A Memoir - This Month Last Year - Sep 2020 www.thelifesway.com #TheLifesWay #2401Post

Hi Friends, 

September marks the start of the Spring season in Johannesburg, South Africa and everyone wants to spring clean their mind, body and spirit along with stuff lying around in their house and office space. As I was working from home since the last year so there has been a lot of reduction in paper waste as no printouts are taken unnecessarily from the office and no newspapers are being read so suddenly a lot of paper waste has been reduced. The only paper waste is in the form of payments slips and bills along with the invoices or delivery notes on the courier packages. I was collecting some of last months bills and only on 1st Sep I threw them out and it was a pile of paper. So everyday cleaning is necessary if you are not going to look at it afterwards as then it wastes a lot of your time checking which one you want to keep for claims purposes and which you don't want. 

1. @1MoreAfrica #ColorBuds True Wireless In-Ear Headphones #1More #HearMore - https://www.thelifesway.com/2020/09/thelifeswayreviews-1moreafrica.html - Last year I received these amazing earbuds from ColorBuds from 1More Africa via Syntech South Africa. I totally loved using them and now my wife is using them. If they are able to survive my wife's mishandling then they can survive anything. Last I checked they were working fine so it's a solid product for day to day use from 1More Africa. Highly recommended if your budget is not high and you want a good quality product. 

2. @InstaxA #miniLink Smartphone Printer #InstaxSA @FUJIFILM_SA #ProductReview - https://www.thelifesway.com/2020/09/thelifeswayreviews-instaxa-minilink.html - Instax Portable Cameras and printers are very popular in the youngsters and I also loved this miniLink which allows you to print your smartphone or DSLR images in high quality on an Instax film. I totally loved creating them using the built-in templates in the smartphone app provided with this printer available to download from Apple Store and Google Playstore. This is one product I have my eyes on to get whenever it's on sale. 

3. #TheLifesWayReviews - @Lenovo_Africa Thinkbook 13s #LenovoThinkbook13s #ProductReview - https://www.thelifesway.com/2020/09/thelifeswayreviews-lenovoafrica.html - Lenovo sent their thinkbook for review and it was really a powerful device to enjoy. I really loved using the same for two weeks. 

4. Hot New Soft Drinks From #MoFaya @MofayaDrinks - https://www.thelifesway.com/2020/09/hot-new-soft-drinks-from-mofaya.html - South Africa has some new cold drinks launched under the Mofaya brand name and I am still using the face mask given by them. Cold drinks were finished in no time during the last year's lockdown. 

5. A Memoir - This Month Last Year - Aug 2019 www.thelifesway.com #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra

A Memoir - This Month Last Year - Sep 2019 www.thelifesway.com #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra - 

Memoirs are a really great way to connect the dots in your lives and you can always see them when you remember your past. I really love writing and thinking about these posts as I continue to remember my famous 5 posts in all these posts. 

This September I await some of the important deliveries and some of the devices I am reviewing needs to be shared via the blog posts too. Look out for the reviews on my social media channels. This is my 2401th blog post and soon by the time we celebrate our 9th anniversary of TheLife'sWay, we will have 2500 blog posts. Let's focus on clearing all the pending stuff I have in my internal museum so that it can be given away to the winners of the contests I am going to hold on my channels. 

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

8 Years of www.TheLifesWay.com #TheLifesWay #BlogAnniversary #8YearsofTheLifesWay #2222Post

Hi Friends, 

1 Dream to make The Life's Way a brand to reckon with!

8th Blog Anniversary on 27th December 2020 

2.86 Million Pageviews Achieved on 2222 Blog Posts

Reached Local Guides Level 9 Top Contributor in Johannesburg, South Africa

26 Million Photo Views Achieved on Google Maps with 10550 Photos

186k Views on 201 Reviews Posted for Google Maps #LetsGuide #LocalGuides

Posted 75 Videos on The Life's Way - Youtube Channel

235 minutes of new content

6192 likes on the videos

159,785 minutes watch time by viewers

315,249 views in 2020

Crossed 700+ Subscribers and gained 576 subscribers in 2020

#TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra

Thousands of photos on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Thanks to everyone who contributed and collaborated in the growth of The Life's Way! 

