I was interviewed by Kenny Chee of My Paper (我报) regarding IT fairs in Singapore.

my paper (我报) is Singapore’s first free chinese newspaper, launched on 1 June 2006, is designed for bilingual, young adults aged 20-40, who have been exposed to Western and Chinese cultures and want their voices to be heard.

Here is a snippet of the interview within the article:

“IT fairs have better promotions at times, compared to stores, and they tend to bundle more gifts,” said Mr Chan,who has also worked as a web developer.

You can read the full article here (my picture is included).

Thank you Kenny if you are reading this.

Had an informal gathering with Nokia, Text100 and several bloggers at The Straits which is located at 31 Pekin Street, Far East Square. At first when I heard of The Straits, it was referring to the The Straits Kitchen located at Hyatt Hotel. Luckily the full address is given, if not I will be going to the wrong place. The last informal Nokia event was held on the 13th June 2008. How time flies, 2 months just passed like that.

We get to play with the Nokia N79, N85 as well as the long due N96. I would like to say that my views are PURELY based on the prototypes as N79 and N85 will not be launching that soon. For the N96, it is quite closed to the final as it will shipping next month (September 2008) and the RRP for it is SGD$1258.

Nokia N79
The first phone that I got to play with is the N79 and it is the successor of N78. It is the smallest Nseries device that is built by Nokia so far and indeed it is small. The build quality of it is solid, similar to that of my N82.

As you all may know, the Xpress-on cover is back. I have not heard of that term for a long time. This time instead of paying separately for the covers, Nokia has decided to bundle 2 other colors cover within the package. 2 colors of the N79 will be available, Canvas White as well as the Seal Grey. The Canvas White will come with the the cover color of “Olive Green” as well as “Light Sea Blue” and the Seal Grey will come with the cover color of “Coral Red” and “White”. Both sets of the N79 will come with a default cover color which is Espresso Brown.

I am quite impressed by the Xpress-on cover. For example, if you change the cover to Olive Green, your S60 OS’s theme will also change to Olive Green. There is a chip located below at the back of the cover that does the magic.

The shutter speed for the N79 has been increased and hence it takes lesser time to snap a photograph an hence when taking a slow moving object, it will not be that distorted anymore.

Nokia also added Nokia’s Widsets to the phone. WidSets is a clever service that brings the Internet to your cell phone. You can have your Twitter, Friendster, Flikr, Digg, Wikipedia, etc services within the application.

The N79 also has an accelerometer and this time it can rotate any screen within the OS itself (even the main menu). Just rotate the phone, and the screen will be rotated as well. It is much better than my N82 when they first introduce the accelerometer where it can only rotate certain screens.

The N79 will have the common stuff such as 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

The only thing I do not like about N79 is the menu key as well as the clear key. The left and right screen key as well as the answer/hang-up key are “popup” but on the other hand the menu key as well as the clear key are flat and hence it is a little harder to press the menu and the clear key or worst still you will press the wrong key like me. I tested it and when clearing my message, instead of pressing the clear key, I pressed onto the right screen key.

Nokia N85
The Nokia N85 is the direct successor of N81 and N81 8GB. It is built for playing N-Gage games similar to the N81. The N81 is a normal sliding phone but the N85 is a dual slider phone.

The N85 spot a new OLED screen never seen before in the Nseries. With this screen, whatever is displayed on the screen is brighter, sharper and consume lesser power. You can definitely notice the difference.

The keypad on the N85 is very flat and hence it is very difficult for me to press. I have to press the menu key quite hard for it to recognize my action.

Similar to the N79, it also have faster shutter speed, Nokia’s Widsets, accelerometer, 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

A lot of people are saying N85 is the N96 killer as N85 has better screen and much better battery life. You can read about the comparison here.

Nothing to say much about the N96 as I have discuss it many times. I personally think that it is a long due phone since February 2008, it has been more than 6 months and finally it will be launched next month. If Nokia were to launched it before June 2008, I think it would be good as I think that the N85 will eat into the market share of N96 as they are very similar and DVB-H is not ready in Singapore.

