Dear1 Dear2

Somehow, my luck with mobile phone just doesn’t seem to go too well. My first phone was a Samsung SGH600 (I think I got the model number wrong but anyway…), it served me very well. My next one was a Panasonic, can’t remember the model number, totally atrocious. Next came the SE T610. It was a good phone with a lot of features but somehow it was prone to auto shutting down. Next was back to Samsung for D510. It was a very nice slider with an executive look and it worked very well while I was using it. And the most recently phone was the Nokia 6288. Bad, slow response, random resets, unreliable reception. I got so fed up with it that I switched back to my old D510 while searching for a new mobile phone. Up until this stage, I would say that Samsung makes good reliable phones.

For my new phone, I decided on some features that I think I would need going forward. First, I think WLAN is a must becos there are so many free wireless hotspots popping up around town. And being able to log in to the Internet to check movie timings on the go is definitely convenient. I know, GPRS already allows web surfing, but it is expensive, WiFi is free.

Second feature I’m looking for is GPS. I anticipate that I might be getting a car in the future, so having a built in GPS in my mobile phone is more convenient than having to install a GPS car kit. Moreover, GPS in phone allows me to find my way even when I’m outside the car. And GPS can be useful for overseas free and easy travel too.

Next feature I want is multimedia support. There are so many media players out there like ipod, meizu, etc, but they all have one common flaw, they require the user to carry an additional gadget outdoors. In this time of technology convergence, I believe that simple music and video playing can be handled by a mobile phone. So this brings me to a few related features. One, the phone must have a powerful enough processor to handle multimedia. Two, it must have a large and bright enough screen. Three, it must support SD card expansion slots to be able to hold lots of songs and videos.

My search brings me to a near perfect candidate, the HTC Touch 3G. It has WiFi, GPS, a large screen and SD card expansion slot. Specifications wise, it is identical to the HTC Touch Diamond, Qualcomm 7225 528MHz, 192Mb RAM. Price wise, it is very attractive, about $200 cheaper than the Diamond. Features that are desirable but missing from the Touch 3G are FM radio and front camera for video calls.

After weighing the pros and cons, I decided to purchase this phone without line since this phone is a Starhub exclusive while I’m an M1 customer. I managed to find a hubber who recontracted his line to get this phone and I bought it from him at $480 early this year.

In the few months that I’ve been using this phone, I realized how a Windows Mobile operating system can really be useful. Yes, I agree that WM isn’t really that stable and fantastic, but it does have a very very wide range of applications that can be really useful in everyday life. For example, there is Youtube and Google Maps applications. And I’ve also installed an personal accounting application to track my expenses. And there are so many more applications to explore.

For the price and specifications, I would really recommend this phone to anyone who wants to give the WM operating system a try.

-Dear1

Our previous camera was the Olympus C350Z, bought in 2003. Back then, the state of the art was 4 megapixels, but we decided that we wouldn’t blindly pursue the latest trend and so settled for the 3.2MP one for about $440. It served us well over the years, producing delightful colours and decent 4R prints. However there were a few drawbacks. It’s low light performance (indoors and night scenes) were very very bad. It’s battery life wasn’t reliable enough, only the $17 per 4 piece pack Energizer e2 lithium can fulfill its thrist. And, the xD picture card that it uses is expensive. Nevertheless, it was a good camera and we actually brought it with us to Vietnam.

And because we brought it with us to Vietnam, we realized how much it had aged and how we needed to get a new camera. We searched around for a while and found the Panasonic Lumix TZ5 to be our ideal choice. A quick survey around town revealed that this camera typically retails for around S$549. A simple search on ebay found much cheaper prices at the expense of the 1 year US warranty. In December 2008, we decided to purchase our camera from ebay for a final price of S$375. We spent a further S$25.50 on a 8Gb Class 6 SDHC card, and S$20 on 3 spare third party batteries. Our new camera was to see its first action during our Tokyo trip. Sample photos can be found on our Tokyo travel posts. Here, I’ll just talk about what we liked and disliked about our new camera.

What we liked:

The wide angle lens is great. At 28mm, it allows us to take better landscapes and better indoor subjects, particularly food. It also enables us to take many self portraits without our faces filling up 90% of the picture.

The 10 times optical zoom to 280mm is also much welcomed. We didn’t have such a zoom with our previous camera so we didn’t realize just how much we needed it. At 280mm, we are able to take close ups of animals, building details and also people on the streets. It really opens up a lot more photo opportunities to us.

