Hong Kong Phooey

In my previous post, ASUS Eee PC 900 Launch Imminent, I linked up some pics from an unboxed article (dated 12 April) from XEPC.org where they showed that the battery capacity of the ASUS Eee PC 900 was at 5,200mAh.

In an even earlier article from one of the top local computer magazine (dated 15 April), PCMarket, it showed a higher capacity battery at 5,800mAh (PCMarket clarified on the 19 April that ASUS will be shipping the 4,400mAh battery instead, strange it showed a 7.2V output, seems like it’s from the Eee PC 701 instead)).

But in fact, this is what you’ll be getting out of the first batch of the ASUS Eee PC 900 launched in Hong Kong on the 19 April, a 4,400mAh battery.

The ASUS Eee PC 900 features a 8.9″ active matrix TDT LCD screen with 1024×600 resolution; 1GB DD2 Ram; 20GB SSD and 1.3 mega-pixel camera. My Eee PC 900 runs on Linux and Firefox browser.  The whole thing do look small and feels incredibly light at 990g.  The wireless connection is slow at disconnecting and connecting but nonetheless still pretty smooth.

Retail price at HK$3,998 (US$513), but because of limited stock available at present, prices are up to HK$4,488 in Mongkok Computer Centre and HK$4,688 in Wanchai 168 Computer Centre.

As the Windows XP version are not available yet, expect another HK$680 if you want the retailers to install a copy of Windows XP licence for you, that is, if you can’t wait till they formally release it.  As for the screen protector, you can get it for around HK$150 (tight fit).
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Following my last post on the HP 2133 UMPC, James Kendrick over at jkOnTheRun received a test unit for a week and he just publish a very long and thorough review on it. His take on the HP 2133 -

“I think HP has a real winner on their hands with the Mini. I find it to be a capable notebook computer that is highly portable and the build quality is outstanding. I also find it impressive that the total price swing from entry level (with Linux) to fully loaded is only $250 and there is no question in my mind that the Mini is the best built UMPC at this price level. I wish HP had put an Intel processor instead of the Via but that is probably my long-time prejudice against the Via rather than any actual observed issue. I find it delightful that HP will allow consumers to configure a Mini exactly as desired on their online store which is unusual for such a low-cost device. I would have no problem recommending the Mini to anyone looking for a highly mobile notebook with few compromises.”

If that’s not enough, check out his video review on the HP 2133. For your information, the HP 2133 is ready for order now in the US.

Source - jkOnTheRun

[26 March] My iPod been running out of juice a lot lately as I’ve been watching quite a bit of video podcast on it and it really drains the battery fast. That was pretty frustrating until my sister got me the PowerMonkey mobile charger from PowerTraveller on her way back from San Francisco (at the airport). This charger comes with -

1 x PowerMonkey Unit
1 x Universal Mains adaptor
Adaptor for Nokia and Mini Nokia, Motorola V66, Samsung E900, Siemens C25 and Sony Ericsson wide connector
1 x Mini USB for Motorola Razr V series, Blackberry and Bluetooth headsets
1 x Direct iPod adaptor
1 x USB smart phones, PDA and other devices
1 x Connector for Sony PSP and most digital cameras
1 x Black travel pouch

The capacity of the PowerMonkey is 2200mAh, although less than the Tekkeon myPower Go MP1500 I have, the included iPod connector sure comes in handy (never order the iPod connector from Tekkeon). Another great thing about the charger is that it could hold its charge without leakage for up to 6 months. The PowerMonkey is available on ExpanSys, link here.

[Updated: 3 April] Turned out that the iPhone/iPod charger that came with the PowerMonkey did not work with my iPod Touch. Sent a email to the manufacturer (info@powertraveller.com) last week and they replied that Apple had recently changed their charging connections and because of that, a new connector tip with a new chip was developed and they promised to send me one for free.

Finally got the new tip today and Voila, it works. Just in time for my Singapore trip in 2 weeks. Read more »

Pic from engadget

What they called an unconventional review, the guys over at X-bits Lab ran a very thorough review on the new Apple MacBook Air and their verdict,

“This notebook is beautiful, innovative, mobile and quite functional and hence is very appealing to users. We can definitely recommend it to many advanced users, but not to all of them. The thing is that MacBook Air is only good until you start looking at it as at a fully-functional universal computer system. This is where the new Apple solution cannot compete against other products with more ports, optical drives, wired network support, better balanced hardware configuration, etc.

