty neat.

The bad bits

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ccRR6WkkCZtivPsE7

Every product will have its bad bits mainly because someone did not properly consider how the user will use their product. The apple airpods is a case in point where you get ear pain in less than 5 minutes !!

1. Battery life: its about average, for moderate use, I may get two or three days max. This means few calls in a day, about an hour of music a day. Nothing more than that. If you are much more an active user then it may not cross a day due to heavy usage.
2. Wires: It is ironic that I have to speak about wires in a wireless bluetooth earphone. But that is what makes it the achiles heel for Samsung. This thing has some bit of wires which end in the earphones themselves that magentically lock, but for most part of the wearing in the day, I have come to be known as a doctor with a stethoscope. Something that shows how casual onlookers look at it. The wires tangle with my seatbelt in the car, they tangle with my office ID card lanyard – it is a mess. Its not something that will make me change the earphones to some other brand, but nevertheless is an annoyance I can live without at times
3. Audio quality: Now this is totally subjective based on what sound signature you like. I like proper separation between the lows, mids and highs and a bit of thump in the bass. The separation is clear in this earphone, but bass is where it disappoints for users that look for it. It could have been better, keeping bullets v2 wired headphone as a reference point.
4. Volume: The volume stops at some point to increase. It is not a level that I would personally prefer as my reference was somewhere higher, but that is about it. At the max volume you are left wanting for more. I have not tried using this with a Samsung phone yet, but I am assuming pairing will be much better and the software app will have better controls with which you can adjust the bass in much more precision.
5. Call quality: You can hear the person on the other end well, the problem is the other way round. The other person cannot hear you so well since the band has the mic which sits under your collar or away from your mouth (the speaking point). So you need to raise your volume a bit while speaking which could be annoying to others around you.
6. The band: It grows on you, after about a month or two of usage, I really want to take out that earphone and throw it on my desk. It seems heavy, you know its there on your neck and heck sometimes you just answer the call with your phone. Period. There maybe more effective ways of having greater battery life, but the band does not provide for much in that way
7. Buttons and UX: I have a keen eye for user experience or UX, since I am from that domain. Everything matters to me – placement of buttons, usage in terms of button presses, outcomes of those – all of that. The metal buttons on either side of the band are somewhat merged with the band itself and you really need to grope and find out literally where the button starts and ends since it sits below your chin. The buttons for siri, Ok google, or Samsung’s own bixby can be configured though I never reckon to have to use that. All these are useful only when you are away from the phone which was not my use case.
8. Connectivity: The connection is stable (bluetooth 4.2) although I did have some drops while listening to music at times which was irritating, but for long calls never once did the connection drop. In a rather silent place calls are good and one can go on and on without worrying about annoying drops. Of course the farther you move from the earphone the worse it will get.
9. Sweat proof worthiness: The earphone handles the sweat part just about okay though I have not tried its water resistance. I did try to jog with the earphone but there is quite some amount of movement in the ear which is audible and not so comfortable – I am not talking about fit, its just the loudness of the phones moving around your neck, you can feel it. These arent the best for heavy exercise
10. Magnetic latch: The magnets aren’t very strong, but also not very weak they secure the earphones in place quite firmly.
11. Charging: I am putting this under negatives because it still uses micro USB port for charging and not USB type C. This is not a big downside as such but still its 2018!

Conclusion

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xHLomH7BHLSr6Bzb7

Many people have reviewed this gadget, and I am only bringing you the points that you need to know specifically before investing on this earphone. As such the product is unique since it flexes saving space for packaging. It has reasonably good audio, though not loud and thumpy in terms of bass (for the reference I listen to despecable me to decide).

The price is in the correct range and being Samsung you get BYOD and Emi discounts and options. I am hating that sort of heavy-ish neckband although the heaviness is only a feeling more than reality. The tangling wires are definitely irritating and battery life is about okay for my kind of use. There is always room for improvement for this design. The good bits outweigh the bad ones and you would generally NOT be disappointed with this purchase.

If you have it and have used it extensively leave me notes what you feel about it in the comments below. I have also reviewed the Leaf ear phones which I will update shortly based on real world usage, if you want a comparison of some sort.

My next purchase is the Focal Spark Wireless BT which is on the way! Look forward to another review of that one as well on this blog.

