Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

I would love to use expletives in this review but will not stoop so low. But the product quality from Homeshop18 stooped low enough. Their service might not be bad but their sellers are committing frauds and homeshop18 is turning a blind eye to them.

We had ordered a 2GB mini SD card from Homeshop18, they claimed it was a Sandisk card, so we bought it. On receiving the product it was found that it was actually a cheap Chinese fake which didn’t even work. The card was very cleverly put in a Kingston SD adaptor to fool the non-techie users into thinking that the product was of Kingston. So it was not the Sandisk product advertised on Homeshop18 but a cheap Chinese. A lot of people are constantly being cheated in this way, many people are not aware of this modus operandi of the homeshop18 seller.

I wrote them a letter and they asked me to return the product which we did. Almost two weeks after the package had been delivered the return was acknowledged. I got my money back, but here are the things where Homeshop18 hits absolute rock bottom :

1. The seller had committed an absolute fraud on me, see the photos below to know what i mean :

The product on top is the product promised to me, the lower one is what i received, a cheap Chinese fake in a Kingston adapter. It was wrapped in polyethene.

2. The product continued to be on sale for a long time and still is, i can imagine more and more people are getting cheated.

3. I am yet to be refunded my courier costs for the whole transaction for which i have written to them many times. Hopefully when someone from their company reads this review they will expedite the process of my courier cost refund.

Also Pehredaar (CNBC TV18′s show which exposes frauds) can easily do a full-fledged show on Homeshop18.

Rating:
The Zero rating is for this particular transaction, i am poorer by 180 rupees which was my courier cost and is yet to be refunded. I would give it a (.5/5) when i get my money back.

Later Edit : They refunded me my courier costs after writing them an email a day, probably because when you search for their site, this review comes up. Anyway, the new rating is

Rating: (Not Recommended)

When you buy Microsoft hardware for twice the money of other products, you expect it to be good. So after my sound card blacked out and my USB sound card to flipped off, i needed a new one. Fairly fed up of the cheap Chinese ones, i opted to spend some money for a good one. So i zeroed in on this Microsoft beauty, the Lifechat LX-3000, the perfect replacement for your Sound Card. And Microsoft didnt disappoint me.

The thing looks like its from a future movie or something, i mean unlike other headphones, it manages to look slick and modern, yet not bulky. I also have Philips Headphones, which are bulky and dont look this cool. And also the Lifechat series includes integration with Windows Live Messengers which is another useful feature.

Within hours of using it, i got compliments from my relatives abroad that the voice quality on this set is much better. If you want to know, my earlier mic was of creative which is also an uber cool company, but it seems that Microsoft has overtook them in terms of voice quality while recording. I wont be surprised if the software included has a noise cancelling algorithm, as when i record i cant hear any background noises, just my voice, nothing else ! No Hum, no air noise, nothing.

The sound quality while hearing songs is also greatly improved. I would say that my computer is giving sound quality much better than that of an Ipod (isnt it supposed to anyway ?). The sound is pure pleasure, again no hums, or noise. Only the sound you play.

Verdict :

Rating:

We deducted .5 for the cost, otherwise its a perfect piece of hardware.

Pros ::

• Super Voice Quality
• Super Playback Quality
• Uber cool Looks
• Volume and Mute control panel thingy on the wire itself.
• Long Wire provided and USB interface

Cons ::

• The pricing is a little on the higher side. Around Rs. 1500 for it is slightly expensive compared to the USB sound cards available in the market.