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Ford Fiesta 1.6 SXI Sedan

When the local Ford dealer called me up to inform that the first batch of Fiestas had arrived in the city, I jumped at the opportunity to take the baby out for a test ride! After the sales fiasco of the over-priced Ford Fusion, Ford was expected to leave no stone unturned with their new offering. I was very excited when I landed up at the showroom first thing the next morning.

First Look

I was not at all disappointed when I lay my eyes on the beautiful Fiesta. I was looking at the top end 1.6 SXI DuraTEC version with optional ABS. The Ford Fiesta will not exactly make you drool, but is sure to get you noticed. On the front the Ford Fiesta sports a large bumper and a large radiator grille and very well proportioned twin headlamps. The bonnet lines which end at the radiator grill impart a much understated aggressiveness to the complete look.

From the side the Ford Fiesta looks very well proportioned and the grip type door handles look and feel great. The black B pillar adds character to the look and the raised wheel arches complete the understated aggression look. The rear will fool some into believing that they are looking at a Mercedes. The wrap-around tail lamps are a straight lift from a merc. The chrome strip above the number plate looks good and adds class. So at first look the Ford Fiesta is a winner. Now let’s step inside and see what the Fiesta has in store!

Interiors

As soon I stepped into the driver’s seat and closed the door, I was reassured by the solid thud of the door closing and of the excellent build quality of the car. The interior of the Fiesta has been done in a beautiful and luxurious black and beige scheme. The quality of the trim is excellent and has a very rich feel to it. The interior is very spacious and the driving position is very comfortable with a commanding view of the road. The instrument panel in front of me was impressive. The Ford Fiesta’s instrument panel boasts of a tachometer, a digital trip meter, a fuel gauge, a clock, and an outside temperature display. The silver garnish on the dashboard, AC vents and the leather wrapped steering looks good. There is an ICE (In Car Entertainment) system at your command, which includes a 6 in dash CD player, AM/FM radio and a 6 speaker system. Ford should have included an MP3 player which is the standard in all cars of this segment. The sound quality is good, although not at par with some of the high end systems available in the market. The height adjustable driver’s seat gives the driver a commanding view of the road. The rear view mirrors and the boot lid are electrically operated and are very convenient. However, the bonnet opening latch is very strangely and inconveniently placed on the passenger’s side! At the rear, there is ample legroom, but three passengers may feel a bit cramped. There are reading lights and magazine pockets in the rear for the corporate traveler.

Road Performance

As soon I as I turned the key, the 101 bhp beast came to life silently. I was impressed! The NVH levels in the Ford Fiesta are very low and you will hardly hear the engine until you rev it hard. I turned on the AC and put the car into gear. The Ford Fiesta took off confidently and without any vibration. I could feel the power of the 100 horses under the hood as I accelerated to 35 kmph and shifted to 2nd gear. The Ford Fiesta has excellent low-end torque and city riders will be pleased with the gear ratios. Shifting through the gears was very easy and the big gear knob has excellent feedback. Very soon I was seeing 90 kmph on the dial and it felt as if I was doing only 40kmph! The power steering is very responsive and has a turning radius of 4.9 meters which is very good for a car this size. The steering remained rock steady in a straight line the car did not roll too much in high speed cornering. The Fiesta does feel a little light at high speeds and you feel as if the tyres may lose their grip, but I guess that is because of the alloy rims and tubeless tyres. The suspension of the Ford Fiesta is something to write home about. I took the car on an especially bumpy stretch of road to put the suspension to test, and the suspension literally soaked up the pot holes! I could hardly feel the bumps as the car glided over the trademark bumpy Indian road. Full marks to Ford for an excellent piece of suspension engineering. This baby is made for the Indian roads! Braking is good, although at high speeds you wish that they had put in disc brakes in the rear too. However the optional ABS will make the braking surer. The Ford Fiesta is a driver’s car and it wants you to extract every bit of performance out of it.

Verdict

As compared to the New Honda City 100 bhp VTEC and other cars in its category, the Ford Fiesta feels much solidly built and handles much better on the road. Ford has put together a near complete package in terms of style, comfort, power and reliability. And at a very attractive price tag of under 7.5 lakhs for the top end version, I feel the Ford Fiesta beats the Honda City VTEC and other cars in its class by miles in terms of performance and value for money. With features specially developed for the Indian market, like the 0.45 meter deep water proof capability, typical of Indian monsoons, and the fast cool AC, the Ford Fiesta has an edge over the competition. If the guys at Ford finally put their service network act together, they have a sure winner on their hands. This is by far the best performance car in its category on Indian roads today and has the potential to be No. 1 in its class on Indian roads soon!

Apple has finally ended worldwide speculation with the launch of its new iPod with video playback capability. The new iPod is much sleeker on the lines of the Nano and features ability to store upto 15,000 songs (4 minute songs at 128 kbps), 25,000 photos, and 150 hours of Videos. The new iPod is available in 30 Gb and 60 GB models and in classic white and black colors.

