A Ferrari for your wrist

Every supercar driver needs a superwatch, at least that appears to be the thinking behind the Hublot MP-05 LaFerrari. Announced not long after the debut of the LaFerrari supercar in Geneva earlier in this year, the incredibly detailed watch was designed as a tribute to the car and sets a record for Hublot in terms of the number of components that power the movement – 637 to be precise.

Only 50 Hublot MP-05 LaFerrari are to be made and are expected to cost around US$300,000 each. Somehow the knowledge that this is $1 million cheaper than the four-wheeled LaFerarri doesn't bring us much comfort.

Diamonds are a Roller's best friend

Never a company to shy away from the term "luxurious," Rolls Royce almost outdid itself with this one-of-a-kind Phantom shown at the Dubai Motor Show in November. Created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the model, the Celestial Phantom shines with a glass-particle exterior paint job, a headliner infused with more than a thousand fiber optic lights that accurately replicate the constellations in night sky (if you're in the UK that is) and a staggering 446 diamonds hand-set into the doors, center console and rear divider. Oh, and there's also a rather posh picnic set included with the car.

A $10,000 smartphone

Competitive pricing may be one of the factors driving the growth of smartphones running on the Android OS, but like every rule, there are exceptions. The Vertu Ti is one very big exception. Running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Ti features one-touch access to a live personal assistant, a polished titanium case with leather accents, a 3.7-inch sapphire crystal screen, a 1.7 GHz processor and a somewhat underwhelming 8 MP rear camera (though it does sport a twin LED flash). All for just €7,900 or about US$10,500.

Iron Man suit anyone?

The Iron Man franchise may have almost run out of steam in 2013, but the prospect of a real suit worthy of Tony Stark is heading in the opposite direction. In May news hit that inventors at Solar System Express (Sol-X) and biotech designers Juxtopia LLC (JLLC) are collaborating on a space diving suit (complete with gyroscopic boots and power gloves) that would enable extreme thrill seekers to take a leap from the very edge of space. Back on the ground, the US Navy's top SEAL, four-star Admiral William McRaven, is pushing for a military take on the Iron Man suit called the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) that would incorporate a range of technologies, such as medical diagnosis and treatment and situational awareness, into an endurance- and strength-enhancing exoskeleton.

Given they don't yet exist, you probably won't see either of these in your stocking this year, but with the rapid development of exoskeletons across a range of fields we've seen continue throughout 2013, this is one area that's quickly becoming more science than fiction.

India: where to go

Northern India

The Golden Triangle

The cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur are known as the Golden Triangle because of their cultural splendour. They form the basis of the classic tour of northern India, despite the fact that constant exposure to noisy crowded cities and crazy driving on traffic-choked roads can turn people off the country for ever.

That said, Delhi can be a pleasant place to start a visit if your hotel is in New Delhi, the planned British city designed by Edwin Lutyens, with tree-lined avenues and low-rise buildings. The Thirties Imperial (theimperialindia.com) is a favourite for its convenient location opposite the Cottage Industries Emporium, a treasure trove of crafts from all over India. Another good choice is The Claridges (claridges.com), a four-star hotel that is also popular with well-heeled Indians. An affordable choice is the Nath Bungalow (lutyensbungalow.co.in), a family-run b&b in a lovely garden with large pool near the Lodhi Gardens.

If you are travelling independently, sign up for a private tour with Surekha Narain (delhimetrowalks.com), the best guide I have come across in India. A keen historian, she can shepherd you through the crush of Old Delhi so that it seems like a walk in the park, and arrange private access to all sorts of places.

Agra (1) – best reached on the comfortable Shatabdi Express train – is worth an overnight stay. As well as the Taj Mahal, it has an earlier “Baby Taj”, and a magnificent sandstone fort also partly built by Emperor Shah Jahan. The best place to stay is Amarvilas (oberoihotels.com); it has a clear view across parkland to Shah Jahan’s tribute to his beloved wife, Mumtaz, who died in childbirth. Double rooms cost from £500, but it’s worth paying an extra £50 for a premier room with a private balcony overlooking the Taj. The best alternative is the low-rise Agra Trident (tridenthotels.com); double rooms from £115 a night through booking.com.

