Samsung Galaxy Buds Live - Beans At It's Musically Best #ProductReview @SamsungMobileSA #GalaxyBudsLive

Hi Friends, 

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live has a unique shape and since the launch event on 5-Aug-2020 I wanted to have them in my kitty and it came true on Christmas 2020 when Samsung South Africa sent me an annual gift for the first time for all the support I did for the brand on my blog posts. I was really happy to receive the same in Mystic Bronze colour and grateful to Samsung for fulfilling my untold wish. 

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live design amazed the world with its unique iconic design and immediately after the launch event, people started mapping it to various shapes especially kidney beans. When the whole world is travelling the stem earphones route, Samsung broke the barriers for a new shape never seen before. I really love the comfort and fit Buds Live brings to my ears with its ergonomic design. The next thing is the bling that Mystic Bronze colour brings and the people immediately recognizes that these are Samsung Galaxy Buds Live. With a glossy finish on one end, the earbuds are packaged in a jewellery-box styled square charging case with 50mm length and breadth and the height of the box is around 28mm which is really great to open and close. The magnets are strong and keep the earbuds secure even if you try to shake the open case. It also comes in Mystic White and Mystic Black colour which I have not seen much because everyone wants this Mystic Bronze I think. Also, there are no buttons anywhere on the case and earbuds are touch-sensitive so everything is controlled via the Galaxy Wearables app or the touch. More about the app in the review later on. 

Instead of having silicone earbuds, Galaxy Buds Live has wingtips sizes (1 extra in the pack along with a USB type C charging cable) coming in the package that also secures in your ears. I never faced a problem of them falling even if I am running but may happen if you touching them, again and again, to increase/decrease the volume or to change songs etc. If you are touching them with force, also you need to adjust them so that they don't fall. The earbuds only weigh 5.6 grams and the charging case is 42.2 grams. The battery capacity of each earbud is 60mAh and the case has 472mAh of reserved power which charges the buds around 3.5 times fully. The Galaxy Buds Live are fast charging enabled where 5 minutes of charging can provide for 60 minutes of playback. As per Samsung, each earbud can last for 6 hours of continuous playback of music with ANC off and the charging case will provide for 15 hours totalling 21 hours in a single charge. The case has wireless charging where you can charge the earbuds using the Galaxy smartphone with wireless reverse charging. 

Each earbud has 12mm speakers with sound by AKG not forgetting that part to bring you a whole range of frequencies to cover low to high clear notes. The earbuds also have a bass duct to get that dhinchak effect in your ears. Air vents provide the necessary space to reduce blockage and putting unnecessary pressure on your ears. The earbuds also have 3 built-in mics - the glossy end has 2 and one on the rear side touching your ears along with a voice pickup unit. This setup takes the vibrations from your jaws to enhance the sound quality when you are on call etc. The touch on the earbuds is really responsive and can work even if you are wearing a buff as in South Africa, many people use Buff as their face mask. I use a buff to keep my neck covered during winters and sometimes takes it up to cover my ears too. Overall, Galaxy Buds Live has around 7 sensors which include an accelerometer, IR, hall, touch, grip, gyro and voice pickup unit. A single tap play and pause track, double-tap can play next track or can be used to answer or end the call, triple tap play previous track whereas touch and hold can be customized to users choice (ANC, Bixby, Volume up/down, Spotify) or to decline the call. 

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live also comes with ANC i.e. Active Noise Cancellation in an open type earbuds design. ANC provides some kind of isolation to your ears but you have to wear both earbuds to enable the ANC feature. There is a sound made every time you switch ON or OFF the ANC. Also, it only provides the basic ANC and is not as strong as you might expect from the in-ear earbuds because they already isolate a lot of noise using the earbuds stem going into the ears canals. In Galaxy BudsLive the ANC switches off very little noise from the surroundings but depending on where you are using them, it will provide some form of noise cancellation and will have ambient noise coming to you too. There is no way in the app to control the level of ANC as seen in the newer versions of Galaxy Buds. 

