Actually, I went out to buy new blades for my trusty Gillette Mach 3 Turbo, but then, the lovely orange/blue/grey razor started staring at me, so I couldn’t help getting it out of its confines, and making it all ready to scrape my skin off! while vibrating, ofcourse.

Anywho, the verdicts, etc.

Build+packaging+initial comments:

Photo:

This is a 5+1 blade safety razor, with 5 blades for shaving, and one for trimming, etc.

It includes a AAA sized battery, which allows for a more “comfortable, effortless glide with minimal skin discomfort”.

Package rating:

Easy to open, does not need any specialized tools, just a little bit of effort. The battery is enclosed in the package itself, though its missing from the picture as I put the battery in already. Packaging is sturdy, and finally, gillette has added a good holder for the razor, though sans a cover, which is very needed in India, where dust seems to penetrate even dust proof cabins etc.

Build quality: Cheap plastic, mostly. Garish orange colour, though I’ve heard that prettier varieties are now available in Blue/Grey variants.

The razor on its “Stand”, sans the packaging:

Caveat: I use regular shaving creams with a brush, so the entire experience is a bit cumbersome, but I want to use this with the Nivea shaving gel. The Gillette shaving Gel is quite annoying as it has a weird smell, and is just simply not to my taste(taste? smell, rather).

Shaving experience: After smothering my face with a rich minty lather using the Dettol Menthol Fresh shaving cream and my “some dead animal hair” shaving brush, I removed the razor gingerly from its base, and turned it on. Bzzzzzzzzz is the sound that comes from the razor, much less annoying than electric shavers, which seem as if there are hornets around your face, and some in your cheeks and eyeballs too. Those seem to shave, this seemed to cling to my skin tighter than when used without the battery. The strokes were very effective, seemed to clear out most stubble with minimal effort. I did manage to disfigure one of my sideburns by accidentally using this razor the way I use my Mach 3, which is to use the backside of the blade as a foam mover, so I may see where to start shaving from!

The Fusion Power has a sixth blade which is named a “precision trimmer” by Gillette, on the back of the blade.
Well, the shave on the cheeks was very comfortable, quick and used lesser effort compared to the Mach 3, but nothing substantial or sensational, as claimed by the advert, or the package instruction manual (yes, I read it to see how to insert the battery)

Shaving under the chin, and the neck area was similar when compared to the Mach 3, and I believe it may have been better, in some ways. This razor needs to be cleansed more often, when compared with the Mach 3. The glide SEEMS to take a bit more effort, but people with normal facial hair will find it much easier to be
hair-free in a single shave, rather than taking two turns to a. Make your face as soft as a baby’s behind and b. scrape some more skin off, and make your face burn when you use a good, purely alcohol based aftershave like Cool Water, which is what I use and can afford.

I had to shave twice, just to remove all the annoying hair under my chin, which is growing in the most disorderly fashion, i.e. in every direction possible!

The only thing that may work on these situations is a shave given by a barber, who has this ultra sharp blade on an unsafe razor(not a safety razor). It works for me, I do not know of people who have facial hair akin to grizzly bears, and need atleast a dozen shaves before they are finally classified as human. I am recognizable in two, at the max!

This is a good product for anyone graduating from Two to Five(or six) blades, and would be a small upgrade for people using Mach 3 and are just simply curious like me.

It is quite annoying to clean this razor, as it has “15 microfins” compared to 10 on the Mach 3, and are even nastier to clean, as there is still hair stuck into these microscopic fins, which I am unable to remove using traditional methods. These microfins seem like gills of a weird fish, or the underside of button mushrooms as far as I can tell.

The battery is easy to install/insert and changing the status of the razor from packaged to “Ready” takes about 2 minutes maximum, which is quite good. The Mach 3 had a casing that needed Braun/Bosch power tools to open and pry out, and If you live in a country plagued with powercuts like india, well you would need a scissor, tongs, and some other assorted implements, so that is big plus.

So, whats the scoop? Does this product rule, or drool?

Well in my un-expert opinion, it is OKAY.

Nothing amazing and mind blowing as far as I can tell, and it did not scrape all the skin off my face this time. So its good for first time razor buyers, or people upgrading from Sensor Excel/Sensor/Vector/Whatever/Disposables/Conventional Razors to the Fusion Power.