Most tours and private journey itineraries move on via Fatehpur Sikri – an extraordinarily well-preserved 16th-century sandstone city, once the capital of Mogul India, now deserted – to Jaipur.

It is hard to love Jaipur (2). Sights such as the Palace of the Winds and Tiger Fort provide a good picture, but this is another exhausting city where touts are hard to shake off and negotiating the human and motorised traffic is exhausting. There are several luxurious palace hotels in spacious grounds, but for character choose Samode Haveli (samode.com) or the cheaper Dera Mandawa (deramandawa.com).

After negotiating the hustle of Jaipur you will need a peaceful refuge if you are to keep your sense of humour. The countryside hereabout is scattered with handsome palace-hotels set in small villages but, as a first-time visitor, I would head for Chhatra Sagar (chhatrasagar.com), a dozen luxurious tents erected beside a lake in Nimaj and run by a delightful princely family.

From here it is an easy transfer to Jodhpur (3), worth visiting for the Mehrangarh fort alone. Official guides have an office at the fort entrance and offer good private tours of the old town on foot. Tour operators rate highly the new boutique hotel Raas (raasjodhpur.com), near the fort. A cheaper option is the family-run Ratan Vilas (ratanvilas.com).

There are two alternative circuits that avoid Jaipur and the main tourist circuit. They offer the chance to explore smaller towns and villages before you tackle another big city.

Head south-east from Agra to Orchha (picturesque riverside setting, medieval fort palace, evening rituals in a village temple) and on to Khajuraho (a small town famed for its erotic temple art) before tackling Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges where all life and death is laid bare.

Varanasi  (4) is India for the experienced. Its crowded narrow alleys can induce claustrophobia even in seasoned travellers: mourners carry their dead on biers to the burning terraces above the river; holy men and pilgrims from all over India come to bathe in the frankly filthy waters upstream and consult astrologers and palm readers; and cows, goats and ragged children scavenge for scraps on the ghats – the flights of steps down to the water.

Most tourists keep Varanasi at arm’s length by taking dawn and dusk boat rides past the bathing ghats where yogis practise and priests perform rituals using flaming lamps. But those who enter the fray will see India at its most profound and spiritual. Tour groups usually stay at the Taj Gateway (thegatewayhotels.com), which serves alcohol. The best riverside choice is the mid-range Palace on Ganges (palaceonganges.com), which has a roof terrace. Ask for a room on an upper floor as lower ones are basic.

The alternative is to head west from Agra into southern Rajasthan. Start with a visit to Ranthambore National Park, where there is a moderate chance of spotting a tiger – that is, if the current ban on “tiger tourism”, imposed this year by the Indian Supreme Court, is lifted – or spend a few nights at Ramathra Fort (ramathrafort.com), which offers guided walks and Jeep safaris. 

The small city of Bundi (5) is one of my favourite places in Rajasthan. Off the main tourist circuits, it sees few tour groups and the streets of its busy, blue-painted old town are free of hustlers. Popular with Western artists, it has a vast crumbling fort-palace (filled with world-class murals) mirrored in a lake. There are no sprawling suburbs, so it’s easy to hire a bicycle and explore the countryside beyond. There are no luxury hotels yet, so stay in the family-run Bundi Vilas guesthouse (bundivilas.com) or the Haveli Braj Bhushanjee (kiplingsbundi.com).

From here it’s a long day’s drive to Udaipur (6), set around a lake in the Aravalli hills. It is a tourist honeypot but easier to negotiate than Jaipur or Jodhpur. The Jag Niwas Lake Palace, now a Taj hotel, is the big draw, though I feel it’s better to view it than stay in it. There are several royal guesthouses on the opposite shore but my favourite is a small heritage property, Amet Haveli (amethaveliudaipur.com) – low-rise, intimate and just feet from the water’s edge – where you can dine on a lawn with a grandstand view of the Jag Niwas.