 

A bit about the town and its famous sweet

If you have any knowledge of the place Tirunelveli, then you would also have knowledge of the fact that it is famous for a sweet originating from there, the Tirunelveli Halwa. Tirunelveli is 700 km from Chennai and if you are an avid driver, then this route is for you. A mere 85km and a one hour drive from Kanyakumari, this town boasts of the famous Tirunelveli Halwa sweet from the Iruttukadai (dark shop).

Made with Tamiraibharani water, and a secret formula, people queue up for the only 2-3 hours of time for which the shop remains open during the evening hours to gobble up all the Halwa made there. The sweet made from wheat, ghee and sugar laced with nuts is a treat to the taste buds though I must warn you that this is the most fattiest combination of ghee and sugar and is almost on the lines of Gulab Jamoon.

So what makes the Tirunelveli halwa so great in taste?

A few pointers

• It is made with Karupatti or palm jaggery (I have not used that in my preparation)


• It is made with Thamiraibharani river water (which has a high concentration of copper content)


• It is served warm on a non sticky base


• The ghee used is specific to the town in which it is made thereby making it more tasty


• It slides off the spoon right into your mouth – one of the qualities not found in other halwa preparations

Shall we make the halwa at your home?

From a long time, I wanted to take on the challenge of getting the Tirunelveli Halwa correct in terms of proportion, sweetness, taste and the preparation in general. While some people use flour, some people do not. I tried to understand what makes the sweet preparation so arduous a task. The key elements about making this preparation is not to lose focus, understand a few things properly, time the whole process and go by gut feel as compared to just reading theory. The last element of gut feel is very important as what you see in front of your eyes is more important than what is written in the book. You need to really trust your instincts more than follow a process. So I will share with you here the exact steps to get it right, and if you did secure a win – leave me a comment about your experience in the comments section below.

Recipe and cooking steps for Thirunelveli Halwa

Ingridients

Following are the ingridients for this dish

• Broken wheat – 1 cup (I used Double horse brand)


• Sugar – 3 cups (split into 2 1/2 and 1/2 cups)


• 4 cups of water for wheat


• 1 cup and 1 tbsp water for sugar (for 2 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup sugar respectively)


• Cashew nuts to taste – slightly warmed up in ghee


• Pure Ghee (I used GRB ghee from TamilNadu since the dish itself is from that state)

Utensils

Normally I do not discuss utensils, but sometimes it is a matter of anxiety to many people who are not familiar with cooking. It is always better to use something that makes you comfortable. For this recipe, thankfully you need a minimal amount of utensils. They are shown below – 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1hV6QJyaB9NbXtUH7

• a deep cooking vessel, non-stick preferably for the final dish,
• a smaller vessel to caramelise 1/2 cup of sugar
• two tall glasses with handles preferably
• measuring spoons and cups – the standard ones available in all shops

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wm7Yom3qtNrHj4Vt8

• fine sieve for filtering
• few teaspoons for normal use
• wooden spatula for mixing and stirring

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SJknWvtFysQR1zwB7

Recipe

All you have to do now is follow the steps below exactly as specified:

