Onida Web Cruiser

TheOnida Web Cruiser is a TV with Internet access. Two sockets at the back let youconnect your telephone to the TV. You use an infrared keyboard, or the remote totype. If you use the remote, a keyboard appears on-screen, from which you typecharacters. The built-in modem provides a 33.6 kbps dial up connect to the Net.The set comes with a bundled 25 hour Internet account from Satyam.

The Cruiser uses a proprietary embedded browser, which haslimited functionality. It doesn’t support MP3, video or streaming audio, andflash. You can play WAV files though. Navigating through frame-based pages isoften by hit and miss, and to click on a link you have to sequentially gothrough all links before it. You can’t view e-mail attachments, nor transferthem to another computer. You may have problems accessing all the features ofe-mail services, as the browser in the Web Cruiser doesn’t support them. Ithas a 2 MB Flash memory to save incoming, outgoing and draft mail.

If you want to change ISPs then configuration has to be donemanually, as you can’t install the software that would otherwise have done it.When used like a TV, it looks exactly like any other TV and the picture qualityis normal. Shift to browsing or e-mail, and the picture quality drops and thescreen starts to flicker.

It has a printer port, but you can use only some older dotmatrix printers with it. All said and done, this device has no upgradability,and very soon you will be using it only as a TV. For that, the price tag of Rs24,990 does seem steep.

The Cruise (Rs 24,990, MIRC Electronics, Mumbai) uses aproprietary embedded browser, but doesn’t support all the features

Sandeep Saxena
in Mumbai