Its prettier than the others in some ways, if you consider bright orange and garish gunmetal type finishes to be “cool and sporty”.

I prefer the more subtle build of the Mach 3 Turbo and also the fact that it was made of some sort of metal, rather than plastic, which seems to be what this razor is constructed from. It does have a motor, which may short in the metal casing, hence the plastic build. Gillette claims its shower safe, but do not know of any men, who shave while showering, unless they are shaving bodily hair other parts and not the face(I do not do that, so I do not know of the experience and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to you).
The razor does feel a bit cheaply made, but I guess, time will tell about the sturdiness of the product itself.

Final Words:

Do not bother to upgrade if you are using a Mach 3 Turbo, unless you really really want to, and are bored with the existing razor you own, or if you are so very tempted to buy it just so that you may blog about a razor rather than doing something useful(which happened to me).

This is also bulkier compared to the Mach 3. A tad lighter.

Overall product satisfaction ratio compared to Mach 3: 60%

Overall product satisfaction as a first time user of a new product: 80%

Build Quality: 80%

Ease of use (???what the hell??): 80%

Annoyance while using the vibrator: minimal, did make the razor cling to the skin somehow.

Colour Scheme: Garish orange/Silver/Bluish

Base/Stand/Casing: 90%

My next upgrade shall be to the 10 blade system, which will be launched soon by some crazy razor making company, and this war seems akin to the megapixel war being waged by the digital camera manufacturing companies. Most of the race makes the actual product crappy. If you ask me, I am happy with what I bought, for two main reasons: 1. I got a vibrating, new, ORANGE razor 2. Well I just spent money on it, I’d better like it, or else its money spent for nothing(plus i got to blog about it!) Maybe someday we shall be running towards a bladeless razor, which will nuke the hair out of your skin, make it so microscopically small and embedded into your skin that it will scare the shit out of the hair before even planning to grow back!!!

Buy it if you wish.

Not in this Day and age!! These days, marriages are made in community meetings, small shacks in busy market places, via the classifieds in the newspaper, and most recently, over the internet!!

Most people would take this as dating on the internet, and then maybe getting married to that person after they meet….. nay!

In India, people get married using matrimonial advertisements or descriptions, which they post on websites specializing in these services, and this information is shared with millions of people using them!

Via this method, one may find a “Suitable Match” online!

Weird, isn’t it?

For Indians, it isn’t.

This activity of finding a match for ones’ daughter, son or relative is considered a normal phenomenon, and a part of life in India. Every girl or boy needs to get married “before worthy matches are just not available anymore”, which basically means, before the age of 30.

Every applicant is usually “Convent Educated, Modern, Fair, Handsome, with a Wonderful personality, and of course, homely and with traditional values.

Most terms used in matrimonials clash: for example, modern, yet traditional…well, one might either be modern, or traditional. How on earth does one be modern, and have “traditional” beliefs?

Beats me.

An excerpt from a normal matrimonial “advertisement” on a website”:

The family:

We took some photos of the yellow flowered tree flowers again!

Here is a closeup of what the flowers look like, except that the ones that were close enough to photograph were kinda weird.

The whole bunch of flowers:

We cycled from sector 21, which is where I live, to around the rose garden, and then to sector 10, 2, Sukhna Lake, Sector 18, 20 and finally back home again.

We left at high noon, about 12:45 pm and came back around 3pm after cycling a lot, and taking a few pictures.

The lake had a huge rush, and a lot of tourists, and some swans with their hatchlings!

We took a photo of those

too.

A photo of beanie, with the camera issue of overexposure.

The hatchling trying to read!:

Annoying people walking on the flowerbeds, instead of the path!:

I am trying to fix these quirks with adjustments.Enjoy the photos, while I now set my camera to -2/3 exposure compensation, and take better photos. Also, the WB needs to be reset for cleaner grabs.

Lets see what the camera has in store for us, as I keep using it on my daily cycling trips.

My usual response is, How can I help you take good photos? I can help you technically, but in the end, its what YOU like, and not me.

Its just like asking someone to make you that thing you like!!

