Top 5 gadgets to brave Indian monsoons with

Fiery monsoons are just round the corner. While it’s fun to lounge around indoors, enjoying the view with some Coffee, it poses health risks, both for you and your gadgets.

As Mumbai struggles to travel between work and home with knee-deep water spelling disaster, here are your weapons to battle the rain gods if and when your turn comes:

Smartphone:

A phone is one of the most essential devices one uses, and there is a lot of variety to choose from here.

Samsung offers waterproof smartphones, but they are slightly pricey. Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and Samsung Galaxy S5 are some of the best waterproof phones in the market. These can bear depths of up to 1mts for 30 minutes.

Sony’s Xperia Z, Z1, Z1 Compact, Z2, and ZR boast of the capacity of clicking underwater pictures and videos. These can definitely turn heads at the next pool party.

At a budget, Motorola’s Moto E, Moto G, and Moto X models come with a special water resistant 'nano' coating. This protects it from minor splashes of water. Mind, these can’t survive an underwater dip. However, you can brave the monsoon more confidently with one of these babies in your pocket.

Laptop:

It’s a shame there is not a lot of option to choose from when it comes to rugged laptops. The Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 is the sole torch bearer. This bad boy boasts of vibration and shock resistance, and a solid IP65 water and dust resistance.

This 13.1’’ Windows 8 laptop has Intel Core i5-520M vPro CPU with 3G, LAN, 3G, and WIMAX connectivity. The ports are covered by a flap and the display has polarization for better visibility outdoors.

Camera:

Waterproof cameras have been around for a while. They are cheap and perfect for those looking for wildlife or nature photography.

Nikon Coolpix S32 is the common man’s rugged camera at a mere Rs. 6,950. It is freeze-proof at -10°C, shockproof at 5ft/1.5m, and waterproof till 10m.

There are also Pentax WG10, Nikon Coolpix AW110, Coolpix AW120, and Olympus Stylus TG-2 in the sub Rs. 20,000 category. All these can record Full HD videos and come with built-in GPS. AW120 even has Wi-Fi capabilities!

Earphones:

(Image credit: Buyt)
Want to dance in the rain? Whip out one of these and you’re good to go.

The water resistant Bose SIE2i is great if you want quality. Sennheiser has a handful of water-resistant earphones. The cheapest is MX685 at Rs. 3,790, followed by CX685 at Rs. 5,490 and the PX685i, PMX685i, OCX685i at Rs. 5,990.

For those on a tight budget there is Philips SHQ3000 at Rs. 1,999 and Audio Technica ATH-CKP200 at Rs. 1,799.

Tablet:

When your smartphone can be water-resistant, why can’t your tablet! Sadly there is only one real contender to the throne here - the Xperia Z2 tablet. It boasts of water and weather proofing, and there are flaps to seal off the ports.

This 10.1 inches tablet boasts of Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 processor with 16 GB internal memory and 3 GB RAM. Unfortunately at a price of Rs. 49,990, you might want to get some water to douse the damage it’ll inflict on your pocket.

Others:

The market is currently littered with a lot of waterproof devices. Take hard drives and pen drives. Adata's Dashdrive Durable HD710 has a rubberized exterior that makes it shockproof and waterproof. Same with the Transcend JetFlash 810 pen drive.

If you are a music buff there is always Sony’s NWZ-W273 Walkman. You can even take it swimming, or out for a jog when it’s raining.

Last but not the least, while there are a lot of waterproof devices, there are also waterproof covers that you might want to invest in – a cheap and sensible option at that. Scout the markets, get one, and relax, your devices are safe from the clutches of the rain gods.

(Image credit: Indiatimes)