New iPhone Coming Soon?

There are rumours afloat on the internet that Apple might be releasing a new generation of its hugely popular iPhone soon.



If that's the case, I might be able to get my hands on the new iPhone by the end of this year. Hopefully Singtel will get to sell the new phone and at a competitive price so that I can buy it.

I like the phone more for its design rather functionality. However it does not seem to be doing very bad in the funtionality department either. If the latest reincarnation of the iPhone manage to address all the grips that current iPhone users have, then it would be the best phone in the world.

Whether Apple will have a successful 2009 or not probably depends on this new baby. If the new phone turns out to be lousy, then Steve Jobs will have lots of fans to answer to.

Anyway I'm still stuck on contract with my Nokia N95 8GB till next August so it's kind of early for me to buy anything. *sighs*

Kuroshitsuji Manga on Sale at Kinokuniya

I had finally submitted my application to a degree course at Global SIM earlier this evening with one of my colleagues from Nursing.

As she knew how to get to the place, Wendy offered to accompany me to submit my application and we went for dinner after that. Well, I was disappointed that I couldn't apply to the university of my choice as my results weren't that good enough.

It was a UK university but I ended up settling for an Australian university which had a much lower ranking than the UK one. Oh well, I am truly not qualified to study in prestigious schools anyway. Let's hope that I can succeed in entering this Australian one otherwise I'm better off sticking with just my diploma. Who in the world needs a degree to survive as a human anyway?

Hmmm....

Right so after that, we headed to Bugis for a simple dinner at NYDC at Parco Bugis. There was a cute Elmo plush toy on display and we promptly took picture of it with our handphones. See mine below, taken with Nokia N95 8GB:




As for food, I chose the Hawaiian baked pasta and I added lots of cheese onto it. Hee... Wendy was quite shocked to see me putting so much cheese onto my food.




For window shopping, we popped in to some shoe shops as well as Kinokuniya.

Whoa, I was so excited to see that they were selling the Kuroshitsuji mangas at $6.71 each. I wonder if I should buy them even though I have access to online scans. If only I have a Kinokuniya membership card, then I could enjoy a 10% discount off the pricing. Hmmm but the subscription fee is not cheap and I don't really shop very often at Kinokuniya.

But the Kuroshitsuji mangas made me feel very tempted to buy as the drawings inside are superb. Too bad the books are all skrink-wrapped so I can't browse through them. Currently they are selling volume 1 to 5. The latest volume 6 is not among the selection so I can only assume that it's not yet available outside of Japan.

I think all the mangas are in chinese versions so I might have a little problem reading as my chinese has really gone down the drain. Oops.

Hmmm so should I apply for the Kinokuniya membership card then buy the mangas? Or stick to online reading? Hmmmm....

Well I suppose it might not be worth getting the membership card after all. A yearly subscription fee of $21.40 means that I would need to spend more than $200 per year at the shop to recoup my membership fee. Honestly, I don't spend that much of money on books.

So I'm better off with my online reading for now. Until the day when I truly become a rich person like Emma Watson. Heehee...

Microsoft Makes its First iPhone App

According to CNET, Microsoft have just rolled out its first iPhone application, Seadragon Mobile, which was added to Apple's iTunes on Saturday.

Seadragon Mobile is a free image-browsing app that allows users to quickly "deep zoom" images while online and is intended to demonstrate what is possible with a mobile platform.

Hmmm, looks like the iPhone is starting to get attractive as the days go by. Many interesting and fun accessories and apps have been made specially for the iPhone. So much so that even I have been tempted to want to buy an iPhone for myself.

Too bad I had bought my Nokia N95 8GB way back in August and if I want to do a handset upgrade, I have to wait till August 2009. However, I have got another phone line to my name but its of a lower value and the number is different. I wonder if I could use that to upgrade my handset but limit it to my own mobile number?

That sounds very complicated, doesn't it? Oh well, at least I could wait till Apple releases a third version of the iPhone. That's when it would be the most ideal handset to purchase. Hopefully it would be end of next year, then I could trade in my N95 8GB for that droolicious iPhone!

w00t!

HTC Touch HD Only Exclusive to Starhub

I was so happy when I read in the papers that HTC Touch HD will be coming to Singapore this month.

Yet to my dismay, this new phone is an exclusive item specially sold by Starhub. Since I have a Singtel mobile phone contract, I am unable to purchase this new baby to replace my Nokia N95 8GB.

Looks like this is going to be the mobile operators latest strategy to lock in new customers, by selling phones that are not offered by other competitors. Yes, it's convenient for the companies and those new customers. But what about the existing customers? Does that mean we are penalised for NOT changing our mobile operator?