In other words, Apple MacBook Air is not a notebook in the common meaning of this word, but a gadget with notebook functionality…In reality, MacBook Air is not a mainstream solution at all. It is an expensive specific toy for techno-maniacs with futuristic views.”

For full article, go the the link here.

Source - engadget

Pic from Boy Genius Report

The Boy Genius Report published a very in-depth review on the HTC Shift which we in Hong Kong are still awaiting.  One of the notable things that was pointed out in the review was with the HTC Communication software.  According to the review,

“We have had a ton of issues with HTC’s Communication Manager. This has crashed a bunch of times, and while it’s not the biggest deal if you can’t access that bit of software, it is. That controls all wireless connectivity options, so you can forget about using Wi-Fi or 3G when that bugger crashes and doesn’t perform. You can also forget about SnapVue as that has to be on in order for the Windows Mobile side of things to start up. Thankfully it’s a software issue, and we’re more than positive this will resolved quickly. Right, HTCizzle? Besides Comm Manager, all is well in HTC Shift world. Though that’s a funny statement considering the device is a glorified PDA with that bit of software not working. Oh yeah! XP drivers, please! Come on guys, give us the option to install XP and get our world-traveler on.”

Hope HTC comes out with a software patch soon and most importantly, RELEASE this in Hong Kong please.

Source - via MobilitySite

Tracy and Matt’s Blog posted the unboxed video of the all new Samsung i780, which now starts appearing in Sintat Centre down in Mongkok. No info on the pricing though rumours from local forums indicated that the English version goes for HK$3,880.

Key features

• Unique dual mode touchpad navigation
• Built-in GPS with A-GPS support
• Large 2.55″ 320×320 pixels TFT touchscreen display
• Good preloaded content
• Innovative home screen plug-in
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP
• HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
• Fast Marvell PXA3xx processor
• 256MB ROM and 128MB RAM (~ 150MB is user available)
• Full QWERTY keyboard
• 2 megapixel camera

For a more detail review, check out GSM Arena, link to their review here.

from www.tracyandmatt.co. posted with vodpod

Size comparison pic showing N810 next to the N800 on top of an Asus Eee PC, photo from ARS Technica

[26 November] Found a great unboxing and first impression article on the Nokia N810 Tablet over at ARS Technica with some nice pics. Link here. The author’s verdict on it -

“Overall, I think that the N810 is a relatively impressive device, but the mediocrity of the built-in keyboard and the limitations of the free GPS software detract from the value of the most significant changes between the N800 and the N810. The N810 is still a very good product, but not enough to justify the $450 price tag when the N800 can be purchased for under $250. Potential N810 buyers are probably better off waiting. Those who regard the built-in GPS as a killer feature should also keep in mind that they will have to pay more for the full version of the WayFarer software in order to really make full use of the N810’s GPS capabilities.”

[Updated - 30 November] Another great unboxing video of the Nokia N810 from absolon3.

[Updated - 8 December] jkkmobile published the hands on with the Nokia N810 article. His take - it’s a no-buy. Read on and see if you agree or not. Bonus: some nice side-to-side comparison pics with the Everun.

[Updated - 10 December] tnkgrl Mobile ran an article on the comparison between the Nokia N800 and N810, link here.

[Updated - 6 March 2008] For those in Hong Kong, See-Digi (Tel: 2893 9119) is selling them for HK$3,980.

Got the all new HTC Touch Cruise for almost week and instead of doing yet another unboxing piece on the phone, I want to look at the phone in another perspective, one from a power user.

As you all remember, I lost my iPhone on Christmas Eve and the one great thing I missed about the iPhone is the ultra-fast user interface and the iPod functions on it as podcasts takes up a big chunk of my daily life. For the month without the iPhone, I have to go back to my HTC Touch, which I found to be sluggish in terms of speed and even with the TouchFlo interface. One thing that I appreciates is having the instant sync capabilities with my Microsoft Exchange account and that is the thing that I truly missed while using the iPhone.

Okay, on to the HTC Touch Cruise. For HK$5,580 (US$715), I bought the HTC Touch Cruise the second day after it was launched. The outlook is sweet, the mirror finish on the surface is stylish and elegant (unlike the HTC Touch’s cheap plastic feel).