1. Take one cup of broken wheat (or samba godhumai) and immerse into sufficient water in the non stick vessel
2. Keep it soaked for exactly 8 hours – its best if you leave it at 11pm in the night so by about 7am in the morning its ready to be used
3. In the morning start compressing the wheat with your hands to bring out the wheat milk within – once you are sure the milk has come out, put it through the sieve and filter the milk into the glass shown above
4. Add water again to the wheat and compress it again to bring out the milk again to fill up the second glass. You can stop this exercise when you find that no more milk comes out or it has turned watery. Remember to send it through the sieve to the glass (filter it)
5. Leave the two glasses as is for anywhere between 2-3 hours to allow the white wheat milk to settle down to the bottom of the glass. Once done and you see that the water is clear at the top, empty the water out keeping the white sediments still in the glass and top up both the glasses with 4 cups of water in total (2+2) and leave it for a while more. This step is important to remove the raw smell of wheat from the preparation
6. Roast some cashew nuts in ghee mildly and keep them aside for later
7. Put 1/2 cup in the smaller vessel and 2 1/2 cups sugar in the bigger vessel
8. For the 1/2 cup sugar add 1 tbsp water, for the 2 1/2 cup sugar add one cup water
9. We need to heat the smaller vessel until the sugar caramelises. The indication for this will be that the sugar will start to heat and bubble up, the moment you see pale yellow colour reduce the heat, stir it and check if it is turning brown. Sometimes you need to even take it off the stove to check the colour. For me it took something like five minutes to see the pale yellow colour darkening by the minute. So when you find it good enough, switch off the heat. Remember, if you heat it too much the sugar will come out burnt and the whole 1/2 cup of sugary liquid is a waste and will have to be redone.
10. The reason for doing step 9, is to get natural colouring for the halwa which is one of its strong points. 
11. In parallel, start heating the 2 1/2 cup sugar + 1 cup water – keep the heat to a minimum to start with stirring the vessel with spatula often. Once the liquid sugar attains a reasonable heat, pour the 1/2 cup caramelized sugar liquid into the bigger bowl. Tip: Pour some fresh water in the smaller container and heat it up again so that the sugar syrup does not harden and stick to the sides of the vessel, its a pain to clean
12. You need to now stir the bigger vessel until the sugar syrup starts to thicken. “Siru Kambi padam” is the terminology used to determine if the time is ripe for next step. What it means is you need to stir until the syrup becomes like a string when you expand it between your fingers. Tip: this is a hot preparation so this is pretty much not possible – trust your instincts on when you feel the syrup has become stringy enough, do not overheat at any point in time
13. Basically when the sugar syrup thickens to a decent level and you can still stir it, add the wheat milk left over in the glasses to the vessel. From this point on it is a do-observe-repeat cycle.
14. At this point if you smell the concoction, it will not smell like a halwa preparation – there would be a raw smell around it, but you need to trust yourself here a lot and continue stirring. 
15. The whole stirring process will take 1.5 hours from here – it is extremely arduous but well worth it. 
16. We need to add ghee to this mixture now. Many people have a disagreement on how much ghee to add. Some say you need to add so much ghee that it starts bubbling out after a while when the mixture thickens. Some also say you must add ghee every ten minutes once. But I did it differently.
17. Keep adding 1 tbsp ghee every 5-7 minutes until you see that the ghee is being absorbed. Typically 7-8 tbsp of ghee will easily be absorbed. After this it is upto you if you wish to add more ghee. There is nothing wrong with it as it will come out after a while by itself. Tip: Never stop stirring the mixture since if it solidifies you can put an end to your experiment.
18. At some point the whole mixture starts to thicken, but you still cannot lift it in bulk using the spatula. Ensure to stir it thoroughly – bring the portions of the bottom to the top and vice versa – swirl!
19. As we further do it, the mixture begins to exhibit more and more strings and sugary glass like structure, keep stirring more and more while adding 1 tbsp ghee every 5 minutes or so.
20. When mixture begins to become really solid to the extent that you can now lift it with the spatula in much larger chunks than earlier it is time to add cashew nuts.
21. Around this time the ghee starts to bubble out of the halwa and the whole mixture has reduced from 3/4th of the vessel to 1/3rd of the vessel. 
22. After a total of 1.5 hours since the start the halwa is made, the raw smell is gone and the smell of tirunelveli halwa is all over the air. 
23. Leave the mixture to settle down a bit, switch off the heat, take some rest from all the stirring.
24. Serve the halwa either in cups, or on plantain leaves. The halwa melts in your mouth!

Images to guide you

Initial heating of 2 1/2 cups of sugar into a stringy syrup

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tkMMJ9nViX2BxLqq9

When the syrup reaches 1/2 the vessel with stirring – as you can see I already added the cashews – it didn’t matter

https://photos.app.goo.gl/y2UQ2QgH9rAafZYD9

Here you can see that after a while more of adding ghee and stirring well, the glass like look is showing up on the surface

https://photos.app.goo.gl/h3Qkq3FRrynJ4sQy6

The finished product at 1/3 rd of initial quantity. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K4RpsfkPduWvEbHo8

To conclude

Nothing is hard to learn. Even the most difficult recipe to achieve can be accurately got with focus on what you are doing, when you are doing which step and a keen eye for actuals rather than theory.

Look in front of you on how the product is shaping up and if you feel something is wrong set it right quickly – you are dealing with products melting under heat and you have one chance to get it right.

The good news though is – IT’S EASY!!

If you liked this post try it at home and share me your comments on how you vowed people around you!