2020 has been an internal and external struggle between myself and the brands who were not providing me with any value in terms of any invites, review units or media or press drops or sponsored gadgets from time to time. Internal struggle in terms of heartbreaks I did of the executives working for the various PR companies who have been in constant touch with me for multiple years but didn't realize that I could say No. External struggle in terms of some of the brands taking my name off their lists of press releases and other invites whatsoever or anything happenings around their products. 

Meanwhile, I took out all the thousands of posts done for many brands in the mid of 2020 but then at the end of 2020, I thought that I have done all the hard work to put them on my blog so why take them down. It's bringing me some traffic and if the brand notices this then it will be a favour from my end to them considering my heart is bigger than them. Thought this kind of emotional atyachaar is not valued in the business world but I am an emotional fool. 

The biggest moment of my life was getting to meet Technical Guruji at Delhi Airport in Jan 2020

Let's start on the achievements and gratefulness for the gadgets and products received during 2020 even when it was lockdown for most of the part in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sometimes in life, you just have to ask the universe or the person in charge of something you desire and wants to have in your life. My first such experience came through when I asked the Huawei PR company for FreeBuds 3 and out of the blue they told me that we can give you one to blog about and keep also. I just picked up the same before the lockdown started in Johannesburg from their office. Many thanks and the same has been my partner in crime since the whole year or so. 

Huawei FreeBuds3 in Red

Similarly, I have been eyeing a great audio product from 1More called Stylish earbuds but they told me that a new one is coming on the market soon and you can review that one. I waited for some time and when the lockdown opened for the courier to start delivering - I received this awesome device called 1More ColorBuds which also my wife and I am using on a daily basis. She is using it more for her morning and evening walks and yoga exercises and I am only using it to attend to some office calls on MS Teams. 

1More ColorBuds

This year I joined the Huawei Developers Program and received some goodies from them from time to time by participating in their contests and attending their development sessions throughout the year. From t-shirts to pen drives to mugs to some of their most sought after products, you can win them all. I won some of the audio speakers I always wanted to have and also one of the Huawei Band 4e for my daughter just before her birthday. 

I upgraded myself from Samsung Note 8 (Bought from Amazon India in 2018) to Note 20 this year and it was a great feeling. I still feel that the camera on the Note 8 is better as compared to the Note 20 but thanks to Samsung for always creating new devices. This year I got invited to their online launch event after a gap of at least 3 years and got to eat some of the great snacks and drinks and check out the various products on display at their office. 

I also started using the Canon EOS M50 camera for shooting my youtube content and felt so great to become one of the vloggers in the world who trust their M50 to the core. Most of the videos on my Youtube channel as well as my daughter's Keisha Youtube channel are shot using the M50 camera. If you have not followed me on the channel, please hit the Subscribe button.

The photo was taken using Vivo Mobile X50 Pro

vivo Mobile send me their X50 Pro Smartphone for review and also one of their new Neo TWS earphones which are still not used by me and will be unboxed in 2021 on my youtube channel. I totally loved the smartphone and wanted to hold onto the same but the budgets were not there to sponsor me the same. My wife wants to own the phone which I will gift her after buying it from India as the price difference is really huge and it's almost half the price there. 

26th Jan 2020 was the day when we met again after a long gap of many years since our MBA together!

After a gap of many years, Montecasino sponsored my 40th birthday dinner at one of my favourite restaurants named Thava Indian Restaurant and I had a quiet lovely delicious dinner with my family during the lockdown restrictions were relaxed. I also got the chance to join various other dinner and lunch events by Dine Jozi Style - Edward and enjoy some of the great evenings in the great company of like-minded people. 

My best friend since June 1997 first day of Engineering College

I also got to do some of the sponsored posts for Mattel which Keisha did on her Youtube channel and if you like her videos and wants to send her products to review do send me an email and we can feature your products and toys. 

My first time to Golden Temple in Amritsar in Jan 2020

We also visited India in Jan 2020 and had an awesome trip in Dubai (Feb 2020) on our return where we got to see the famous sightseeing points in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I really enjoyed it but we didn't shop as 4 days is too little to go on a shopping spree in Dubai if you are a first time visitor. My brother too flew in from California and he hired a Land Cruiser Prado which made roaming around in Dubai much easier. 

At the end of the year, for the first time in the life of The Life's Way - I received the Christmas Gifts from Samsung in terms of Galaxy Buds Live and from Huawei too in terms of Huawei Watch GT2e which are going to my daily devices in 2021. I still have to unbox them and start enjoying which I am planning to do it on the 8th anniversary day of my blog i.e. 27th December 2020. Before this, I only received a Christmas gift from Montecasino once long ago maybe in 2015 which were some gingerbread snacks and a soft toy. 