Rechargable lithium batteries are really much more reliable than AA batteries. And cheaper too. We are able to continuously take pictures even on the snowy mountains at near zero degrees. Batteries can be easily recharged at the hotels, so no more buying batteries at the convenient stores.

Newer image processing technology and perhaps the Leica lens means that our pictures are sharp. And the Mega OIS (image stablizer) helps to reduce the number of blurred pictures and gives us more opportunities to take pictures at night.

This camera can record videos in high definition and is able to zoom in and out during video recording, something that our old camera wasn’t able to do.

The large LCD screen allows us to enjoy our pictures in the evenings during our trip and also to show it to our friends and family without developing them or downloading onto a computer.

What we didn’t liked:

The image quality is only acceptable up to ISO400, which means that night photography is still kinda out of reach. Still, it is better than before.

The colours isn’t as pleasing as with the Olympus camera. Even though it was manufactured so many year ago, Olympus still has an edge on colour processing.

The autofocus is really slow and that made us lose a lot of pictures with fast moving subjects such as the parade dancers at Disneyland.

In short:

This camera certainly fits the description of a travel camera. The 28-280mm lens really did give us a lot more opportunities to take pictures and it makes us really want to take more pictures. The video capabilities allows us to record action sequences that are better told through motion pictures. This camera also encourages us to take photography more seriously and to broaden our knowledge so as to exploit its full potential. In short, we are very happy that this camera helped to document our trip and capture the many memorable moments.

-Dear1

Ho ho ho! Christmas is coming… at least for retailers. Many shops are already pushing out their Christmas goods and selling them at sale prices. I’ve managed to spot some Morries products but I dun really know if they are new in the product line or maybe just new in the import line. Anyway, here are the pictures with indicative prices, most of them are on Christmas promotions and u know the place already. :D

Of interest, the Electric Air Pot is back with a 3.8L version. If you check back my previous posts, you would know that there are already quite a few versions of different capacities for this airpot. The rest are all very interesting and varied products. Thermo Pot looks just in time for a year end festive steam boat session. There are some more which I’ve seen on Yahoo auctions but have yet to see on the store shelves yet. For example, coffee maker and BBQ set. If and when I see, I’ll quickly take a snap shot for my collection.

-Dear1

Hair drying has been a persistent problem for Dear2 since a very very long time ago. Dear2 didn’t have a hair dryer in her old home. So every time there is a need to wash her hair late at night, her bed time will also be similarly postponed by one and a half hours to allow for her hair to dry naturally. This happens in our new home as well. Some times, after a day’s work, one just wants to sleep early. But imagine reaching home at 9.30pm, stepping out of the bathroom at 10.30pm and then not having the luxury of going to bed any time, but instead having to wait until 12am for the hair to dry. I think this is one constraint we would rather do without and indeed there’s something that can be done to improve this situation. Get a hair dryer!

And that we did, at Courts Causeway Point. Why Courts, you ask? Because we have the Courts voucher from our house warming party. The irritating salesman tried to sell us some expensive high tech hair dryer that blows ions that is suppose to make your hair softer. Blah! I’m not falling for stupid sales tricks. We’re there to get what we need. So after browsing through the hair dryers on sale, we decided on some of the features that we require. First, it must have several different blowing speeds. Second, it must be able to blow hot and cold air. Third, it must be easy to operate. Finally, we decided on this Rowenta Moveling Hair Dryer. It’s a simple hair dryer with 3 blowing speeds, a cool air button for switching between hot and cool air at any speed. And it’s easy to use because these are the only 2 buttons on the machine. There’s one additional feature, that is the air control system. At the nozzle of the hair dryer, there are 2 flaps that can be opened or closed depending on how you rotate it. When it is closed, the nozzle becomes smaller and the air flow becomes tighter and more suitable for styling, much like those you see in salons. The hair dryer is rated at 1500W and costs $30.90. An important feature that I saw was that the main body of the blower unit is actually cool to touch. This came as a surprise for me because for the old hair dryer I used at my parents’ place, the blower body is burning hot during operations and there’s no way you can touch it. In fact, I think it was rather dangerous. Maybe this insulated body feature have become a mainstay in hair dryer technology, I dunno.

Another thing that came as a surprise for me was, the hair dryers all came from big name players, like Rowenta, Philips, Panasonic, Braun, etc. There was no sign of Sona, Iona, Morries, Toyomi, etc. I suspect prices may be much cheaper for these brands, but no point comparing prices now since we’ve already bought ours. So far, the hair dryer is working quite well. The wind speed for speed 1 is a little too slow but speed 2 is a little too fast. I think we just need some time to get used to it that’s all. Typically, it takes about 5 to 10 minutes to thoroughly dry Dear2’s long hair. So from now on, no more waiting for the hair to dry on sleepy nights. And of course, next time we’re going for any parties, we can start exploring the styling capabilities of this hair dryer.