A bit about the town and its famous sweet

If you have any knowledge of the place Tirunelveli, then you would also have knowledge of the fact that it is famous for a sweet originating from there, the Tirunelveli Halwa. Tirunelveli is 700 km from Chennai and if you are an avid driver, then this route is for you. A mere 85km and a one hour drive from Kanyakumari, this town boasts of the famous Tirunelveli Halwa sweet from the Iruttukadai (dark shop).

Made with Tamiraibharani water, and a secret formula, people queue up for the only 2-3 hours of time for which the shop remains open during the evening hours to gobble up all the Halwa made there. The sweet made from wheat, ghee and sugar laced with nuts is a treat to the taste buds though I must warn you that this is the most fattiest combination of ghee and sugar and is almost on the lines of Gulab Jamoon.

So what makes the Tirunelveli halwa so great in taste?

A few pointers

• It is made with Karupatti or palm jaggery (I have not used that in my preparation)


• It is made with Thamiraibharani river water (which has a high concentration of copper content)


• It is served warm on a non sticky base


• The ghee used is specific to the town in which it is made thereby making it more tasty


• It slides off the spoon right into your mouth – one of the qualities not found in other halwa preparations

Shall we make the halwa at your home?

From a long time, I wanted to take on the challenge of getting the Tirunelveli Halwa correct in terms of proportion, sweetness, taste and the preparation in general. While some people use flour, some people do not. I tried to understand what makes the sweet preparation so arduous a task. The key elements about making this preparation is not to lose focus, understand a few things properly, time the whole process and go by gut feel as compared to just reading theory. The last element of gut feel is very important as what you see in front of your eyes is more important than what is written in the book. You need to really trust your instincts more than follow a process. So I will share with you here the exact steps to get it right, and if you did secure a win – leave me a comment about your experience in the comments section below.

Recipe and cooking steps for Thirunelveli Halwa

Ingridients

Following are the ingridients for this dish

• Broken wheat – 1 cup (I used Double horse brand)


• Sugar – 3 cups (split into 2 1/2 and 1/2 cups)


• 4 cups of water for wheat


• 1 cup and 1 tbsp water for sugar (for 2 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup sugar respectively)


• Cashew nuts to taste – slightly warmed up in ghee


• Pure Ghee (I used GRB ghee from TamilNadu since the dish itself is from that state)

Utensils

Normally I do not discuss utensils, but sometimes it is a matter of anxiety to many people who are not familiar with cooking. It is always better to use something that makes you comfortable. For this recipe, thankfully you need a minimal amount of utensils. They are shown below – 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1hV6QJyaB9NbXtUH7

• a deep cooking vessel, non-stick preferably for the final dish,
• a smaller vessel to caramelise 1/2 cup of sugar
• two tall glasses with handles preferably
• measuring spoons and cups – the standard ones available in all shops

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wm7Yom3qtNrHj4Vt8

• fine sieve for filtering
• few teaspoons for normal use
• wooden spatula for mixing and stirring

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SJknWvtFysQR1zwB7

Recipe

All you have to do now is follow the steps below exactly as specified:

1. Take one cup of broken wheat (or samba godhumai) and immerse into sufficient water in the non stick vessel
2. Keep it soaked for exactly 8 hours – its best if you leave it at 11pm in the night so by about 7am in the morning its ready to be used
3. In the morning start compressing the wheat with your hands to bring out the wheat milk within – once you are sure the milk has come out, put it through the sieve and filter the milk into the glass shown above
4. Add water again to the wheat and compress it again to bring out the milk again to fill up the second glass. You can stop this exercise when you find that no more milk comes out or it has turned watery. Remember to send it through the sieve to the glass (filter it)
5. Leave the two glasses as is for anywhere between 2-3 hours to allow the white wheat milk to settle down to the bottom of the glass. Once done and you see that the water is clear at the top, empty the water out keeping the white sediments still in the glass and top up both the glasses with 4 cups of water in total (2+2) and leave it for a while more. This step is important to remove the raw smell of wheat from the preparation
6. Roast some cashew nuts in ghee mildly and keep them aside for later
7. Put 1/2 cup in the smaller vessel and 2 1/2 cups sugar in the bigger vessel
8. For the 1/2 cup sugar add 1 tbsp water, for the 2 1/2 cup sugar add one cup water
9. We need to heat the smaller vessel until the sugar caramelises. The indication for this will be that the sugar will start to heat and bubble up, the moment you see pale yellow colour reduce the heat, stir it and check if it is turning brown. Sometimes you need to even take it off the stove to check the colour. For me it took something like five minutes to see the pale yellow colour darkening by the minute. So when you find it good enough, switch off the heat. Remember, if you heat it too much the sugar will come out burnt and the whole 1/2 cup of sugary liquid is a waste and will have to be redone.
10. The reason for doing step 9, is to get natural colouring for the halwa which is one of its strong points. 
11. In parallel, start heating the 2 1/2 cup sugar + 1 cup water – keep the heat to a minimum to start with stirring the vessel with spatula often. Once the liquid sugar attains a reasonable heat, pour the 1/2 cup caramelized sugar liquid into the bigger bowl. Tip: Pour some fresh water in the smaller container and heat it up again so that the sugar syrup does not harden and stick to the sides of the vessel, its a pain to clean
12. You need to now stir the bigger vessel until the sugar syrup starts to thicken. “Siru Kambi padam” is the terminology used to determine if the time is ripe for next step. What it means is you need to stir until the syrup becomes like a string when you expand it between your fingers. Tip: this is a hot preparation so this is pretty much not possible – trust your instincts on when you feel the syrup has become stringy enough, do not overheat at any point in time
13. Basically when the sugar syrup thickens to a decent level and you can still stir it, add the wheat milk left over in the glasses to the vessel. From this point on it is a do-observe-repeat cycle.
14. At this point if you smell the concoction, it will not smell like a halwa preparation – there would be a raw smell around it, but you need to trust yourself here a lot and continue stirring. 
15. The whole stirring process will take 1.5 hours from here – it is extremely arduous but well worth it. 
16. We need to add ghee to this mixture now. Many people have a disagreement on how much ghee to add. Some say you need to add so much ghee that it starts bubbling out after a while when the mixture thickens. Some also say you must add ghee every ten minutes once. But I did it differently.
17. Keep adding 1 tbsp ghee every 5-7 minutes until you see that the ghee is being absorbed. Typically 7-8 tbsp of ghee will easily be absorbed. After this it is upto you if you wish to add more ghee. There is nothing wrong with it as it will come out after a while by itself. Tip: Never stop stirring the mixture since if it solidifies you can put an end to your experiment.
18. At some point the whole mixture starts to thicken, but you still cannot lift it in bulk using the spatula. Ensure to stir it thoroughly – bring the portions of the bottom to the top and vice versa – swirl!
19. As we further do it, the mixture begins to exhibit more and more strings and sugary glass like structure, keep stirring more and more while adding 1 tbsp ghee every 5 minutes or so.
20. When mixture begins to become really solid to the extent that you can now lift it with the spatula in much larger chunks than earlier it is time to add cashew nuts.
21. Around this time the ghee starts to bubble out of the halwa and the whole mixture has reduced from 3/4th of the vessel to 1/3rd of the vessel. 
22. After a total of 1.5 hours since the start the halwa is made, the raw smell is gone and the smell of tirunelveli halwa is all over the air. 
23. Leave the mixture to settle down a bit, switch off the heat, take some rest from all the stirring.
24. Serve the halwa either in cups, or on plantain leaves. The halwa melts in your mouth!

Images to guide you

Initial heating of 2 1/2 cups of sugar into a stringy syrup

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tkMMJ9nViX2BxLqq9

When the syrup reaches 1/2 the vessel with stirring – as you can see I already added the cashews – it didn’t matter

https://photos.app.goo.gl/y2UQ2QgH9rAafZYD9

Here you can see that after a while more of adding ghee and stirring well, the glass like look is showing up on the surface

https://photos.app.goo.gl/h3Qkq3FRrynJ4sQy6

The finished product at 1/3 rd of initial quantity. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K4RpsfkPduWvEbHo8

To conclude

Nothing is hard to learn. Even the most difficult recipe to achieve can be accurately got with focus on what you are doing, when you are doing which step and a keen eye for actuals rather than theory.

Look in front of you on how the product is shaping up and if you feel something is wrong set it right quickly – you are dealing with products melting under heat and you have one chance to get it right.

The good news though is – IT’S EASY!!

If you liked this post try it at home and share me your comments on how you vowed people around you!