Nokia N79 and N85 will launched sometime in October 2008.

Once again, do note my views are still based on early prototypes and some of this problems may get solved before the actual release.

PS: I forgot to bring my Canon iXUS 860IS as well as my Nokia N82 and hence when I use my iPhone to take the pictures of the phones, it turns out to be crap and hence I did not upload it. iPhone camera really not up to standard.

Nokia today held a media event at House @ 8D Dempsey Road at 2pm to officially announced the launch of Nokia N79, N85 and N96. Unfortunately I have to attend my first tutorial, if not I will definitely attend the event.

Basically Nokia N79 is the successor or Nokia N78 and Nokia N85 is the successor of Nokia N81 as well as Nokia N81 8GB. You can also say that the Nokia N96 is the successor of Nokia N95 8GB, but personally I think it is own rather than successor of anything.

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I was there at the Singapore iPhone 3G launch over at Singtel ComCenter which happen at midnight on the 22nd August 2008. I reached there at about 9.15pm and started queuing. I was the 43rd in the queue according to the sticker pasted on my application form.

There are 2 parts of the queue, the first part (Killiney side) is where you queue up and then the part time sales people will write down all your details in the application form as well as the equipment form. Once you are done, they will bring you in batches to the second part of the queue which is in front of the glass house. You will wait at there till midnight. There is a live band EIC and Glenn Ong from Class 95 to entertain you. I brought my laptop along as well so I can provide live updates on Hardware Zone forums.

Approaching midnight, all the top brass from Singtel came and together with the first person in the queue who started queuing since 12pm stand in front of the glass house’s doors. At the stroke of midnight, they pulled the big ribbon which is wrapping around the glass house to unveil the launch of Apple iPhone 3G in Singapore and “mini” fireworks were released. The first guy went in together with the top 10 customers of Singtel into the glass house to get their iPhone 3G. I think the top 10 customers are the one who gave Singtel the most money.

The first guy took about 15 minutes inside and once he is out, all the media are taking pictures and interviewing him. Once his 5 minutes of fame is over, it is the time for the rest of us in the queue to get ours. I think there are 2 places to buy your iPhone 3G, one in Hello Store itself and one in the glass house. The staff directed us to the Hello Store instead and gave each of us a queue number. My queue number was 1032. I waited for about 5 minutes before it is my turn as perhaps the counter is still setting up.

The staff who attended to me is extremely polite and knows his products well. I applied for the Singtel iTwo Value Student which is SGD$48.15 per month and Broadband on Mobile 1000 which is SGD$22.42 per month. Totaling it up would be SGD$70.57 per month. I got the Black 16GB iPhone 3G at SGD$508 but because of the student plan, I get another SGD$50 off the phone and hence the phone cost SGD$458.

I suppose to meet Weiquan and queue together but I was too early and hence I queue first. Nevertheless after purchasing my iPhone 3G (I was done by 1.30am actually), I waited for Weiquan inside the Hello Store and we waited for his turn. He also applied for the iTwo Value Student which is SGD$48.15 per month and also got the Black 8GB iPhone 3G for SGD$298 after SGD$50. He said he will wait for a while before applying the Broadband on Mobile 1000. The staff who attended to him was not very polite and I am not really happy with his work attitude.

There are 32 counters inside the Hello Store if I am not wrong, but there are only 3 cashiers and that is the bottle neck. Every sales staff just put the customer iPhone on the floor, chair or any available space they can find. And when it is the customer turn, they will ask you for your name and the color of your iPhone 3G and they will search through the whole floor of iPhones before finding yours. A lot of people make noise about the issue especially the guy behind us, he was making a very huge fuss about it.

We left about 3.30am and I sent Weiquan home and drop by Li Xiang house to say hi.

Later at night, my brother said he saw me on Channel 8 10pm news but I was not at home. I wanted to watch the Channel U 11pm news to see if they repeat it, but to my disappointment, they didn’t run it. I managed to catch a video posted by xin.sg (it was Li Xiang idea) and I managed to see myself in the video.