-Dear1

Before you start reading this post, please read my earlier hypothesis.

It has been proven true, by a combined effort from Dear1, Dear2 and Dear2’s brother. Let’s see how the events unfold.

Dear2’s brother wanted to buy a new television because the one in their living room was beyond repair. So we decided to meet at Jurong Point to do some Tv shopping because there are at least 2 big electronic stores there, Courts and Harvey Norman.

As we shopped, we finally set our eyes on this 37 inch LCD Tv from Samsung, selling @ $1999 (for 2 days only! as if i believe them), and comes with a Samsung home theater 5.1 system, from Harvey Norman. Not a bad deal, the design is nice, the picture quality seemed decent enuff, and 37 inch is just about right for a 5 room flat living room, and the price seemed reasonable taking into account the free gift items. Gst included, delivery waived. Good!

That’s it, we’ve decided to purchase this model, and we didn’t even consider bargaining. I guess it’s just not in our genes to bargain at big establishments like Harvey Norman. Just as the salesperson is typing our invoice, and Dear2’s brother already had his card in hand ready to make payment, the salesperson started talking lots of rubbish. He tries to sell us a bunch of accessories like monster cables, extended warranty, some other cables, etc. This went on for about 10 mins and he keep explaining the pros of buying expensive $100 cables to accompany our brand new Tv set and that we can receive a 10% off on the cables if we buy it today. His body language simply refused to confirm a simple Tv deal, he wanted to sell us more things. Now, luckily Dear1, being the engineer that he has always been, is quite well versed in these areas. Although not an audiophile, but Dear1 knows a thing or two about cables and home theater system accessories, and there really no need for these kind of setups in Dear2’s parents’ home.

Getting rather fedup with the salesperson service attitude, Dear2 decided that we should buy the Tv from Courts instead. Leaving Dear2’s brother at Harvey Norman, Dear1 and Dear2 quickly ran over to Courts and enquire about the same model of the Tv. The Courts salesperson swiftly quoted us $1899 for the exact same deal, and we didn’t even mention about coming form Harvey Norman so he didn’t have the intention to undercut the HN price. Quite simply, they’re selling it cheaper at Courts. Immediately, Dear2 phoned her brother and informed him of the cheaper price over at Courts, and he agreed to come over. Haha… Serve the HN salesperson right for not confirming the deal when we were already prepared to pay. Not that he ticked us off with his continued blabbering, we’ve not going to buy from him, no commission for him, haha…

5 mins later, we’re still waiting in Courts for brother to come over, and Dear2’s phone rang. It turns out that brother told the HN salesperson that he is cancelling the deal and buying from Courts because it’s $100 cheaper. In a twist of events, the HN salesperson, too, slashed his price to $1899, and proceeded with the payment without further words. So eventually, brother purchased the Tv from HN at $1899, happy at the abrupted $100 discount.

The Tv is delivered and everyone is satisfied. For me, it was a solid, although unintended, proof that sales personnel at these so call large electronic stores have some degree of control over the selling price of their products. Thus, the room for bargain exists. Proven.

-Dear1

Yeah… we’ve finally bought our baking oven. Yes, this oven will be used for baking bread, cookies, cakes and whatever else that needed baking. The oven we bought is the Tefal Activys OV100030 going at $199 from Best Denki for the Hari Raya special, usual price $299.

There are a few reasons why we chose this oven. Firstly, we’ve always been looking for ovens that have more than the standard 2 heating coils on top. This oven has 4 heating coils on top and this means that it cooks better and provides more evenly distributed heat. The second good thing is that it comes with 4 heating coils on the bottom as well. Most ovens that have 4 coils on top tend to have only 2 coils below, which might result in the top being more cooked than the bottom. Thirdly, the heating coils on this oven is bend-able, so it is easy to clean. Not to mention it has self cleaning wall functions, meaning that we just have to preheat the oven and the oil stains on the walls will soften and become easier to wipe off with paper towel. It also comes with the rotisserie to grill a chicken or perhaps just some chicken wings.