The buttons and the jog wheel are very sensitive and gives a good feel when pressing or scrolling. Onto the processor, in terms of speed or movie playback, one can feel the lag, not much, but enough for one to wonder why HTC can’t offer a better processor for this top-notch phone. However, when compare with the HTC Touch, the HTC Touch Cruise is considered much faster and it is acceptable. The second generation TouchFLO is a bit smoother and faster than the previous version and the incorporation of the technology to the picture album is just awesome, I just love how the pictures can be zoomed in and out and rotates.

The phone comes with a FM radio and the headphone, which function also as an antenna, would be needed in order for it to work. However, the radio reception and sound quality of the headphones that came with the phone are just purely unacceptable. Couple posts on the local forums indicated that previous HTC headphones of older phone models (those with the mini-usb jack) gives better radio reception and produce much better sound quality. Another solution is to look for those generic headphones with a mini-usb jack, chances are, they’re still better than the one that came with the phone.

As for the battery, well, disappointing is all I have to say. I can easily half drain the battery (1,350 mAh) within a 24-hour period with no Bluetooth and no WiFi on, 20+ short phone calls, 40+ incoming mail and messages, and without accessing any other programs. Can’t imagine what it would be like if I start listening to music on it or reading my RSS feeds off it.

The 3.0 mega pixels camera is weak, don’t expect to take any great pics off it. However, the VGA CMOS camera on the front gives very crisp picture during the video calls. I tested it with my Motorola and LG video phones and the video quality off the HTC Touch Cruise is very good, not much lag at all.

All in all, the HTC Touch Cruise is a decent upgrade to the HTC Touch (much along the same line as the HTC Touch Dual), but in terms of value for money, I would say not. For almost US$100 more than the HTC Touch Dual, I don’t see much extras the HTC Touch Cruise really had to offer. Of course WiFi, FM radio and video call capabilities are cool to have but only if deemed necessary. If I get to choose again, I might just go for the HTC Touch Dual (that one have a pretty nice keypad).

Check out the following pics for more.

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Mark Wilson of Gizmodo just posted the long term review of the ASUS Eee PC and it matches the views and thoughts of a lot of the Eee PC users around me.  I can feel his takes on the performance issue and the sub-par WiFi reception, however, I cannot agree totally to his conclusion as I think the product is still revolutionary and it is another good alternative to the PC latop and MacBook,

“I’m not sure that the Eee is a “don’t buy.” But more and more every day, I’m wishing that we’d invested the $400 elsewhere (a new smartphone, for instance). Initial reviews accepted the system’s shortcomings partially because everyone loved that golden price/performance/size ratio and partially, even tacitly, because many expected bugs to be ironed out in due course.”

Pic from TabletPCReview

The user review on the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC is out on TabletPCReview.  Noted that it cost a bit more in the US.  The current standard config in Hong Kong which includes the following goes for HK$16,688, very attractive indeed.

As reported in my earlier post, First Look - Duosense, Dell had the technology in place and multi-touch would be available once applications supporting it starts appearing.  All-in-all, a very solid Tablet PC which promises much.  One thing to note is that 2GB memory is almost a must for the Tablet PC running Vista, so make sure you add in that option.

Source - MundoPDA

Pic from engadget

Engadget have the reivew out on the all new MacBook Air.  Don’t think they like it that much.  Their take on it -

“The Air is a tough call. On the one hand it proposes to be a no-compromises ultraportable, but on the other hand it compromises many (but not all) the things road warriors want. We’re all about removing unnecessary frills and drives (we rejoiced the day the original iMac bucked the floppy), but laptops are increasingly becoming many users’ primary — often only — machines, which is why the Air’s price doesn’t do it any favors, either. It’s hard to justify almost two grand for a second laptop (or a third machine) just for travel needs — and even then, that’s only easily done if all your data lives in the cloud. Given those sacrifices and that higher-end sticker, it’s more than likely not going to replace most peoples’ current workhorse laptop.”

What’s your view on it? Attached here the CNET video review and the guided tour in case you have not seen it yet.

PhoneArena have this new video review up on the LG KS20, for the written review, check out the following link, click here. Acoording to the review, the sound quality of the phone and the processor speed are not too impressive, check it out yourself.

Source - PhoneArena