All wireless earbuds need seamless connections between all the devices you use your earbuds on and Buds Live has Bluetooth v5.0 supporting A2DP, AVRCP, HFP and I didn't face any problem in connecting them to my laptop, Galaxy smartphone as well as the other branded smartphones. The earbuds are compatible with Android v5.0 onwards and iOS 10 upwards.  

Let's talk about all the features available in the Samsung Galaxy Wearable app from where you can control these kidney beans shaped earbuds. Touch controls can be set to 4 options - ANC, Bixby, Volume Up/Down, Spotify. You can also block the touch completely in case you want to and in that case all controls need to be done via the paired device. The equalizers that are present in settings are 6 - Normal, Bass Boost, Soft, Dynamic, Clear and Treble Boost. Find my earbuds is another feature that helps you find them as earbuds start making chirpy sounds if one or both are lost somewhere under your sofa and are still able to get connected to the main device. Labs provide the gaming mode which really minimises the audio delay for a great gaming sound experience. It also has an option to relieve the pressure with ambient sound to ease the feeling of compression when wearing the earbuds without the ANC feature ON. 

In the end, I started using them as soon I received them and totally fell in love with the design and quality of the earbuds. I totally loved the features as BudsLive was the first one of the whole series that I received as I had never used the Buds or Buds+ earlier in my life. Buds and Buds+ are still something I have never used but I have used the Samsung uFlex headsets (over the neck). I found the dynamic equalizer for my taste to listen to all the Bollywood music and other audiobooks and even during watching web series etc on Galaxy Buds Live. Though it didn't have the ambient noise feature of the previous generation but due to its comfortable size and fit, you will be able to listen to the other person voice with some kind of concentration and music being stopped. I have used them continuously while trying to complete all the episodes of various web series in a single go and easily lasted me for around 5 hours of non-stop audio. The case keeps providing power to make earbuds reach 100% while its battery decreases over time but I found that I didn't need to charge them for around a week based on all my listenings. 

I have stopped using the earbuds as much because I didn't walk for many months in the evenings due to being Corona Postive and weakness thereafter but I used them to connect to my laptop to attend office teams calls and other WhatsApp calls. Also, I never took them to the road when I used to go for long walks as anyone can easily recognize them and may try to snatch and grab so I never took that risk. I found that my voice goes clearly to the person I am talking to and these are really great for your day to day use. Overall, I am very happy with the performance of Galaxy BudsLive and this will remain in my Tech Museum for their unique design and for being the first of the Galaxy Buds series which I used in my life. I have always longed for Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Icon and many other released before these but finally, my draught was fulfilled by Samsung for the Farewell 2020 gifts. Thanks to Samsung South Africa for this lovely gift in Mystic Bronze colour. If you have any queries on these earbuds, please do connect with me on Youtube comments or you can comment here too. 

Cheers!!!

Contact Aashish Rai Jain at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your brand, services and products. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Follow me on www.instagram.com/thelifesway for all travel-related photo posts and subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel too. Namaste! 

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@HuaweiZA Watch GT Active #HuaweiWatchGT #ProductReview

Hi Friends, 

Huawei sponsored me this Huawei Watch GT Active (46 mm) last year in May 2019 when I planned to practice and walk the 25km in the MTN Walk The Talk 702 Race in the month of July 2019. I felt great and very happy to be getting this brand new Huawei Watch GT at that time and started using the same immediately. I was able to finish 29kms on the day of the race from the car park to and fro and then attended a birthday party and going to the office the very next day without any trouble. All thanks to the guiding force in the form of Huawei Watch GT. The watch has been with me since that time and only once in its whole life since that day failed me during the Jacaranda Spring Walk for 15km in Pretoria where it crashed at the 14th kilometer and my whole journey was not synced at all to the smartphone.

The first few days using the Huawei Watch GT

As you all know that I was using the Samsung Galaxy S2 Classic before that which I bought from Incredible Connection cyber sale and slowly the parts starting to come off and I did some jugaad to continue wearing it. Thanks to Huawei for providing me with a new watch that people not only loved but also wanted to take from me. I totally love wearing the 46mm version which looks really cool and fills your wrist and people do notice the same too. Let's check out the various features of the Huawei Watch GT Active. 