Thanks to all of the readers, brands and PR companies for trusting me with your products and services. I hope I have been able to do justice to them. I look forward to a great 2021 for my blog and youtube channel and will focus on getting the niche which is Lifestyle and Technology. Have a great festive season and a Merry Christmas and wishing you all a great Happy New Year 2021!

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

ColorBuds Brings a Musically Colorful Experience to Your Ears @1MoreAfrica #ColorBuds #HearMore #ProductReview

Hi Friends, 

Luck plays a lot of role in your life and when Universe is happy - you get more of the same or in the language of the law of attraction, you attract those things more and more. I remember the first time I bought my wired earphones, I was looking at the budget and especially the shape of the product too as I didn't want the old looking shape which was quite popular long back in 2007 or so.

In the last, 13 years I have owned a lot and seen the earphones/headphones go from wired to wireless to each earbuds operating separately and doing so many functions at the touch of your hands. The Bluetooth wireless earbuds industry has expanded like anything and a lot of new players have established themselves by giving great products to the customers who believe in them while attracting many more via word of mouth and reviews of the products. 

I too have been part of this industry as I kept on investing in a lot of earbuds and headphones from time to time and since last year I have been trying to get hold of the brand named 1More who also excelled in marketing their products on social media platforms which really caught my attention. After pursuing them for about a year or so for their Stylish Earbuds, I finally received these 1More ColorBuds - the new upgraded model in the True Wireless In-ear headphones category for this review and to enjoy them on my day to day living afterward. I am so grateful to the Syntech SA for sending the same and for introducing me to the world of 1MORE Audio products. 

Coming back to the product in hand, 1More ColorBuds, comes in these 4 stylish colors from Midnight Black, Twilight Gold, Sakura Pink, and Spearmint Green that not only fit easily in your ears but also give great audio performance too. Let's take you through all the features which I totally fell in love with and also thought to be considered with the firmware upgrade or in the next editions of the earphones. 

1. Packaging - The first thing which attracts anyone or the youngsters is the packaging when they first see the product range on the aisle of the electronics and music shops like Musica or specialty stores like Incredible Connection. When I opened the packet for the first time, I immediately felt the packaging quality to be good, and also the outside print matches the earbuds color you are buying. I received them in Midnight Black color and the packaging showed the same too. The package contains the charging case, earbuds left and right side, 3 pairs of extra silicone tips (XS, S, L), a USB Type C charging cable, and a special sticker along with the instruction manuals. 

2. Charging Case - As you further delve into the package, you will get to the charging case, and looking at the size you will feel that somehow the earbuds are missing and this is not it, you will not believe the size and form factor of the case can give such a great output to last around 22 hours on a single charge. Sometimes, I feel that I have lost the case in my jeans pockets because of it's silky, glossy feel that I didn't even realize that they are still there. The case weight is only 33 grams and along with both the buds its around 41 grams. Moreover, the case comes with the new USB Type-C which is really helpful as I can charge the same using any of my smartphone cables which are already plugged in on my table forever. The charging case also has a LED showing how much left is the case battery capacity as you open the case cover. Red means low, orange means medium, and green indicates full battery. The case sends out several Red LED alerts when you put the earbuds pack to show that it's low in battery or also when you take them out but it seems I have missed them all as I directly take the earbuds out and start enjoying the audiobooks as I am always on this mission to complete them. The charging case also has a pairing button inside the case between the space between the earbuds which also does certain functions of paring and resetting the earbuds from various smartphones. 

3. Earbuds Design - The case contains the earbuds which are marked to go into the particular side of the ears. The buds are really lightweight with each measuring only 4.1grams and have a rubbery/silicon side touching your ears along with the noise-isolating earbuds entering your ear canals. The best part is earbuds turn automatically ON as you take them out of the case. Similarly, when you put them back in the case and close the lid, they start charging via the charging case built-in battery.  I didn't face any problem of falling them out of the ears in any of the totals of 60-75kms of daily walks/running done with them since I started using them. The only little thing I faced is silicon earbuds getting retracted and immediately coming back to the original position because of their elasticity while taking out of my ears and I am sure that is because I never switched the same to the other buds for the right size as I felt these Medium one great too in my ears. 