All these exclusive thingies are not doing us justice. Already in the US, AT&T practice this with the iPhone. Or maybe the party who's truly at fault is actually Apple.

Damn stupid Apple. It wants to earn big bucks and through all these exclusive deals, it ensures that Apple fans will be lured and tied to one of their desired operators, i.e. one who would pay them, Apple, the most premium fees for selling the iPhone.

I guess that's when the trend of selling exclusive phones kicks in for all mobile operators. This is so unfair to us, especially if we don't feel like changing our operators since we are comfortable with them.

Life sucks, doesn't it?

=(

HTC Touch HD comes to Singapore!

According to CNET's Crave, the HTC Touch HD will be coming to Singapore and Starhub will offer the phone in November this year. The rest of the authorized distributors will offer the phone from December this year.







I just flipped through the Saturday's The Straits Times and to my disappointment, there was no advert for the Touch HD yet. According to the website, the phone will be priced at $1,388 and will be categorized as a premium phone.

Oh boy. I hope the telcos will cut the price down reasonably enough. If the reviews of the phone are very good, I might just buy it to replace my current Nokia N95 8GB. Will the Touch HD be a successful iPhone killer? Stuff.TV has put the Touch HD and the iPhone side by side for a picture comparison. See below:




Only time will tell.

If it fails to beat the iPhone, then it's not a big problem to me since I'm sure there are still good virutes about the Touch HD. There's the generous screen with its 3.8-inch WVGA display touchscreen. Plus multiple wireless connectivity options that makes this baby absolutely a techie's dream. The gorgeous design also helps to increase the droolicious factor for this baby.

The only thing that might, a huge MIGHT at that, be a deal-breaker for me would be the keyboard. See illustrations from Stuff.TV below:




The setup of the keyboard is, unfortunately, not a QWERTY version but a conventional one. How well the screen will survive on my heavy SMS usage will be a constant question in my mind. I have not yet tried a touchscreen phone and have no idea how good or how bad the keyboard will interfere with the mobile experience. I hope everything is not as complicated as it may sounds. I just want a phone that works and works well.

So far, it's still early days yet and there are other soon-to-be released models by other phone makers and it remains to be seen who will eventually win the consumers' heart, and also my pocket money. Hahaha!

Jay Chou's Latest Album: Capricorn

Finally this day has arrived and I can get my hands on Jay's latest album, Capricorn!

I did a preorder at Tampines Mall's Music Junction and the album was supposed to be released on 9th Oct 2008. But due to a link of the album's songs on the internet, Jay decided to postponed the release date and to add on 1 more free gift to preorders.

The initial free gift was a Jay's rubik cube. Now the add-on will be a Jay's poker cards. Not that I'm planning to use either of them. They are meant for keepsakes. So I collected my items and took a snapshots of them. See below:















As for the songs, no doubt they are still Jay's signature songs with his distinct music style. As per tradition, you will need to listen to the songs a couple of times before they would grow on you. Most of the songs are my favourites except for the 3rd song, Snake Dance. I suspect Lara of Nan Quan Mama lends her vocals to this song and thus, making me hate this song. I have never like Lara's voice for it sounds very scratchy and irritating. There is absolute no good value about her voice. Bah!

The opening bars of the 1st song, Dragon Warrior Knight, has now become my newest ringtone on my Nokia N95 8GB. Heehee...

Now I shall devote my time to listening & learning the lyrics to Jay's new songs for it will be another year before the next release of his future album.

w00t!

Blackberry Storm Looks Awesome

CNET Asia has gotten a new report on an upcoming phone from Research In Motion (RIM). Pictures of the new phone, Blackberry Storm, has been posted by CNET for easy reference:

The date on the phone happens to be my birthday!Cool!

It's a touchphone with RIM's new technology, Clickthrough. Rather than provide haptic feedback like Samsung's Omnia, RIM uses a suspension system that lies beneath the display, so that when you select an application or enter text, you actually push the screen down like you would any other tactile button.

That's so cool but wouldn't that makes the screen more vulnerable to scratches and thumbprints? Since it's still too early to say, RIM probably might improvise the screen further. If the price is attractive and the phone functions are impressive, then I might change my phone to this Storm.

Today, my Nokia N95 8GB died on me for no reason and I'm very pissed off right now as that would leave me phoneless for 2 solid days. Looks like Nokia is losing its touch and the quality of its phones are getting worse.

All I need now is for the new phones to be released asap so that I could lay my hands on them. *drools*

Finally my K800i is gone...

After debating for a week, I have finally come to a decision.