Kerala (7)

Kerala is a green land of rice paddies, coconut groves and hills thickly cloaked in indigenous forest as well as tea and coffee plantations. It is a softer introduction to India, with smaller, more ordered cities, a slower pace of life and a cleaner environment. It also has one of the most literate populations in the world. Many families have relations working in the Gulf, and there are direct daily flights from London via Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar to three coastal airports, with return fares starting at less than £500.

The ancient trading port of Kochi (Cochin) is a good place to start a tour. Stay at Malabar House (malabarhouse.com), Brunton Boatyard (cghearth.com) or the cheaper Old Courtyard (oldcourtyard.com), all in the quiet fort area.

Behind the coast, a network of inland waterways and canals weaves through coconut plantations and riverside villages clustered around white Catholic churches.

Most tour operators offer backwater cruises on converted rice barges. This is a pleasant way to travel, but the scenery doesn’t vary much. It is more interesting – and more ecologically sound – to stay somewhere such as Philipkutty’s Farm (philipkuttysfarm.com), a collection of villas on a spice island in the backwaters, and take a sunset cruise.

Kerala’s great draw is the Western Ghats, a line of thickly forested hills rising to more than 6,000ft, stretching the length of the state and offering a welcome cool respite from the humidity of the coast. There are convivial homestays in bungalows on spice and tea plantations around Munnar and Thekkady, gateway to the Periyar National Park, where there is a good chance of seeing wild elephant.

No visit to India is complete without a Hindu temple experience, but you don’t have to go far. One of India’s holiest towns, Madurai, in Tamil Nadu, is a four-hour drive from Munnar. Its Meenakshi Temple is one of the most impressive in the country, with processions, performances of music and an endless stream of pilgrims weaving through pillared halls carved with exquisite figures. Stay at the Taj Gateway (tajhotels.com), above the city.

In Kerala, beaches, as elsewhere in India, are very much the preserve of fishermen. While hotels clean their frontages, a walk along the beach will uncover sands strewn with rubbish, fish scales and human waste. The sea is rough, the water murky, and sunbathing on the beach will attract unwanted attention in these predominantly Muslim communities. If you want a week on a clean white-sand beach by a clear safe sea, combine a tour of India with a week in the Maldives, an hour’s flight from Trivandrum.

That said, there are several delightful small resort hotels on remoter Keralan beaches, ideal for a few days’ post-tour relaxation: notably Neeleshwar Hermitage in the north of the state (neeleshwarhermitage.com), part-owned by an Englishman; the Marari Beach (cghearth.com) in Mararikulam, south of Kochi, and the Surya Samudra (suryasamudra.com) near Kovalam. All offer a range of spa treatments, visits to villages and nature walks.

Goa and Hampi (8)

Charter flights started serving Goa in the late Eighties, selling the state and its golden beaches as India-lite. A Portuguese colony until 1961, it really was a gentle introduction to India in those days. Families called da Souza and Pereira rented out rooms in pretty cottages set in flower-filled gardens to backpackers; richer tourists stayed at the Taj Holiday Village on Candolim beach, north of the capital, Panjim. Roads were the preserve of bicycles and carts, and cows roamed the largely deserted and relatively clean beaches.

Today, in north Goa many of the bungalows have been replaced by concrete guesthouses, the beaches are crowded with salesmen from out of state, and there’s a rave every night fuelled by drink and drugs.

Regular visitors to India now see Goa as a place to relax for a few days at the end of a tour rather than a destination in itself. There is a strong Russian presence in winter at five-star hotels. Money heads for the Leela Beach Resort on Kovalam; smart money for a country guesthouse such as Nilaya Hermitage (nilaya.com) or Fort Tiracol (forttiracol.com), in the north of the state, where the beaches are empty and rave-free.