The earbuds come with IPX5 water and sweat resistance so you can easily wear them to the gym, running, and walks but not swimming ofcourse. The earbuds also have an infra-red sensor that helps in the Smart Playback feature which can be enabled via the app and when you take them out it stops the music playback immediately and automatically starts it once they are secured in your ears again. The touch panels on the earbuds are really responsive and do what you intend to do with the right amount of taps. The earbuds also have a microphone for environmental noise reduction as well as a talking mic for all your audio phone calls and virtual meetings on Zoom and MS Teams too. The earbuds has 3 pin charging points that settles on the tips inside the case for easy touch and recharge. 

4. Battery - The charging case battery capacity is around 410mAh which can easily charge both the earbuds for around 3-3.5x times to their full capacity giving you an audio performance of around 22 hours. Both the earbuds have a battery capacity of 55mAh and last for around 6 hours in a single charge. It easily lasts all the web series I watch non-stop or as they call them binge-watch and only once I faced an issue where I had to stop and charge them for a while before moving forward and that was because I have been using the earbuds for listening to audiobooks in the morning too.  The earbuds are charged to its full capacity in around 70 minutes and charging case in around 90 minutes. Along with that 15minutes of fast charging gives you 2 hours of audio performance for sure. The low battery on the earbuds gives a video-games kind of sound notification around 10% battery. 

5. 1 MORE MUSIC Smartphone APP - The smartphone application offers many features to control the touch functions as per your choice like volume +/- or play/pause or previous track/next track or voice control which you can set amongst the double-tap or 3 times tap. Also, the app offers what touch panels on both sides of the earbuds can perform during call mode - Answer/End Call on quick double-tap. The app also shows the battery left in both the earbuds independently. Somehow the battery capacity left in the charging case is not shown which is really a spoiler for me as I never know how far I can go today without charging. The only way to overcome is to come to a point when the case is not charging the earbuds any longer looking at the dropping percentages or by opening the lid of the charging case and checking the color on the LED light on the case. Smart Playback offers auto-pause only or Auto-pause/play feature along with no smart playback which is the default. It is really great when you put the same at auto-pause and play as it even paused and starts the youtube videos too and not only music or audiobooks. 

6. Connectivity - The Bluetooth 5.0 offers various Bluetooth protocols like HFP, A2DP, and AVRCP which really gives a top-notch audio connection to your enabled devices. The aptX/AAC HD Bluetooth offers great lossless sound quality so you are getting what you are paying for and much more than that. I could easily walk between rooms and still, it stayed connected to the smartphone but more than 10m the connection starts to go. Individual Earbuds can be connected to different smartphones, can be reset to connect to a single smartphone, and can be unpaired from the previous smartphones. Qualcomm chip helps to have a stable connection between the device and the earbuds. The Bluetooth pairing is really easy using the pairing button on the charging case. 

7. Audio Quality - Coming to the audio performance of the ColorBuds, I really fell in love with the balanced sound along with the right kind of bass. I loved listening to all the Bollywood songs I really admire and listen to them again and again on these pair of earbuds. The audiobooks I listened too I could go up to 2x times the speed and could listen to all the spoken words clearly. Even the web series or youtube videos, I generally watch at 1.5x speed and the audio performance is good there too. Voice clarity is really good along with the audio performance of these 1More ColorBuds. The audio quality is really great considering the price range of around USD99 or R1849 on the website. The lows, mids, and high frequencies are all clear and there is bass too for those who loves it more. The only thing I missed is the EQ inside the 1More Music App to control the treble and bass as per my needs. The speaker impedance is 22 Ohms and is equipped with a full-range balanced armature driver to provide great audio performance. 

8. Call Quality - I received a lot of questions from my readers that how is the call quality on these Color Buds and I checked them on WhatsApp audio and video call and then went ahead and checked them on MS Teams audio call. I also checked them on the general network call and didn't find any problems on the same. Also, it significantly reduces the outside noise during the call and the audio is loud and clear. It is done using the 4 microhones on the earbuds combined with cVc 8.0 environmental noise cancellation technology. 

Other than the topics mentioned and covered above there are several other things you can use these 1More ColorBuds for as per your choice. The product comes with a 1 Year Limited Warranty too. The firmware can be updated using the smartphone app. These are the pair of earbuds in the wide range of products to choose from as these really offer something unique in terms of design and performance and features. Check them out at a store near you or order them online from the 1More Africa website and do follow them on their social media platforms.

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!