The first thing I admired the same is the actual watch after opening up the package which has the watch with the silicon strap in orange color and a Type C charging cable and charging cradle with 2 points and magnet to fit the correct side of the watch when placed on the same. It was the first time, Huawei provided me a brand new sealed or mint condition product and I felt great after all these years of posts and reviews for their products. 

The second factor was the amazing battery life of Huawei Watch GT which would totally last me for more than 14 days when I am not measuring the walks or putting the GPS ON but as I used the same to walk every day with GPS ON then the battery life come down to around 7 days and still is giving me more than 5 days of performance when I walk more than 5-6 km daily. It can be 100% charged in around 90 minutes or so. Sometimes the GPS on the watch is not able to detect the actual locations during the walks and add up those straight-line marks when you check your walk or run on the smartphone Huawei Health app. It gives you extra miles without adding any extra time to your walk making your goal appear overachieved.

The third factor is the strap and watches dial which really looks cool in the Orange colors. The body of the watch is just 46 grams without the straps which are made from metal, plastic, and ceramic. My watch is in Titanium Grey Stainless Stell version whereas there are Black Stainless steel and normal stainless steel versions also available. The screen size is 1.39 inches with AMOLED display. The strap is made of some Fluoroelastomer material which doesn't give my skin any kind of irritation to date. Though I have to clean the back daily using a soft cloth as some kind of white material sediments around the circular sensors spot. I also regularly wash the band using the soap to make it clean as dust gets deposited in the slots of the straps. The strap is of topmost quality I have ever seen in all the bands and watches I have used since Jawbone UP, Fitbit, Samsung S2 Classic, Xiaomi Band, Huawei Band, etc in the last 7 years. Only recently the band of the straps broke after a year of usage in the month of April 2020 when I did 180kms of walk in a single month - my best performance ever in my life. 

The fourth factor was that this watch is water-resistant up to 5 ATM which I never tested as I don't swim and never took it to shower. I don't want to risk the only thing I have new and once it goes to any of the repair centers it costs a lot of money to repair. I totally loved that the watch is equipped to measure your Oxygen intake and burn capacity measured using VO2Max and also measures your Aerobic Training effect after every exercise and tell you also how much time your body needs rest before your next workout.

There are several other small features that I totally love like covering the display with your palm and it gets turned off which comes handy in the night along with when you swing your hand towards your face the display lights ON to show you the necessary details. The barometer and the altitude meter features are an added advantage that I tested when I was at the highest point of South Africa at around 2150 meters above sea level on the road near Lydenburg Mountains towards Sabie in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The factors which I didn't like in the Huawei Watch GT was that it doesn't have any music player built into the same which the Samsung Gear S2 classic had along with a 4GB of memory whereas Huawei Watch GT has around 700 MB of space to install Watch faces which also was limited when I got the smartwatch but then it only allows you to install 15-20 watch faces. Now the Huawei App market has expanded and there are several new watch faces coming on a daily basis. 

The second factor was the inability to interpret that you have already started jogging or running etc as you have to specifically press certain buttons on Huawei Watch GT whereas it was automatic in Gear S2 Classic. Gear S2 seamlessly measures without even thinking about switching to any mode and it will measure your performance using AI but Huawei Watch GT has to be put on a certain mode using the buttons on the side of the watch and then it saves your walks in the walk category and runs in the run category as per your command. But still, Huawei Watch GT is not able to measure the floors climbed no matter how many stairs you are climbing but it will tell you the elevation gain in meters. The stress test is shown in the app but there is no functionality in the Watch GT to perform the same. 

The last factor is the Huawei Health App which is not advanced where you can add your friends and challenge them. It will give nice stats to show on your stories and posts but you can't earn points etc. Though you can get medals by finishing certain milestones it just looks like coins and nothing fancy about the same. Samsung Health is way advance in this matter where you get monthly targets to achieve and levels to cross. You can add all your friends using the Samsung ecosystem and challenge them and beat them to earn extra points and cross new levels. 