After watching the video, I was like WTF! How come only the first person in the queue got served by Singtel Staff wearing gloves while the rest of us do not have that. That is so double standard.

Here is the “mini” fireworks video that I took:

I have uploaded the few pictures that I took to my gallery:

For SingTel iPhone 4S prices, check out this post, http://lesterchan.net/blog/2011/10/27/singtel-iphone-4s-price-plans/.

For SingTel iPhone 4 prices, check out this post, http://lesterchan.net/blog/2010/07/27/singtel-iphone-4-price-plans/.

For SingTel iPhone 3GS prices, check out this post, http://lesterchan.net/blog/2009/07/06/singtel-iphone-3gs-price-plans/.

3 New Voice + Data Plans

• iFlexi Value – SGD$56
  • 1GB Data *
  • 200 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$348
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$508
• iFlexi Plus – SGD$95
  • 2GB Data *
  • 500 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$49
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$208
• iFlexi Premium – SGD$205
  • 3GB Data *
  • 1,500 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 1,500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: Free
  • iPhone 16GB Price: Free

Note

• * Only for customers who connect/recontract to an iFlexi plan before 5th Sep 2008.
• These plans also come with 5 value added services free (Caller ID, AutoRoam, VoiceMail, SMS Plus and Overseas Missed Call Alert).
• Taken from: Singtel iFlexi Price Plans.
• Prices stated are including 7% GST.

Voice Only Plans

• iOne Plus – SGD$25.68
  • No Data *
  • 100 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$698
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$848
• iTwo Value – SGD$48.15
  • No Data *
  • 300 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$348
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$508
• iTwo Plus – SGD$82.93
  • No Data *
  • 700 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$49
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$208
• iThree Plus – SGD$192.60
  • No Data *
  • 2,000 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 2,000 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: Free
  • iPhone 16GB Price: Free

Data Only Plans

• Broadband on Mobile Lite – SGD$3.50
  • Download Speed: 7.2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 2 MB
• Broadband on Mobile Plus – SGD$19.90
  • Download Speed: 7.2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 1 GB
• Broadband on Mobile Premium – SGD$29.90 (New)
  • Download Speed: 7.2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 10 GB
• Broadband on Mobile Platinum – SGD$39.90 (New)
  • Download Speed: 7.2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 30 GB
• Broadband on Mobile 1000 – SGD$22.42
  • Download Speed: 1Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 30 GB
• Broadband on Mobile Youth – SGD$29.00
  • Download Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB
  • For Students & NSFs Only
• Broadband on Mobile 2000 – SGD$37.00
  • Download Speed: 2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 512kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB
• Broadband on Mobile 4000 – SGD$51.00
  • Download Speed: 4Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB
• Broadband on Mobile 7200 – SGD$72.76
  • Download Speed: 7.2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 1.5Mbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB

Note

• * It is recommended to have Broadband on Mobile data plan to go along with the Voice Only plan.
• These plans also come with 4 value added services free (Caller ID, AutoRoam, VoiceMail and Overseas Missed Call Alert).
• Taken from: Singtel Existing Voice Only Price Plans.
• Prices stated are including 7% GST.

Links

• View Singtel Broadband on Mobile price plans
• View Singtel Postpaid Mobile price plans
• View Singtel iPhone price plans
• Credit to leinad of HWZ
• Discussion at Hardware Zone Forums

*UPDATE* Singtel officially announced the price in http://home.singtel.com/singtel/index.html. I have updated this blog post to reflect it.

*UPDATE 2* Personally, I am going for the iTwo Value (SGD$48.15) + Broadband on Mobile 1000 (SGD$22.42) = SGD$70.57. My current M1 monthly bill is also about SGD$60+.

*UPDATE 3* Singtel is no longer selling the iPhone 3G 16GB. For Singtel iPhone 3GS prices, check out this post, http://lesterchan.net/blog/2009/07/06/singtel-iphone-3gs-price-plans/.

*Last Updated* 12th July 2009