A photograph is only good, if YOU like it. If you do not like it, then no matter how nice a photo may be, it is always going to be ugly.

The key is to be able to see.

No one can teach anyone, how to see, how to perceive, how to find out what one might like.

The only people in the world who manage to do that are wedding photographers, who know what people want, and ask for loads of money for crappy prints.

The flowering trees have been painted yellow, red, and sometimes even purple!

The Bottlebrush is buzy cleansing the environs of the dust but somehow, a lot of trees are losing leaves!!

This city has the amazing phenomenon, in which trees are green in Autumn, however, they lose all their leaves in the springtime, and get green after spring is over (in the summertime!!).

My friend Shivdeep suggests that these trees are from the southern hemisphere, and are suffering from a sorta “Jetlag” which renders them leafless in the springtime, when its autumn in their native area.

Tabebuia trees are in full bloom, as you may see from these pictures.

The bright yellow colour of these flowers accentuates the green grass and ofcourse, the dull surroundings of this boring city.

We plan to go cycling tomorrow, and capture some of these beauties in the camera.

here is a photo i took of one of the trees in full bloom, right outside a small restaurant called Stop N Stare in sector 10.

The canon does not do too good a job in very bright daylight.

The photo came out underexposed, and with a hint of blur, which should not be at the wide end while being handheld in broad daylight!!

however, that may call for more experimentation.

I guess cycling clubbed with photography is not too bad a hobby afterall!!

I got my cycle tyres refilled today, so it should be a good day out cycling in the sun with the lovely wind blowing about.

Though I missed the best part of the year not cycling, but I guess that part may be still made up with this small excursion to the Jayanti Devi temple behind PGI.

I am too tired to continue, but I’ll attach one photo of the flowers, so you may see what I meant by a riot of colours!

Have a good weekend!

Today, I enabled the gridlines, which help me in composition.

I tried out the cam in low light, the performance was so-so.

Without flash, it is able to take good photos, but somehow,those came out blurry even with image stabilization always on.

Total photos clicked- 53

Macro shots were very nice, though the wind was being a spoil sport.

I played around while chasing a honeybee, and it was quite nasty because she would hide here and there around the big flower, and I would run behind her trying to make something or the other work out.

The photo below is of grapefruit blossoms, and they smell lovely!!!!!

Finally I got a few shots which were allright.

Though a flower that rustled in the wind caused the best shot to be ruined, however, the colours were crazy!! Most of them were quite vivid, which I like.

I took a low light shot of my dad walking the dog, and though it was a bit blurry, but the colour rendition was quite good.

I am going to test the camera further tomorrow, when I go on a ride to rajgarh to celebrate the 5th anniversary of our motorcycle riding club.

Anyways, more features!

The Shutter priority mode was quite nice, found that it worked exceptionally well.

The auto mode somehow has washed out colours, which I do not like much.

I like nice, bright colours, which stand out from the others available.

Autofocus was dead on most of the time.

It did not have to hunt for anything even in low light, and although focussing was a tad slow to me, but thats a biased review as I am comparing a point and shoot to a SLR with a fast lens.

This camera also has the annoying auto focus assist beam, and its orange, unlike Nikon’s yellow/white or Fuji’s green.

Until tomorrow!

Adie

A bit bulky, a bit slow to start up, has a lens that does NOT get an erection due to gravity (finally), and has image stabilization! (whieeeeeeeeee)

Overall impressions:

Build: Average, like all other canons, painted plastic.

Looks: Almost ugly!

Lens: Long, protrudes a lot.

MP: 8

Zoom: 6x(35mm-210mm) (suckie wide shots)

Image quality: Moderate (Better when set on P or program, with my colours set to vivid)

Handling: Good

LCD: Mediocre, but large in size

Placement of buttons: Good

Night Shots: Horrid-ish

Low Light performance: its a small camera, so don’t even go there.

Overall rating: 7/10

I like my new toy. Its exciting.

I am going to play with it some more this weekend, and see what it conjures up.

I took a photo of the Kikkoman Soya Sauce bottle I got as a present from Shivdeep, and it seemed okay with the macro shots. The vivid mode makes colours come out MUCH better than in Auto.

I mostly like the camera, lets see how the photos turn out to be at daytime.