The capacity is 26 litres, which makes it quite value for money. But the thing is, when we brought the oven home and unpack it, we realises that it is in fact rather big in size. Placing is beside the fridge on our dry kitchen top will take up almost 1/3 of the table space, not such a good idea. So instead, we place the oven on the washing machine. Haha… Laundry and food so close to each other, have to be extra careful when dealing with food from now on. The top of the front load washing machine is meant for placing a dryer, so I’m sure that it can withstand the weight of a small little oven. But to protect the washing from the heat of the oven, I think we’ll get a corkboard from the bookshop and place it between the bottom of the oven and the top of the washing machine.

I suppose one of the features that this oven is lacking is the internal blowing fan which is suppose to circulate the air and make the food cook better and tastier. Also, there’s not vapour action in this oven which might mean that our food will be less juicy and tender. But then, we’re just beginners when it comes to these baking and grilling stuff so I think this is a great entry oven for us. Once we know the inside outs of baking and grilling, then we’ll know exactly what kind of oven we need, and then we’ll get a really good one that suits all our criteria.

One odd thing that I’ve discovered is that, searching for this model of oven on the internet yields ‘No English results’. Hmm… So many it’s a product made for some other specific markets. But the saleslady told us that this is a new product from Tefal and that this is an introductory offer promotion. Well, this is not the first time I’ve encountered an item that cannot be found from an English speaking country. Anyway, as long as the quality control is well done, it doesn’t really matter if this oven is a parallel import or not. There’s a one year warranty so that’s good enough for us. Oh, and by the way, this oven is manufactured in China.

-Dear1

I’m back with more varieties of Morries products that I caught over the past weeks. Check back here for my previous coverages.

Some time last week or so, I walked by a NTUC bazaar over at the foyer of Bukit Panjang Plaza and there was lots and lots of new, never seen before Morries products. Coffee maker, sandwich maker, juicer, ovens, bbq kits, more fans and cookers and steamboats, etc. But I couldn’t take any pictures there, too many employees walking around. But I did visit the NTUC itself inside BPP and the products were all there, but again, I didn’t take any pictures. So if anyone is curious, just pop down to take a look for yourself.

These products I’m covering here is, as usual, from Clementi. The first we see is a Multi-Function Kettle @ $16.90. Hmm… I’m wondering just how many functions this kettle really has, but I’m guessing it’s limited to boiling water and keeping warm. But wouldn’t that be exactly the same as the Airpot? Maybe this kettle can double as a steamboat? I dunno. The next picture is actually a combine picture of 2 irons. The top one is a Steam Iron with Spray for $12.90 while the bottom one is a Dry Iron with Spray for $9.90. I suppose the difference in price between these two reflects exactly the difference in functions. I doubt that there is other material and component differences. Next is a 16inch Velocity Fan @ $55.00. This box doesn’t come with the usual colour printed Morries box, making it much less attractive. In fact, I almost missed out this item with I was walking around. The last one is a large 5litres Airpot selling for $39.90. It’s… erm, a very large airpot. I dunno what else to say.

Going around taking pictures of Morries products is fun, to collect a catalog of all available items is also fun. I think that’s really an important aspect of the way I do things. I want to compile a complete collection of items, and I take satisfaction from being able to make the most complete collection in the most efficient manner. One example is our list of popcorn prices. Another collection I’m currently having now is the 1/144 HG Gundam series from Cosmic Era, I should really take a photo of the boxes and post them here. In fact, that’s the reason why I created the Japanese tag in the first place. I had initially wanted to talk about my Gundam collection, but have never gotten to it. Morries, well, I may continue uploading the pictures as and when I see them on the streets, but I’ll probably save on the discussion from now onwards. I dun see much purpose in describing each and every product anymore. では、また。

-Dear1

Yup, some more Morries. Haha… Interesting mah. Where got blog keep a catalogue of home appliances like this one? Ok lah, this time only got 2 products. Next time, I won’t make any new Morries posts unless I can accumulated more than 3 new product photos.

First up is an oven toaster for $79.90. Picture is taken at Courts at AMK. I was quite surprise when I saw this product becos firstly, it’s the first time I’m seeing it, truly a new product. Second, its a bit of deviation from the usual white background with red spots cover design. This one is border by dark blue outlines and a somewhat more elegent lines and choice of fonts. It feels classier and just a little bit more up market compared to its usual designs. This oven toaster looks like it’s capable of some heavy duty roasting and cooking compare to its smaller cousin from the link above.

Next is a 16 inch stand fan found at NTUC Clementi (again). It’s very similar to this other Morries fan covered in an earlier post. From what I can tell, the only differences are some asethetic changes in remote control and fan body and the price, $49.90, slightly more expensive than the previoius model.

No more Morries for the time being. :)

-Dear1