The Nokia Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 arrive in Singapore from 8th December 2012 at Nokia retail stores and telco shops, having first been announced on 6th September. The Lumia 820 costs S$699 without contract, available in Black or White.
The Cisco Linksys EA6500 succeeds the EA4500 and is now in stores for S$349. It uses the new 802.11ac wireless technology, still under development, to deliver near-gigabit wireless speeds. Most AC routers currently reach a theoretical maximum of 1.3Gbps.
The Asus PadFone 2, successor to the original PadFone, goes on sale in Singapore from 22nd November 2012 at authorised Asus retailers and StarHub Shops, seemingly a StarHub exclusive. The 32GB PadFone 2 with Station costs S$1,099, or S$848.
The Toshiba FlashAir is a no-frills take on the Flucard Pro and Eye-Fi Pro. Distributed in Singapore by Trek 2000, it retails for around S$100. Since Trek doesn't enforce an RRP, I can't quote an official price. Only the 8GB.
I'd always wanted to experiment with NFC tags to automate tasks. My iPhone 5 lacks NFC, but my work phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE, has it. Samsung's TecTiles weren't available in Singapore yet, so I tried Tapway's instead.
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm launches on 12th March 2013, though Singapore gets it a day earlier on the 11th. It retails here for S$49.90, or MYR125 in Malaysia. A Licence2Play exclusive pre-order event runs at Marina Bay Sands.
Happy 28th birthday to my dearest wifey! I didn't get you a present this year, unless the Pixel Ruler I bought last month counts. I promise more effort next year. Tonight I've found a few ice cream spots.
I bought the Apple Lightning to Micro USB Adapter from the Apple Online Store for S$28. It was initially Europe-only, since EU law requires phones sold there to support Micro USB. Last Saturday, Apple made it available worldwide.
On 1st November 2012, Sanyo announced new and improved eneloop Rechargeable Batteries, model HR-3UTGB, replacing the older HR-3UTGA. They boast a 20% longer lifespan, around 1,800 recharge cycles, and improved storage, retaining 70% of their capacity even after five years.
I'm proud that Singapore made the tech news last week with the world's thinnest 2.5-inch hybrid hard drive. Just 5mm thick, it stores 1TB of regular HDD plus 32GB of SSD. The challenge was shrinking the 7mm drive by 30%.
Aftershock is a Singapore-based company making gaming laptops, so unless you're into gaming you've probably not heard of them. Based in Singapore, the team of hardware junkies, gamers, and IT professionals builds custom gaming notebooks aimed at the highest performance.
On 30th October 2012, Lenovo announced a new range of convertible devices designed for Windows 8. It calls them convertibles, not laptops, because they're more than ordinary notebooks. The IdeaPad Yoga 13 and Yoga 11 rotate their screens 360 degrees.