As the driver took us into Dhanushkodi town, we could see the effects of mother nature that had wrecked the town so badly. If you have already not read about the Pamban Bridge experience, click here to see a stunning 4K video of the famous bridge.

The Ram Sethu or the bridge made by Rama and his monkey friends and the story of how the floating stones were used to build it is also explained in another post.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6nu6CnL3ge7vJQUk9

Commutation details

We hired a 4×4 Jeep – don’t get ideas about the famous Jeep brand of cars and the iconic Wrangler type of vehicles here – this was a modified Mahindra jeep which was a barebones 4×4 – something that could get you out of the muck if you were stuck while traveling on the sands. At about some distance into Dhanushkodi you are stopped by the government checkpost beyond which you need a 4×4 to navigate the sands and reach the beach. Although the governement has lately constructed a road till the tip of the ocean now, we decided to enjoy driving in the sands.

We arranged for a vehicle back in Rameswaram and the driver brought us all the way into Dhanushkodi. It was a slow, painful vehicle and with no proper comfortable seating and about 2000-3000 rupees of rental I would NOT recommend this mode at all for others who wish to travel. Instead hire a Pajero or a fortuner 4×4 and you are into the game your way!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rGuZnmKoNC4GimBL6

Must see attractions

Dhanushkodi has a few main ruins you need to see to understand the town’s past. Having ravaged by a cyclone way back in 1964, the town lost most of what it had – the railway lines, churches and entire villages left stranded without food or water for nearly 3 days. Today’s metro man was tasked with rebuilding the Pamban Bridge within 6 months a task he took 1.5 months to complete. A shame that a person like E.Sreedharan was consulted for Kerala and Delhi metro but ignored by Bangalore metro officials. Today if you travel to Dhanushkodi, you can see the dilapidated railway lines along the roadside, a video of which you can see here.

https://youtu.be/_L6IuZg6upU

Credits : *L*Board (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5BpHPBITHxd3pYdECu2z9Q)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NATPo7HGJ1x6quFD9

When you reach the town, you can see the St.Antony’s church in complete ruins. This is now more of a photo opp place, but looking closer you can understand the destruction brought about by 250km/h winds of the cyclone of 1964. Also nearby the church one can notice the remnants of the Dhanushkodi Railway station. Not much of it is left, but these ruins take us into a past of 50 years and transports you into a time when the disaster struck. There are also the ruins of the post office and you can find one or two schools that rehabilitate villagers today.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pVWBd63m7V7CJBXd9

Other things to do there

As you go a bit further, you can see shops that sell the famous Nannari Sherbet drink (The herb ‘Sarasaparilla’, better known as ‘Nannari‘ is a wonder herb which would come in handy during summer, with its cooling medicinal property of protecting one from common summer ailments.The syrup made from this herb root is called nannari syrup). This is a must drink and you can help yourself there to beat the summer heat. Carrying lots of water is highly recommended as temperatures can go up too much during day times. We had been there during mid April when the heat had not caught up much and it was about 29-32 degrees with a real feel of a much hotter location.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JhoZC7rRYVEEq1Ks8

On your way back you can find villagers digging pits in the sand from where they derive clear and clean water which is tasty and drink worthy. We happened to stop by with a villager who was kind enough to let us taste some of the water and it was a start contrast to the salty seas nearby. This is a must stop if you have the time just to understand the technique villagers use.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KPWUNjWzgAwJYSbu5

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rCLSxqS3S85sP3Kf9

As the driver took us into Dhanushkodi town, we could see the effects of mother nature that had wrecked the town so badly. If you have already not read about the Pamban Bridge experience, click here to see a stunning 4K video of the famous bridge.

The Ram Sethu or the bridge made by Rama and his monkey friends and the story of how the floating stones were used to build it is also explained in another post.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6nu6CnL3ge7vJQUk9

Commutation details

We hired a 4×4 Jeep – don’t get ideas about the famous Jeep brand of cars and the iconic Wrangler type of vehicles here – this was a modified Mahindra jeep which was a barebones 4×4 – something that could get you out of the muck if you were stuck while traveling on the sands. At about some distance into Dhanushkodi you are stopped by the government checkpost beyond which you need a 4×4 to navigate the sands and reach the beach. Although the governement has lately constructed a road till the tip of the ocean now, we decided to enjoy driving in the sands.

