The gen-4 Honda New City

The all-new generation four Honda City made its World Premiere in Delhi. Honda City’s fourth generation model, is all set to go on sale in January 2014. This will mark the introduction of the 1.5 litre diesel engine in Honda City. The new Honda City will also be available with a 1.5 litre i-VTEC petrol engine.

Ever since its launch in 1998, Honda City has sold over 4.3 lakh units. Maintaining its brand success Honda City has reached an iconic status while dominating the premium mid-sized sedan car range in India. Over the past few years, however, the competition from diesel powered competitive range has made it tough for Honda City and the need to introduce a diesel version was now required. The 1.5 i-DTEC engine made its Indian debut in the Honda Amaze earlier this year, it was expected that this state-of-the-art engine would find its way under the hood of the new Honda City too though in different manner.

With the introduction of new City, Honda is looking forward at regaining its leadership in the premium mid-sized sedan segment in India. The new Honda City seems to have the styling, fit, finish and features to make it class apart. But the million dollar question pertaining to the price of the car will only be known at the time of its market launch, however it is expected that Honda will have an aggressive price strategy.

The new Honda City which is developed by the Honda R&D centre in Tochigi, Japan is set to be sold in 60 countries. With a high level of Indian feedback incorporated; India remains a key market for Honda, considering the fact that the company is looking at the new Honda City to contribute over 1.5 million units to the target sales of 6 million units by fiscal year 2016-2017.

The new Honda City has an evolved design over its earlier design. It now measures 4440mm in length, 1695mm in width and 1495mm in height. While these dimensions are almost identical to the earlier model, the new car’s wheel base has been increased by 50mm to 2600mm, which has resulted in exceptional seating space for five.

Further to that, Honda has assembled the car with a plethora of new functions including a start/stop button, touchscreen A/C controls, in dash car entertainment system with eight speakers, rear view camera and steering mounted controls.

Nevertheless, the new Honda City has gone a level ahead beating its own game and is all set to dominate the mid-sized sedan segment. Though the pre-booking of the sedan has started the future of the new Honda City remains uncertain till the price is revealed.

Microsoft Windows 8.1 review

Microsoft has released Windows 8.1, a majorly improved update of its common scenario of its fast forward thinking.

If listed, the list of changes that Microsoft has made to Windows 8.1 don't seem all that big. The app tiles are still there. For a change the Start button is back, but not exactly the way it used to be.

Until you start using the new OS you can’t trace the huge benefits of little tweaks that are a part of the latest version of Windows. The return of the Start button on the task bar of the desktop is one big example of this. The main function of the start button now is to call up the start screen instead of hiding a series of nested menus. But if you are using the new Windows 8.1 version in a desktop mode the start button won’t take you out of the desktop. Instead a semi-transparent version of the series of app tiles which Microsoft calls Modern UI will come on the top of the desktop to choose an app. This feature allows you to organize the Start screen. You can make all the icons come together and label them for desktop apps in Modern UI. 

So, in short the new Start button in Windows 8.1 version has retained all the functionality of Windows 7 with a more appealing feel of the modern Windows 8.1 version.

The major change in Windows 8.1 is the expanded "snap view" feature. It enables multiple apps on the screen at the same time.

The all new Windows 8.1 enables you to run up to eight apps side by side as compared to just two in Windows 8. But it is true in case of high resolution monitors on the surface still only two are possible.

In Windows 8.1 snap view will launch automatically in certain situation like if you are reading an e-mail and want the browser too you need not exit the e-mail app. Instead the screen will get divided into two and Internet Explorer will pop up next to the e-mail app.

Microsoft has tried to integrate its services tightly through Windows 8. For example, if you are searching for a particular musician using the Bing search app, links and play buttons to that artist's songs and albums will get integrated into the results as well.  

Also, a smart option to answer your Skype call without unlocking your computer has been integrated in the new Windows 8.1 version.

The Windows 8.1 is not just about tweaks to big conceptual ideas which makes it ideal. Microsoft has paid attention to every little technical detail as well.

Like if you have more than one monitor Windows 8.1 will make sure you can independently adjust scaling for each one so that text, icons and other visual elements are sized to the optimum and proportioned on each display.

Another instance is the Start Screen organization. Naming the groups of tiles gives the screen an added sense of order. Instead of pinning each and every new installed app to the Start Screen, Windows 8.1 now adds new apps to a larger list of apps one menu level below. That helps cut down on the chaos on the Start Screen, making it exclusively about the apps that matter to the user. It also enables the possibility of moving the entire group of tiles instead of moving it one by one on the Start Screen.

Poor sales and negative feedback of Windows 8 drove Microsoft to rethink about its futuristic strategy which resulted in Windows 8.1 promising upgrade which would go a long way.