Tour operators offering beach holidays – Thomson, Thomas Cook, Monarch – feature both north and south Goa, selling a fortnight in a three-star hotel for about £1,200 b&b in February. I would head for south Goa, to the quieter sands around Velsao, Majorda and Varca, where there are some new resort hotels set in palm-shaded lawns containing large pools. The Alila Diwa Goa (aliladiwagoa.com) and the Taj Exotica (tajhotels.com) get high marks.

Tour operators and local agents sell overnight excursions to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra. For a real adventure, take the train to Hampi for a few days. This small riverside village in neighbouring Karnataka sits among the ruined temples, bazaars and palaces of the 16th-century capital of the Vijayanagar kings who ruled all of south India. It is set in a sea of rice paddies shaded by coconut palms and punctuated by boulder hills, like giant tors, that glow orange in the afternoon sun.

There are plenty of thatched-hut guesthouses along the river, notably Shanthi (shanthihampi.com) and Mowgli (mowglihampi.com), but the classiest place is Hampi’s Boulders (hampisboulders.com): simple cottages in a peaceful riverside setting four miles away.

Datawind launches three 5-inch PocketSurfer smartphones, starting at Rs. 3,499

Datawind, best known as the maker of the low-cost Akash tablets, has entered the smartphone market in India, with smartphones that it says break the 'affordability barriers.'

All three smartphones have been launched in the Indian market under the PocketSurfer category - the PocketSurfer 5x for Rs. 3,499, PocketSurfer 5C+ for Rs. 4,999, and the PocketSurfer 3G5 for Rs. 6,499 - and are available for online purchase on Datawind's website.

While the PocketSurfer 5x runs on Linux, the other two - PocketSurfer 5C+ and PocketSurfer 3G5 run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 4.2 Jelly Bean respectively. All three PocketSurfers feature dual-SIM support, while the PocketSurfer 3G5 also offers 3G connectivity.

PocketSurfer 5x sports a 5-inch TFT WQVGA display, and is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, with unspecified amount of memory. PocketSurfer 5x has only one front-facing VGA camera and has a microSD slot, but again there is no details on the storage. Datawind has not provided any details on the specification of the battery, but says that it will deliver up to 3 hours of talktime and 1 day of standby time.

The PocketSurfer 5C+ with a 5-inch WVGA display packs in a 1GHz Cortex A9 processor. There are no specifications available for memory and storage, though it does bear a microSD slot. The PocketSurfer 5C+ has a VGA front-facing camera, and a 2-megapixels rear camera. The battery has been rated to deliver up to 3 hours of talktime and 2 days of standby time.

The PocketSurfer 3G5 with 5-inch WVGA display packs in a better 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A7 processor, while once again, the memory and storage remains unspecified. It bears the same front-facing VGA camera, and a 5-megapixel rear camera. The battery is rated to deliver up to 4 hours of talktime and 2 days of standby time.

Speaking on the launch, Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind said: "We're very excited to introduce these amazing new devices at unbelievably low prices. Currently simple phones in the market cost as much as the smartphone on offer by DataWind."

LG G Flex: First impressions

LG finally introduced its first curved display smartphone in India, the G Flex, at an event in New Delhi. Indian consumers will have to wait till next year to get their hands on the device, as the G Flex will be available in India only in February 2014.

We got a chance to play with the LG G Flex at the event however, and sum up our first impressions below.

When we first held the G Flex in our hands, we were definitely a bit taken aback by its ergonomic curved design, which definitely is the device's USP. The G Flex is curved on its horizontal axis which gives the device's top and bottom edges a curl shape.

The biggest perceived advantage of the G Flex's curve in our limited period usage, is while talking on the device - the design definitely better hugs your face, much like an old landline phone. In terms of gripping, the curve also helps to comfortably hold the device, but the rear is made of plastic, so it can also slip out during long usage. 

