Ordered the Bluelounge MiniDock (UK variant) from bluelounge.com for USD$19.95 (~SGD$24.20). It was my first purchase over the website as the MiniDock is not yet sold in Singapore.

The shipping cost is about USD$4.15 (~SGD$5) via USPS (First Class Mail International Parcels). This shipping method is the cheapest but it is delivered via normal mail when it reaches Singapore as it does not come with a tracking number. Also my box is a little bit damage, but at just SGD$5 for shipping, I can’t really complain much. My item was shipped on 20th August 2011 and I received it on 8th September 2011 (about 20 days).

As the name suggest, this product is a dock that allows you to plug directly to Apple USB Power Adapter and dock your iPhone, iPod Nano/Touch directly to it without the need for any Apple Dock Connector to USB Cable. It is really good for travelling as often the power socket in a hotel room is always located at awkward position and you do not want to place your device on the floor with a wire connected to it as it is dirty and you might trip over it.

Box Front

Only 2 Items In The Package

MiniDock Front View

Attached To Apple USB Power Adapter

Plugged In

Hooted the A.C. Ryan Playon! HD Mini 2 on Thursday at the IT Show 2011. The RRP was SGD$199 but CitiBank credit cards customers can get an additional SGD$10 off, so end up paying SGD$189 for it. The A.C. Ryan Playon! HD Mini 2 features USB 3.0, 10/100/1000Mbps LAN connectivity and of course the brand new GUI 2.0. It was release back in early January 2011.

This media player is going to be connected to my living room television so that my parents can watch shows without turning on the iMac in the living room. I got the mini one instead as I will be streaming media from my A.C. Ryan Playon! HD which I got back in late November 2010.

Since the mini 2 can support up to 1000Mbps (my router & switch are all 10/100/1000Mbps and connected using cat 6 cables), the bottleneck now is my Playon! HD which supports only up to 100Mbps which is terribly slow. But I just got the Playon! HD, so I can’t justify another purchase of the upgraded Playon! HD 2. I guess I have to stick with it for 2 to 3 years and wait for Playon! HD 4.

Box Front

Box Contents

Top View

Back View

GUI 2.0

Backstage Passes

Was invited to a Sony Ericsson’s Backstage blogger session, it is my first time attending a Sony Ericsson event! We are introduce to the company (Sony) tag line which is “make.believe”. The “dot” in the “make.believe” is important because it separates “make believe” from “make” and “believe”.

After the introduction we are introduce to 5 phones. Xperia X10, Xperia X10 Mini, Xperia X10 Mini Pro, Vivaz and Vivaz Pro. The Xperia X10 family is running on Android 2.1 while the Vivaz family is running on Symbian OS S60 v5.

They put in quite a lot of effort in skinning both the Android and Symbian OS to give it it’s own identity and to represent Sony Ericsson. There are quite a number of custom application running on the Android like the Timescape which gives you all the information regarding a particular contact like his tweets, messages, call log, etc. Mediascape on the other hand is used to manage all media related files on the phone.

Xperia X10

X10 Presentation

My favorite phone of the 5! It is already out in the market. Featuring a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 1GB in-built storage and 384MB of RAM. Featuring a 4″ screen and 8MP camera with LED flash!

Official Page: Xperia X10

Xperia X10 Mini
Xperia 10 Mini is a much smaller version of the Xperia 10 and I am very surprised by the size. It is just the size of my palm! Probably the smallest phone in the market when it is launched weighing only just 88g!

Xperia X10 Mini is about 1/2 the size of the X10 with a 2.55″ screen packed with a Qualcomm 600MHz processor, 128MB of memory, 5MP camera with LED flash.

The complain I have for the X10 Mini/Mini Pro is that the screen doesn’t look sharp despite having a 16.7 million color screen and it doesn’t support multi-touch because it is meant to be operated using one hand.

Xperia X10 Mini will be launching in June 2010.

Official Site: Xperia X10 Mini

Xperia X10 Mini Pro

X10 Mini Pro

Xperia X10 Mini Pro is the Xperia X10 Mini with a QWERTY keyboard and because of the keyboard, it is slightly thicker and heavier (88g vs 120g). Besides that everything in terms of hardware is the same.

Xperia X10 Mini Pro will be launching in July 2010.

Official Site: Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Vivaz
Vivaz is already out in the market, Vivaz is being marketed as a phone that is capable of recording HD video (720p). Featuring a 3.2″ screen powered by PowerVR SGX graphics (720 MHz) with 75mb of memory and a 8MP camera with LED flash.

Official Site: Vivaz

Vivaz Pro
Vivaz Pro is essentially a Vivaz with a QWERTY keyboard, of course similar to the X10 Mini with the X10 Mini Pro. The Vivaz Pro weights 117g while the Vivaz weights 97g.

Vivaz Pro will be launching in June 2010.

Official Site: Vivaz Pro

My mom ordered 4 Dell Vostro 220 Mini Tower Desktop computers for her company last week. This week, 3 units came on Tuesday and 1 unit came on Wednesday. I was there on Wednesday to help her setup the computers. I managed to setup everything for the 3 units that came on Tuesday. So happen when I wanted to setup the unit that came on Wednesday, there was a problem! The first time I switch on the PC, I got a BOSD after reading Dell’s EULA. After rebooting, it will load Windows XP and then hang at the “Pre-installing Factory Settings”. I tried like 10 times, all the same results. Ran the diagnostics CD that came with the PC as told by the Dell telephone support personnel, but I can’t seem to find any problem with the hardware like the HDD or the RAM. So I suspect it must be either the motherboard or the integrated graphics card as those are not tested in the diagnostics.

Dell’s engineer came down today and said there was a problem with the motherboard bios configuration and he changed the whole motherboard and now everything is fine.

Here are the customized specifications of the Dell Vostro 220 Mini Tower Desktop:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E7400 (2.80GHz, 3MB, 1066MHz FSB)
• 4GB (2X2GB) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz SD RAM Memory
• 320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Command Queuing
• 16X DVD + / – RW WITH Dual Layer Write Capabilities
• Dell E1910H 18.5″ Widescreen Flat Panel
• Integrated 5.1 Channel (Audio) Capable
• Windows Vista Business SP1 with Windows XP Professional SP3 Pre-installed
• Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business OEM
• Norton Internet Security 2009 OEM with 15 months subscription
• 3 Yrs Next Business Day Onsite Service

Each unit cost SGD$1,532.24 after adding in 7% GST.