We arranged for a vehicle back in Rameswaram and the driver brought us all the way into Dhanushkodi. It was a slow, painful vehicle and with no proper comfortable seating and about 2000-3000 rupees of rental I would NOT recommend this mode at all for others who wish to travel. Instead hire a Pajero or a fortuner 4×4 and you are into the game your way!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rGuZnmKoNC4GimBL6

Must see attractions

Dhanushkodi has a few main ruins you need to see to understand the town’s past. Having ravaged by a cyclone way back in 1964, the town lost most of what it had – the railway lines, churches and entire villages left stranded without food or water for nearly 3 days. Today’s metro man was tasked with rebuilding the Pamban Bridge within 6 months a task he took 1.5 months to complete. A shame that a person like E.Sreedharan was consulted for Kerala and Delhi metro but ignored by Bangalore metro officials. Today if you travel to Dhanushkodi, you can see the dilapidated railway lines along the roadside, a video of which you can see here.

https://youtu.be/_L6IuZg6upU

Credits : *L*Board (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5BpHPBITHxd3pYdECu2z9Q)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NATPo7HGJ1x6quFD9

When you reach the town, you can see the St.Antony’s church in complete ruins. This is now more of a photo opp place, but looking closer you can understand the destruction brought about by 250km/h winds of the cyclone of 1964. Also nearby the church one can notice the remnants of the Dhanushkodi Railway station. Not much of it is left, but these ruins take us into a past of 50 years and transports you into a time when the disaster struck. There are also the ruins of the post office and you can find one or two schools that rehabilitate villagers today.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pVWBd63m7V7CJBXd9

Other things to do there

As you go a bit further, you can see shops that sell the famous Nannari Sherbet drink (The herb ‘Sarasaparilla’, better known as ‘Nannari‘ is a wonder herb which would come in handy during summer, with its cooling medicinal property of protecting one from common summer ailments.The syrup made from this herb root is called nannari syrup). This is a must drink and you can help yourself there to beat the summer heat. Carrying lots of water is highly recommended as temperatures can go up too much during day times. We had been there during mid April when the heat had not caught up much and it was about 29-32 degrees with a real feel of a much hotter location.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JhoZC7rRYVEEq1Ks8

On your way back you can find villagers digging pits in the sand from where they derive clear and clean water which is tasty and drink worthy. We happened to stop by with a villager who was kind enough to let us taste some of the water and it was a start contrast to the salty seas nearby. This is a must stop if you have the time just to understand the technique villagers use.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KPWUNjWzgAwJYSbu5

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rCLSxqS3S85sP3Kf9

The story of mobile data in Bengaluru

First things first, let’s put aside some details and facts about what made me to do this test as such. I usually have at least two sim cards, sometimes four just to get an exact view of who provides good service and where in the city.

The where part is very important as one has to understand that you will not get great data speeds or great call quality everywhere in the city you live. There are a lot of factors that become the reason for this behaviour including distance from cell tower, inability to provide more cell towers or signal amplifiers due to low numbers of users in the area, etc.

Players in the comparison

So I had one sim from each provider – Reliance Jio, Airtel, Idea 4G and Vodafone. Good enough to compare LTE data or 4G data as some claim – whatever be the minor differences.

By some of the conversation and information on quora – Theoretically LTE is expected to support a speed of around 100Mbps for users in motion and around 1Gbps for stationary users. The most recent report on LTE speeds on networks worldwide shows that the Vodafone ES network in Spain was the fastest offering speeds of around 25.2Mbps on average.

4G is a replacement for 3G, and LTE is a type of 4G which is superior to normal 4G. In any case the typical speeds of 4G are about 10x that of 3G speeds.

Geographical constraints

I had two locations to measure my LTE speeds, home and office. For this blog post, the readings you will see are for the home part. My home is located next to an army area, where there are no mobile towers nearby. So the expectation is that speeds would be low in general for data. The office was a different scenario.

One location was outside the rooms, in public areas like the cafe, and the other was where I currently sit, inside the building. Again the expectation was that the former case will yield better results while the latter will yield much worse speeds due to building layouts and the likes.

Means to compare speeds

There are lots of apps available these days to help compare mobile data speeds, and each one have their own servers they use, and their own means they use to compare the speed. The popular app is speed test by Ookla which many people use for a lot of time now.