At first glance the new iPod looks sleek and smart with the 2.5 inch, 240x320 QVGA color screen. You can watch MPEG-4 and H.264 videos which can be bought from the iTunes Music store. You can even connect the optional AV cable and watch videos or photo slideshows on your TV.

The touch sensitive Apple Click Wheel makes operating and navigating through the the iPod a pleasure with the Menu accessible by a click on the top of the wheel. Other basic functions like Play, Forward, Rewind and Pause/Stop occupy the Click Wheel. You can use the Shuffle mode to play songs in a random order.

The hottest new feature on the iPod is definitely the ability to play videos downloaded from the iTunes Music store at $1.99 each. You can also buy and enjoy advertisement free episodes of yor favorite ABC or Disney shows! Also in additon to the radio style podcast shows, you can now download video podcasts from ABC, ESPN and sync them to the iPod.

You can use the Audiobooks feature to browse through over 11,000 book titles from the iTunes library and download and sync any book to read on the go. The iPod features a digital 'bookmark' to mark the page you were reading, so that you can return to it later!

You can sync your photos from your Windows PC or Mac and browse through them on the iPod. The new iPod can hold upto 25,000 photos. You can watch the pics in thumbnail mode and by the click of the center button on the Click Wheel, bring any photo to full screen.

The iPod comes with a Calendar and address book built in. You can import your address book or iCal and contacts from Outlook Express on your PC. There is aworld clock which lets you view the time around the world. Days and nights appear in white and black on the screen. You can also set an alarm using the iPod's alarm function.

The iPod also ships with an optional dock which can be used with a remote to control the iPod from across the room. You can connect it to the TV an play your videos, songs and slideshows using the remote. There is also an optional camera connector which you can use to connect the iPod to you digital camera and transfer pictures from your camera to the iPod.

The Video iPod boasts of upto 20 hours of battery time (for the 60 GB model)and can be fully charged in 4 hours.

All in all the new Apple Video iPod is a great product for music lovers and now with Video playback, this device is a complete mobile entertainment package. The sound quality of the earbud headphones is superb and the 2,60,000 color screen delivers crystal clear video and picture playback. At $299 for the 30 GB model, the new Video Apple iPod is a great buy for any music lover!

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The O2 Xda IIi is the latest offering from O2 which is an upgrade to the hugely popular O2 Xda II. The Xda IIi features a faster processor (520 MHz instead of the 400 MHz in the Xda II), and more memory (128 MD SDRAM).You can even control the processor speed to run eihter in 'Standard' or 'Turbo' mode. This means you now have more power and memory to run demanding multimedia applications. In addition there is the option to slide in a MMC or SDIO card at the top. One up by O2 here!

The O2 Xda IIi features a huge 3.5 inch , 65,000 color Active Screen. The Xda IIi has Windows Media Player 10 pre-installed and it also has shortcuts to popular applications on the screen so that you do not need to to fumble with the Windows Mobile Edition.

The Xda IIi is now equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera which is activated by a touch of a button on the side. The camera can now shoot stills upto 960x1280 pixels and videos upto 240x320 pixels which is great. As far as connectivity goes, the IIi comes equipped with all possible options. It boasts of a Triband phone, GPRS, Bluetooth, MMS, SMS, Wi-Fi and Infrared. It has a smart feature which alerts you evertime you enter a new Wi-Fi node though it can become irritating at times.

In terms of weight and size, there is little difference as compared to the earlier Xda II. The Xda IIi weighs only 10 gms more than its predecesser and is the same 69mm wide x 130mm tall x 19.9mm high as Xda II. The claimed battery life is 4 hours of talktime and 168 hours of standby time and approximately 15 hours of use in handheld mode.

All in all, the O2 Xda IIi is an excellent business tool, packed with every imaginable feature you would need. The Windows Mobile Edition takes some time getting used to and a more intelligent and user-friendly version will be welcome for this Xda. It looks much better than its darker siblings and will definitely make corporate heads turn at your work place!

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With CDMA networks becoming popular the world over, this is a good entry level phone to consider. The LG RD 2130 CDMA phone is a decent phone which supports Java applications. This means you can surf the internet, download and send emails, download rintones and wallpapers from the web. The screen is black and white with a white blue lighted background and with support for 4 bit graphics only.

The four pivoted center navigation button provides easy shortcut access to messaging, ringtones, and the internet. The menu is fairly easy to use with all standard features like an Organizer, Scheduler, Alarm, and a 300 entries phonebook. The phonebook alows you to save multiple numbers (home, office, mobile etc) for each entry which is a good feature. The phone supports polyphonic ringtones which are the standard for any decent phone today.

In the messaging menu, you can send the same SMS to multiple recipients and store templates and draft messages for later use.

There is an option to activate a screen saver, but as far as I know, you cannot download new screensavers and have to choose between a couple of standard pre-programmed ones.

The build quality is good and the buttons have a very sure feel. One thing that I like to add about this phone is that, once I accidently dropped my phone in the bath tub and except for a little moisture that appeared on the screen for a few days, nothing happened to the phone! It is still working fine 6 months after that incident.

At a street price of around $55, the LG RD 2130 CDMA is all in all a good value for money CDMA phone.

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