When compared to some of its close competitors like HTC One Max and the Galaxy Mega 6.3, the G Flex (160.5x81.6x8.7mm) is better to hold and move around thanks to the curve design. 

Next big thing which is very much noticeable in the G Flex is its size, the 6-inch display does puts it in the phablet category and does looks like a large device in hands. Notably, we were unable to easily use the G Flex with one hand, as we found it difficult to stretch our thumb across the device. When talking about phablets, we still believe that Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 (151.2x79.2x8.3mm) and Sony'sXperia Z Ultra (179.4x92.2x6.5mm) were better in terms of daily usage because of a more lightweight and sleeker profile.

At the event, we were told that the G Flex can actually 'flex' until it's totally flat, and one of the company representatives even claimed that the South Korean manufacturer has tested the flexibility of the G Flex up to 100 times with about 40 kilograms of weight putting on the device without damaging the G Flex's screen. Let's say in the case, when accidentally sitting on the G Flex. 

While we couldn't test it with 40 kilograms of weight, we did press the curve of the G Flex, and it did stretch to be flat. While the display didn't crack, it's not really advisable to do this on a daily basis.

Following closely on the lines of LG's current flagship smartphone, the LG G2, G Flex also features rear physical keys for power and volume controls. LG has equipped the LED light on the rear power key which comes handy for notifications and while taking a selfie. The keys are metallic and offer good tactile feedback, very much like the LG G2. The volume-up button also doubles up as a shortcut key to launch the Quickmemo app on long press and the volume-down button acts as a camera shortcut key on long press when the phone is locked.

The G Flex also includes a number of ports around the edges including the 3.5mm audio jack and the charging port that sits at the bottom panel, while the micro-SIM card slot sits at the left panel of the G Flex. The rear panel includes the primary 13-megapixel camera with an LED flash, which is accompanied by an IR Blaster.

It would be unfair to end the design part without talking about G Flex's self-healing back that has been creating a buzz worldwide. When we wanted to test the self-healing capability of the G Flex, we were sure we needed a scratchy material; unfortunately we didn't carry a knife so we tried our key chain to rub the rear panel and gave it a surface level scratch which was very much visible initially. After some time, we noticed that the scratches were reduced but not completely eliminated. While looking the G Flex from a certain angle, it looked that the scratches were gone, although it was pretty much noticeable. However, we must confess we were impressed and believe that the G Flex can easily handle day-to-day bruises.

Coming to the hardware of the G Flex, it is powered by a quad-core 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) processor with an Adreno 330 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. The G Flex easily handled multitasking with ease, and the apps opened and closed instantaneously. Performance wise, the G Flex fared well in our limited testing.

The G Flex sports a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. During our usage, the camera app opened instantly and did click at good speed without any shutter lag. The G Flex is powered by a 3,500mAh battery and weighs 177 grams. The LG G Flex comes with 32GB inbuilt storage, which is non-expandable.

The LG G Flex runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is a disappointment as we expected LG to ship Android 4.3, the most recent iteration of the OS with the phone. However, with LG finally revealing plans for rolling out the Android 4.4 KitKat update for the flagship smartphone, the G2, we expect that the G Flex will also get the KitKat treatment soon.

On the software department, the G Flex borrows many things from the G2. The company has added the same LG G2 UI layer on top of the G Flex, majorly changing the look and feel of the interface and enabling users to customise the phone according to their liking.

The LG G Flex also features the KnockON, which is LG's version of double tap to unlock and even lock the smartphone. In our limited testing, we found that at times while trying to unlock the phone it didn't register our taps. In fact, it was annoying at times. 

Other features on the G Flex include Slide Aside which is a way to multitask by moving between three apps at once via a three-finger swipe gesture; Guest mode, which allows you to create a guest mode with pre-selected apps for times when your friends or family want to use your phone; Dual Window, which divides the screen into two panels for multitasking and QuickTheatre that gives direct access to gallery, videos and YouTube icons.

You can expect more detailed observations and testing when we review the LG G Flex.