I wanted to use a mobile site which would not necessitate me to download and install apps of any kind. For this I chose FAST which is owned by Netflix. They also offer to compare with SpeedTest at the bottom of the results pages in case you so desire. Due to ease of use, it was FAST for me.

Hardware used

I have used Samsung S8, Apple iPhone 7+, and Apple iPhone SE for the measurements – all pretty decent equipment when it come to hardware. Best selling top notch phones to be precise.

Comparison test and results – who do you think is the best?

By the order of the results we see that Reliance offered 1.4 Mbps, Vodafone 3.4 Mbps, Airtel 430 Kbps, and Idea 6.2 Mbps. Some explanations and comments here while trying to understand these results.

• Reliance though on VoLTE, was pretty pathetic at 1.4 Mbps. I can go on to say I have got upto 50+ Mbps (twice of average mentioned above) at best, and once inside the office at few hundreds of Kbps at the worst. But at a location such as home without much hindrances to the signal, the data speeds achieved is nothing short of terrible. You can see that my signals showed 4/4 bars. They confirmed to me that due to low density of people using the tower at my area, they CANNOT upgrade the infrastructure.
• Vodafone have been my staple for a long time now (few years) – I particularly like their billing policies, bill details and communication. Their call quality is not particularly clear (as in HD voice) and their data was nearing between 15-20 Mbps at locations which had great signal. The signal I must mention is NOT LTE, but only 4G. At my home I had 3/4 bars of signal but still slow and terrible speeds of only 3.4 Mbps. They confirmed to me that due to low density of people using the tower at my area, they CANNOT upgrade the infrastructure.
• Our favourite Airtel next – I think of the lot I tested – the most horrible was Airtel averaging a little over 430 Kbps. Absolutely disastrous. 2/4 signal bars only worsens the prospects of having any decent speeds and the results are not surprising. The signal here was 4G, NOT LTE again.
• Now the dark horse among the participants – Idea LTE. I had heard a lot about Idea, but never really got a chance to try them out. And surprisingly hold your breath – I got a 6.2 Mbps at the same location with just 2/5 bars. Impressive. But both at home and office, their call quality was circumspect and you cannot have data but not good calls as the whole purpose of having a phone is lost if that is the case. But I understand Idea is merging with Vodafone shortly – so I already know the end result of that marriage.

Comments in conclusion

• Most operators suffer similar LTE speeds
• Higher signal bars does not mean great LTE speeds
• 4G or LTE is not seeming to make that much of difference
• Many providers are giving less than 3G speeds charging people for 4G – but this is very much dependent on mobile tower strength and density of users, among other things distance as well
• You need to find out whether there are areas where the peak LTE speeds are available and test your phone there to understand what is the maximum capacity the mobile providers would go up to.
• Using different speed measurement apps may alter your results to some extent, so use one that has a consistent way of measurement
• Buy a SIM from a provider who offers you good speeds both at home, and office besides the on the way to work in general – this is where you will spend a lot of time during your life.
• You need to also check the speeds while traveling between cities – what is good in one city maybe bad elsewhere and vice versa and if you are the constantly traveling kind of person this is another parameter to check
• Complaining to the operator may or may not resolve the issue especially if they have to boost the mobile tower reception in your area – this is a huge cost and it is not justified to the operator unless there is a return on investment for him. This will also take a lot of time typically couple of years or more to become better based on development needs in the area – how many people more are asking for connections etc.
• Building constraints such as pillars or thick walls can obstruct speeds to some extent as well. This point is a bit understated but its effects are adverse to a great degree.

So who is the winner finally in the speed test? I will not go by just the results shown here as I have conducted tests elsewhere in the city as well. I have not only used fast.com but also tried downloading mail attachments, or bigger files from same source on different connections. The idea of having good speed is generally to make the access to files, movies, and songs seamless to the extent the user does not feel the slow speeds.

And in this regard the order or mobile operators that do reasonably well are

• Reliance Jio LTE
• Idea LTE
• Vodafone 4G
• Airtel 4G

A lot can vary depending on where this test is done, ie., either in a village or a smaller town, or a place which has not so much of great connectivity. All these tests were done in Bangalore in a decent locality where all providers have their presence.

Do you feel your mileage is different ? – It would be great to hear your viewpoint, let me know in the comments below.