Overall, I am very happy with the Huawei Watch GT which is not as smart as it looks but then there are always new versions coming from the Huawei range of products. I did not receive the Huawei Watch GT 2 at the launch event which has a lot of disadvantages I mentioned taken care of with music player built into it and various other things which I can only check if I use the same. Huawei gives out these watches when you buy any of their smartphones so be prepared to receive the new versions of the watch when you are due for an upgrade and opt for the Huawei Watch GT smartwatch. RATING 3/5

Sawubona!
Contact Aashish Rai Jain at thelifesway@gmail.com or editor@thelifesway.com to send your products, launch event invites, and services to be consumed. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra #7YearsofTheLifesWay. Follow me on www.instagram.com/thelifesway for all travel-related photo posts. Namaste!

Gift Him With Lexington @Solo_NewYork Laptop Backpack #EveryDaySolo @Gammatek

Hi Friends,

Whether your friend is a computer engineer, a sportsman or just a man that likes to live life on his own terms, he is probably carrying around more than just his laptop, or rather, the laptop is just the tip of the iceberg as he usually carries phones, tools and other pieces of equipment. If this is the case, he needs a good bag to carry all he needs with him, so for his big day or just to appreciate, a good carry-it-all bag would be the perfect gift these winters.

The right bag for the job
While there are many Laptop bags out there, finding THE laptop bag that works for him will take some researching as there are many features that you would need to take into consideration.

The right Laptop bag had to be lightweight
Sometimes he might be carrying around his whole life with him, which would make the bag a lot heavier, he needs a lightweight Laptop bag that is also of good quality to withstand heavy use, and sometimes abuse he puts his bags through.

The right laptop bag had to have lots of storage space
Because he needs to be able to get all his tools organized and have easy access to them, having different pockets for the tools and instruments was a must, not only to keep him organized but also to help him save time by easily reaching all he needs at any given time.

The right laptop bag had to be stylish
Because the image is important, his laptop bag has to look nice as it would be part of his attire in a way… Sometimes finding a bag that is functional and good looking might be a challenge.

He would definitely love this Lexington laptop backpack from Solo New York.

Why?
This Laptop bag is Inspired by New York’s Exclusive Neighborhood and features a sleek style with a fully padded 15.6″ laptop compartment with lockable zippers along with an internal iPad/ tablet pocket. It also has front zippered pockets with organizer sections and key clip that is very handy, a discrete business lining, 2 zippered pockets on each side, a very welcomed padded back and back straps for added comfort.

Last but not least, it has another very handy feature: the back panel slides over luggage handles which is great if he has a wheeled bag while traveling.

The Lexington laptop backpack from Solo New York was exactly what he needs on his birthday! I wouldn't mind a bag like this on my birthday on 22nd July.

The Solo range is available in South Africa at Incredible Connection, Takealot.com & Shopandship.co.za and includes the below bag range as well as really unique tablet covers. For more information on Gammatek’s product range please visit www.gammatek.co.za or follow us on Twitter @gammatek and Facebook.

Cheers!!!

Contact me at editor@thelifesway.com to collaborate on paid/sponsored campaigns. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra!

Amazon.in - Light up a child's Diwali

Hi Guys, 

Amazon.in has launched a great program to light up a Diwali for underprivileged children. Anyone using the website can donate books for this great cause. A book can definitely light the world using it's knowledge and the fun it gives to readers. Children are often attached to books and wants them too to own.We have been brought up greatly by our parents but those kids who doesn't even know who their parents are, it will be a great dream to even own a single book. 

I have done small contribution by gifting 6 books to Pratham www.pratham.org/‎ NGO via amazon.in I hope that they make full use of the same. I will contribute more towards the same till wishlist is complete or rather ask everyone to that is why this blog post. Kindly take this opportunity to make a dream of having a book for a kid become true just as you cherish your dreams to get fulfilled this festive season.

Other NGO is Naandi www.naandi.org/‎ and they too have a huge wishlist of books to be gifted for these kids. 

Please contribute via this page  - Light up a child's Diwali as per your wish and whatever book you feel right. The quantities required is already mentioned when you see the wishlist and many a people have came forward to celebrate this Diwali with these children.

Reducing your firecrackers budget and gifting a book is a great theme that you can follow this Diwali. 

Cheers!!!