Iphone, clones and close imitations

In the recent weeks, I have had on my hands a couple of China Iphone clones, a Meizu M8, an Iphone 3G, Ipod Touch 2G, HTC Cruise 2009, HTC Touch HD, Nokia E71, Nokia E66. Although I can write volumes on my experience, I just wish to highlight the quality aspect of the phones. In the Meizu M8, I find the hardware quality almost exceeding the other mainstream phones. Even the China Iphone clones pulled out a few tricks of their own.

But I am sticking my Apples, Nokias and HTCs, cos these alternatives are just lacking in terms of quality. Quality? - spelling mistakes, not thoroughly thought through processes and key stroke sequences, half done functionalities, total lack of 3rd party softwares and fundamental operational quality problems.

P1 Wimax... not for me

After much exasperation and hair pulling with Streamyx, I decided to try P1 Wimax. Signing up was easy as these guys were on a promotion blitz. You can find the promo kiosk everywhere. Paid my RM 100 and took home the modem receiver with WIFI!! Setting up was darn easy too, was connected within 10 minutes. But the horror begins..... takes 5-10 minutes to load common web pages. When doing a speedtest.... the latency is 700 over ms... After 45 minutes, packed it up into the original box and just went to their HQ and returned it. They have a 7 day cooling period. Seriously, if they are not technically ready, they shouldn't launch the product, it just spoils the brand name.

HTC Touch HD!

Couldn't resist it, and bought the HTC Touch HD. Looks like for the first time in 3 years, I have more Winmob devices than Nokia. Still keeping my ever trusty Nokia E71. First thing noted is that the HD has a slower response time than the Cruise 2009. However, noted some patch available on www.htc.com/asia, might try to do some updates and see how it works.

My worst camera.... ever

Nikon S210. This is my worst camera... ever. Bought for the last family Christmas holidays in HK and China, and subsequently the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays. What image  stabilization? More like purpose built to shake your picture taking. Incredibly lousy pictures. It is now in the house.. next to the kid's barbie camera where it belongs. Even my N95 8g took much much better pictures than this camera. Deciding to get another camera now, absolutely never ever going to get a Nikon again. 

HTC Cruise 2009 - Footprints > I found the photos!!

The HTC Cruise 2009 Footprints geo-tagging function/software is really cool. But with one downside, you cannot readily download the photos. They allow you to export the to a single *.fdb file which is impossible to open. After much searching, found the jpgs all hidden in your device storage \application data\HTC\HTC Footprint\thumbnails. One problem though, the footprints camera seems to be of low quality and there are no options to adjust the camera settings.. I can foresee this software slowly taking a backseat in my usage.

Nokia Messaging

Finally, after wondering why they ditched blackberry on the E series phones, Nokia has launched the Nokia Messaging service. After 1 month of testing, its good!! I am definitely liking it a lot. It is very usable and customizable. Only ONE BIG PROBLEM. When you compose, reply emails, the font suddenly becomes super duper small. I just cannot understand this. Other than this, I think its a great software. But meanwhile, I will stick with my new HTC for a while. The ability to manipulate font size on the front dial buttons means a lot to a guy whose eyesight is approaching middle age.

Spring in Shanghai

Amidst the smog and pollution, spring has arrived in Shanghai. Nice flowers and green leaves all around. But the traffic is still so bad.

China Mobile Data

Sigh! Can't read Chinese but I found out you can subcribe for 120mb data per month for RMB 5 by sending an SMS gprs5 to 10086. But its only for CMWAP and via a WAP proxy server. If you want to use the full fledged CMNET service, you still gotta pay as per use. However if you subcribe to the RMB 5 per month CMWAP package, when you use CMNET, you will only get charged RMB 1 per 1 mb per day. If you don't subscribe to the CMWAP package, then its a minimum of RMB 2 per day each time you connect to the internet.

The problem is the GMAIL applet works on CMWAP, but the new Nokia Messaging and the phone email client doesnt work on CMWAP. Only works on CMNET. Operamini works on CMWAP. Gotta to do some serious Baidu searching and translation to find out more!

Update - Finally send sms blgprs to 10086, and they returned with this -

1）CMWAP月使用流量在30MB内建议使用5元月套餐，办理回复GPRS5；

2）CMWAP月使用流量在150MB内建议使用20元月套餐，办理回复 GPRS20；

3）CMWAP月使用流量在500MB内建议使用50元月套餐，办理回复GPRS50；

4）CMNET/CMWAP月使用流量在1G内建议 使用100元月套餐，办理回复GPRS100；

5）CMNET/CMWAP月使用流量在2G内建议使用200元月套餐，办理回复GPRS200。如需了解 GPRS套餐内容，请回复CXGPRS

Basically it means that CMNET is only available for package deals RMB 100 and above. And this applies only for Guangdong China Mobile, which means I have to pay separately if I am using in another province. Gonna try it out and see how it goes.

Ditched my Nokia 5800

Although I was the early adopter/buyer of this phone. Kept it for only 2-3 months. Used for less than a week. Somehow it doesnt really attract me. The functionality remains largely the same as my E71 and N95 8g. Software support seems to be slowly trickling out. Didnt like the touchscreen and the software plus usability was not good enough to offset the lack of a keypad. Traded in the phone for my spanking new HTC Cruise 2009. After weaning myself of Winmob for 2 years, I am beginning to like it again. Maybe the Touch Pro 2?..... The only thing I liked about the 5800 is the phone stand, which I kept..

Belgium - March 2009

Yahoo!! Managed to get a company trip to Belgium!! The flight was a killer though. HK to Frankfurt and then Brussels. Nice cold weather. Quaint houses and nice scenery. Unfortunately my companions have no stomach for western food, so we had to have crappy Chinese food (as in crappy in Europe) every day.

My new HTC Cruise 2009

Was looking at the HTC Touch HD, liked the big screen. But at the shop, ended up with a brand new HTC Cruise 2009. Needed the winmob OS to run some language software. Winmob has progresses significantly from the last time I used it, like 2 years ago. You had to install all the software into it. Basically I can use this phone straight from the box. And the best thing is I can hook up with Goosync and Google Sync for my calendar and contacts. Everythings nice at the moment.

Was searching to swap the hot buttons, finally found a nice software AEBplus to do it. Had to tweak the registry a bit HKEYLOCALMACHINE\software\app\papagox3\ModuleName (deleted this). Then reassign the hot button via AEBplus. If you dont delete this file, then pressing the button opens up both original and new program.

Got a nice software NaviOne to replace PapagoX3 for China maps. The Papago maps are extremely limited.

English signs!!

The pictures speak for themselves!

Splendid China and Windows of the World

Windows of the World in Dec 2008. Not so worth the money. Splendid China
is the much better. The show at 730pm was beyond expectations. But a bit
silly system they have. You have to take the entrance ticket and go to
this little counter and exchange for a numbered seat ticket for the
show. Then after much twists and turns, you end up in this big
auditorium (semi open air) to see the show. All signages in Chinese and
not tourist friendly.. good show though. Highly recommended.

Apartment in shenzhen

my apartment in shenzhen. Balcony view of hong kong, but at china rent!

Kids crossing to hk for school

saw groups of kids crossing from shenzhen to hk for school in the morning. Picture taken at futian border chk point