For one, I am now able to take time out for my passions – photography and music. That has helped me clear my mind, and think like never before, of course aided by the super fresh air that I get to breathe in my garden these days. With my dogs (14 of them).

Who wouldn’t want to write when your surroundings are blanketed in the wonders of Mother Nature, that too in Delhi. These days, my garden gets numerous visitors – pigeons (of course), parrots, and even peacocks!

With the world in an unfortunate lockdown, people are consuming more content, so there’s pressure to create more. The cool thing is that I’m managing to literally pen big articles. Many a times, I sit down to write an article on the laptop, and then switch to my phone so that I can roam around the house while I keep writing.

Since all my content is on a cloud, it’s easy for me to switch, and the large screen and precise haptic feedback on Galaxy S20 Ultra that I am using right now, is just perfect for writing. I am actually being more productive sometimes just using the phone as an idea goes from being a stream of consciousness to a fully fleshed editorial.

When I first entered the newsroom, I wasn’t an Android user. But then in 2011, the Galaxy SII happened to me, my first smartphone purchasedfrom my salary. The next was a Galaxy Nexus, despite it not being launched in India. Since then, Galaxy S has remained a big part of my growing up, personally and professionally.

However, smartphones aren’t my first memory of Samsung. My first memory is from the ‘90s at a shop in New Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market. My dad had taken me along to buy a new TV and we ended up getting a Samsung TV which was used in the family till 2015. Since then, every TV that has been bought in my household has been a Samsung. That is long before I started my journey as a technology journalist in 2009.

Today, content isn’t limited to text. There are a lot of videos that we’ve been making at warpcore.live, but that was usually on a DSLR. At home, I gave it a shot on Galaxy S20 Plus, and the results have been amazing. I am shooting a lot of 4K videos, though it does help that the smartphone can shoot 8K as well.

The lockdown has given me time to do things I always wanted to, returning to old hobbies. I am a guitarist and I have taken this time to develop a DJ set. I tested it a couple of times and the feedback was rather encouraging.

I have also started to develop photography as a hobby. It is an extension of my job, as I am always clicking photographs while reviewing smartphones or cameras, but this time it is more deliberate. The capabilities of Galaxy S20 Plus and Galaxy S20 Ultra help me unlock my abilities. Using 50X zoom on Galaxy S20 Ultra, I can gaze at the Lotus Temple from my roof top.

My life is pretty normal but this lockdown can take its toll. New hobbies and new ways of working have helped me keep my sanity and productivity.

[Sahil Mohan Gupta is the Founder and Editor of warpcore.live and a Contributor to NewsX.com. He was formerly the India Editor for Gizmodo, PCMag and TechRadar. He wrote this piece at the request of Samsung Newsroom India]