When I bought my Nokia N95 8GB at the Comex 2008, I was supposed to trade in my Sony Ericsson K800i to enjoy the trade-in rate of $110. However, I did not return to the Comex the next day to get the trade-in offer.

The reason being that I still can't bear to let go of my K800i as I had liked it alot. Eventually I came to this decision after several long hours of thorough thinking. If I want to cling on to my K800i and sell off my N95 8GB, I would have to use it for at least 1 more year before I can change my phone. By then, the value for the K800i would have dropped drastically compared to now.

On the other hand, my N95 8GB is still relatively new and thus would be able to fetch a good price even if I were to sell it off a year later.

And so, I decided to sell off my K800i to my friend's uncle, who quoted a price of $120, $10 more than Singtel's buying price. Just now my friend, mayi, came to collect the phone from me. Hopefully everything will turn out well and I can get the $120 soon.

For now, I still have to get used to my N95 8GB as it's way of functioning is totally different from the K800i.

That's all for the day. See ya!

=)

Love being at home

Home is where I belong and where I want to be when I need time to myself. My weekends are mostly spent at home as I rarely go out these days.

Today is no exception as well. Look what I got for my lunch instead.




Looks good, doesn't it? Although it doesn't seem to be a very healthy choice of food but it's pork chops with chips. What's more could I ask for? This kind of lunch doesn't come very often and so naturally I polished off every single bit of food there. Oh, the lunch is prepared by my mum and I used my new Nokia N95 8GB to take the shot. Hmmm... seems pretty good there!

Plus that dash of chilli is so powerful that it leaves my tongue tingling for more. Yum!!! Naturally, I had a pot of blueberry tea for companion but I didn't take a picture of it.

Till next time then.

Tada!!! =)

It's the Comex 2008!

In the blink of an eye, 3 months have passed and it's now time for another big IT fair. This time round, it's called the Comex 2008, where all sorts of appliances can be found under 1 fair. Plus it's one of the biggest fair ever, occupying the whole exhibition levels of Suntec City.

With such a crazy huge area to cover, certain measures must be taken so that I don't ended up getting lost amongst the numerous vendor stalls. One main thing that I'm going to catch at the fair is the MSI Wind's 6-cell battery.

I made my way down to Suntec City today, right after the official ending of the JCI audit. I felt that it was a waste of my time to attend this last day of audit as I don't see myself being useful to the audit. Yet my boss insisted I have to come back on this Saturday to fulfill whatever needs she sees.

In the end, all I did was nothing. I just remained at my desk, doing nothing but surfing the Internet since I was so bored. I don't intend to do any serious work at all since it's a weekend.

Right. Back to the Comex 2008.

By the time I managed to reach Corbell's booth, it was nearing 2.30pm. But I ended up getting disappointed as I was told there's no stock for the 6-cell battery and there's no pre-order list for it as well.

In the end, I ended up getting gadgets that were totally bought on the spur of the moment. See the pictures below.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300 and accessories

A free dry box for my Sony camera

Nokia N95 8GB

Yep. I bought a camera AND a mobile phone. Right on the same day too. Crazy eh? I don't really know the reason why I bought the Sony camera. Perhaps I was just too frustrated with my Casio Exilim EX-&0, which couldn't give me excellent night shots.

So far, I have not tried out the Sony camera yet but I hope I won't ended up being disappointed again. By the way, it comes with 5x optical zoom as well. So perhaps in future I could capture better shots of those stars when I go to their concerts. Hmmm...

Anyway, I got lots of accessories to go with my Sony camera. It comes with 2 memory sticks with adaptors, 2 batteries, 1 cleaning kit, 1 mini-tripod, 1 leather casing, 1 dry box and a course for learning how to use Sony cameras effectively. All these for $499.

As for the nokia phone, it happened to be a good bargain as it was selling for $488 with a 2 year re-contract of my plan. Add to it the trade-in I got for my Sony Ericsson K800i, the phone only costs a cool $368, which is several hundreds cheaper than before.

Truly a good bargain, though many people at the Comex bought the iPhone instead. Guess iPhone's sexiness still works here. Almost everybody who got to Singtel counters had indicated they were purchasing the iPhone. I seem to be the only odd one out with a Nokia phone and an old model at that. But I have been hankering after this N95 8Gb for ages. Its price was the only factor that stopped me from buying. Paying $698 for a phone that's not the IT phone of the moment simply doesn't sway me.

Now it's a different story. Wee... I'm still trying to figure out how to use the phone as the functions are totally different from Sony Ericsson's version. Damn...

Overall, I am quite pleased with my purchase. So, till the next IT fair shall we meet again.

Tada....